When we pitch for new businesses, something that clients always bring up is how they can stand out from the crowd.
If you think of the ads or social media feeds of these industries, you’ll realise that a lot of the content is quite indistinguishable from brand to brand besides the colours and logos.
Everyone will always have a better interest rate, a new flavour, or something along those lines.
It may seem obvious, but the way to develop your own voice, is to do something no one has done before.
Thinking out-of-the-box can be a scary thing for businesses – there are no case studies, no examples to show or projections, you never know how the public will react, and you can’t look at your competitors because they are all playing it safe.
However, in a branding stalemate, the one who deviates first wins!
The perfect example of this is fast-food giant, Wendy’s.
They were the first to do what no brand would even dream of doing: poke fun at their customers and their competition!
And people loved this refreshing take for a business and ended up engaging more actively with the brand!
Today, Wendy’s is notorious for their snarky comments that have proven to be a hit amongst millennials.
There are very few marketing or brand managers who would green-light something like this simply because it’s risky and goes against the status quo set by all F&B brands for years.
But someone on that team realised that that’s exactly why it would work, and it was exactly what they needed to breakthrough what any other brand was saying.
A creative idea always involves risk, so start taking them as a brand!
