By Marcel Goldstein
Successful marketing leverages differentiation strategies to stand out in a competitive market. These strategies aim to make a product or service appear unique relative to the competition, ideally in a way that matters to customers and tilts their decision-making in your favor.
The ultimate differentiation strategy is to define, create and own your own category. For many of our clients that sell “green” products or services to help organizations achieve their sustainability goals, this is the “holy grail” of marketing.
It is essential to categorize differentiation to build a suite of products or services unmatched in the current marketplace. With brands easily challenged for any sleights of hand, especially in the sustainability space, business and product strategy must lead marketing strategy. Authenticity in marketing is now a must-have.
Our client Plug Power offers an interesting case study in category creation and ownership in the green energy market. Historically a fuel cell manufacturer, Plug spotted an important macro-trend: as the cost of solar and wind power dropped over the last decade, green hydrogen could emerge as a replacement for blue and gray hydrogen.
Leveraging this macro-trend, Plug executed a series of acquisitions to build the first and only vertically integrated green hydrogen ecosystem. Plug integrated multiple stages of the green hydrogen value chain, from production and processing to storage, distribution and utilization of hydrogen in end-use applications.
Three years ago, Plug decided to assert itself as the de facto leader of this new category. Its recipe for taking the “pole position” was as follows:
- Boldness of Vision – When seeking to create a new category, you must sell people on more than just products. Ask yourself what the vision for your products is and what is their potential impact on society. Plug leaders underscored how they were building a new ecosystem as proof-of-concept of their vision to help meet customers’ corporate sustainability goals.
- Humble Tone and Manner – While risk-taking assertive statements about your vision are required to create your own category, credibility for your claims is simultaneously built upon humbleness. Plug leaders acknowledged the importance of deploying green hydrogen in only the right applications as part of a broader renewable energy architecture necessary to achieve sustainability goals.
- Relatable Analogies – When you are building something unknown, it can be hard for people to see what you see. Plug leaders tapped into relatable analogies for their vision of a new category, citing the cellphone market journey from the 1980s, when prices were high and only Wall Street traders owned them, to today, when scaling up manufacturing creates efficiencies that drive down prices and everyone carries a cellphone in their pocket.
- Agenda-Setting Conversations – In addition to what you say and how you say it, where you say it is a critical ingredient. You must be in the right conversations with the right people. Plug placed an all-in bet on a pricey sponsorship at CERAWeek 2023 that put it literally on the center stage of green hydrogen conversations at the thought-leading energy transition show.
- Long View Optimism – When you create something new, there will be doubters and critics, as well as those with financial or political interests in seeing you fail. Plug leaders always maintained their optimism for the long view, even when skeptics grabbed headlines.
In summary, consider whether you are marketing product differentiators or a whole new product category. If you have authentically built a new green product category that stands alone in the market, stake the claim but take the lessons learned – both successes and failures – of those who have journeyed down this path before you.
Marcel Goldstein, Managing Director, Corporate, specializes in working with large, complex enterprises across multiple industry sectors looking to establish, grow, and protect their brands.
