A marketer explains why identical products trap you in a red ocean of competition. The solution isn't going too weird (like selling Spotify ads to Facebook users) but finding the purple ocean: different enough to stand out, familiar enough that customers get it.
Let's just say you do marketing, just because, you know, that's what we do. It's very top of mind for me. And I do Facebook ads. And when I start selling a product that is just like everybody else, I'm just causing competition for myself for absolutely no reason by selling the exact same service as everybody else. Now, the flip side of that is, okay, like, I can't sell Facebook ads, so I'm gonna sell Spotify ads. Well, that's just way too alien. I use that analogy a lot where your offer is just completely alien because if— I'm I'm pitching Spotify ads, people are gonna be like, I didn't even know that existed. I like to call it the purple ocean. I talk a lot about that in the book where it's, you have the red ocean, which is when you're competing with everybody and it's just bloody water everywhere. Everybody's price shopping. You have the blue ocean, which is super unique, nobody around, but there's challenges in having, you know, a blue ocean offer as well. So that's my favorite thing and what I recommend to everybody in terms of offers is really understanding your market. How can you be unique with not being too alien?
