Take our free Brand Differentiation Assessment to find out.
Unilever, Nike, Procter & Gamble, and Coach’s parent company Tapestry have all made powerful statements around one shared insight: investing in brand is central to how they plan to grow.
P&G’s CFO tied that intent directly to AI. Asked how the company will compete as AI agents take on more of the shopping, he said the fundamentals of brand building are what will set brands apart. (Source: Marketing Week)
That’s true for companies of every size – and it may matter even more for challenger brands competing against those with bigger budgets. A company that can’t outspend its competitors needs buyers to clearly understand why it’s the better choice.
Buyers now use AI tools like ChatGPT, Gemini, and Google’s AI Overviews to research what to buy and narrow their options. Those tools decide what to recommend based on what a brand says about itself – and, importantly, on what others say about it in reviews, press coverage, and elsewhere.
So who is AI most likely to recommend? Brands whose difference is clear in their own words and consistently echoed by others.
Most companies have more to work with than they think
Not every company has a completely unique service or a product no one else can match. But over the past 25 years, we’ve almost always found something real to build on: how the company works, who it serves best, why its best customers stay, or the story behind how it started. That difference should drive every piece of the brand’s marketing.
The three essentials of compelling differentiation
That’s why The S3 Agency created its proprietary A.R.E.™ Methodology, which holds a brand’s differentiation to three essential conditions:
- Authentic. Rooted in truth. Differentiation only has power if the business can actually deliver on it.
- Relevant. Meaningful to the market. It has to matter to the people the brand needs to reach, in the terms they care about.
- Easy to understand. Clear right away. People, and the AI tools they use, need to get it quickly enough to remember it and act on it.
The A.R.E.™ Methodology has helped brands as different as BMW’s U.S. motorcycle division and New Jersey’s Turtle Back Zoo home in on their differentiation and get chosen more often. A lot more often.
Take the A.R.E.™ Brand Differentiation Assessment
(It’s Free!)
Want to see how your brand holds up to the differentiation test? This free assessment takes just a few minutes, and we don’t require your email (honest). The results will show where your brand stands in terms of Authentic, Relevant, and Easy to understand differentiation. And in the event any improvement is recommended, the assessment will tell you where to start.
Go ahead, give it a try. We’d love to hear what you think!