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The New Rules Of Brand Competition

The old model of marketing -- offer differentiated benefits to specific segments -- is breaking down as people find that store brands that are priced right suit them just fine, blogs Joel Rubinson, chief research officer at the Advertising Research Foundation.

"Now what?" Rubinson asks. Well, you've got to change the model, and he offers four ways to do so. But there's another hitch. Your brand is competing for consumer's attention in the "mental marketplace," not only against other brands that may be functionally unrelated but also against the likes of celebrities and news publishers. "Whole Foods vies in the mental marketplace of health/fresh with Dannon, Kashi, Subway" and others, for example.

Among other ideas, Rubinson suggest that you check out Noah Brier's free Brand Tags tool, where you type the first thing that occurs to you when you see a logo and then compare it to word clouds of other people's responses to see what the brand means to them.

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