Differentiate or Die

There is a book called “Differentiate or Die: Survival in Our Era of Killer Competition” by Jack Trout and Steve Rivkin which try to show you how to differentiate your products, services, and business in order to dominate the competition. Right now we are facing this challenge in our own markets, I believe. All the agencies working hard to present in different ways, sometimes, even the same product or service. And clients find it difficult to decide the best option.

One of my many surprises these days in Toronto has been to discover one of the agencies of the Village, Plastic Mobile. Behind this leading software development firm with focus on mobile apps in the financial, retail and loyalty space, we can find plenty of talented people working to develop new features for our tomorrow. They have an innovation lab where they are testing new products that may not have right now any specific function but that in the future they could help our clients to move forward.

Some of these features they are experimenting with:

• Bluetooth Vending Machine: Thanks to an app on your phone and using Bluetooth connection they can digitalize a food vending machine allowing a totally different experience for the consumer.

• AI Music Creator: They are trying to make AI to make some new music. After feeding with sample music AI is able to create a kind of musical algorithm.
• Visual Recognition Door Key: They create a new lock for doors thanks to a tablet and face recognition technology. Just the ones on the system are allowed to get in.
• Coffee Delivery Roomba: They are trying to make a prototype using Roomba device to deliver coffee to each of their desks.

Those projects may not have any utility right now for any client in particular but just think about the potential of these ideas for our near future. This may help Havas to be one step ahead of the competitors and be able to show our future clients what we can do for them. Not just the usual stuff of media and creative which we do right, by the way, but much more than that. We can add some innovative ideas to our proposals which may make our clients/brands more meaningful at the end of the day.

We have this potential. Let’s take advantage of it together!

(I would like to thank Joseph Totera, Technical Strategist at Plastic Mobile for his patience with me explaining all these innovations.)