Commoditization is a fact of market. I always remember that great observation by VJ Govindarajan that “Strategy starts dying the moment it is created”. It dies because its (potential) effectiveness dies and with that, its relative value.

That idea, transposed to a brand, is in reality, what commoditization is: the (slow) death of relevant value. However, there are strategies you can put in place to reverse the speed and/or pace of that commoditizing effect. Here are nine ways I outlined to a leadership forum in Malaysia recently to decommoditize your offering and reassert its branded value.

In the presentation itself, I focused on actual commodities, but the principles are in fact applicable to any brand that doesn’t command the value that it needs to, or once did:

1. Think of the product in new ways – [/b]when you redefine what something is or could be, you reframe its context and it’s much easier to redefine what it can be used for. When you stop thinking of milk as a drink, for example, and start thinking of it as a food, as Fonterra did, you change the scope of the product you’re working with in so many ways.

[b]2. Redefine who you want to be a brand to
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