I was at the grocery store buying yogurt for my wife made by a well-known brand. I called her on FaceTime to confirm which flavors she wanted.

She told me the flavors, and I found them – strawberry, mixed berry, and vanilla. 

Strawberry was red. Mixed berry was purple, red, and blue. Vanilla was a yellowy-cream color.

Later when I got home, my wife informed me I’d also bought lemon and black cherry (both of which were disgusting). 

The black cherry was a mixture of the same colors used for both strawberry and mixed berry. And the lemon was a lighter shade of the yellow that was on the vanilla yogurt.

Not only were the colors too similar to distinguish between them, but they were all stacked on top of each other in the refrigerator. Naturally I saw one flavor and grabbed all the ones in the same stack, assuming they were together for a reason.

Now this could easily be the fault of a merchandising person, but I don’t like to think that way. 

I’d like to argue that it’s the fault of bad marketing.

Marketers have a responsibility to distinguish between their products. 

Putting products in the same metaphorical “boat” as other products, then letting customers assume they’re the same, or solve the same problem, or have the same purpose? That’s terrible marketing. 

This is misleading to you, the customer. And when you bite into the lemon-flavored yogurt (thinking it’s vanilla), you’re in for a nasty, unpleasant surprise. 

That leads to anger, frustration, a bad experience, and a literal bad taste in your mouth. It’ll prevent you from doing business with them in the future.

Making product lines nearly indistinguishable from each other is a good way to confuse customers and prospects, frustrating them when it comes time to make a decision. 

My favorite case study for this issue (apart from yogurt) is Apple.

Most of their iPhones are indistinguishable from each other, with only the most minor differences between them. These are differences only an expert in photography, mobile device design, or someone with a lot of spare time on their hands would recognize. 

Their computers suffer fro the same issue—minor “improvements” that, to the average person, make no difference whatsoever in how they use it, what they get out of it, or why they should spend more (or less) money on it.

The solution is to make products that are remarkable, radically different from what’s come before. 

That way there’s a reason to buy one or the other. When customers have lots of options—and they can’t tell the difference between them—often the simplest solution is to buy the cheap one.

Or… Walk out the door.

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