Hasta La Creative!

Many of you may have read Jack Trout’s book, Differentiate or Die, published in 2000, which is based on the premise that survival, from a business perspective, is ensuring you are distinguished from your competitors. As the book’s title suggests, it’s either that or face eventual death. When competition is heavy and there are numerous, indistinguishable products, one must separate from similar competitors. It’s vital.

One of the best methods to become number one is to establish your own category, a category in which you are the sole occupant, making you first by default.

Creating your own category requires innovation, so in order to differentiate, one must originate.

Origination seems to be the strategy behind color-shifting paint, developed by JDSU and announced publicly yesterday. JDSU (NASDAQ: JDSU) is a technical company immersed in a lot of technical stuff, ranging from commercial lasers to optical testing and measurement equipment. For our purposes, they also make “decorative applications” or really cool paint.

The titanium-based paint, or ChromaFlair® Titanium Series, uses “unique, multi-layer flakes” that change color when viewed from various angles. Inspired by a gem’s ability to shift and shimmer, the two pigments currently available are based on “blue.”

“JDSU created Emerald and Aquamarine pigments specifically because shades of blue continue to be an extremely popular color choice for enhancing products across a variety of markets worldwide.”

The paint offers otherwise boring products the opportunity to break free from hum-drum competitors or the ability to stand out in a field of me-too products.

Coincidentally, this is exactly what I need to for my job search.

Jeff Louis has over ten years of brand-building, media strategy, and new business experience. His passion is writing and his strong suit is sarcasm.  You can follow Jeff on Twitter or become a fan on Examiner.com.