Differentiation. Unique selling proposition. Distinct positioning. Whatever you call it, standing out is easier said than done in a world where retail shelves and digital feeds are crowded, noisy, and ruthlessly competitive.
I’ve spent my entire career in CPG (food, beverage, beauty, health and wellness) working at companies like L’Oréal, Johnson & Johnson, and Starbucks, and later advising early-stage and founder-led brands through my consultancy. Even with all of that accumulated experience, differentiation is never a playbook or formula. What I can offer founders is a reframe: real differentiation goes far beyond tangible benefits and product attributes. It’s about capturing, and holding, the attention of your consumer, whether you’re pioneering something new or competing in a saturated category.
There’s a saying in my native language, Russian: “Everything ‘new’ is a well-forgotten ‘old.'” The idea is that truly original innovation is rare, and most breakthroughs are a creative repackaging of existing ideas. Consider the YAP Challenge, which recently went viral on social media, centered on helping people stop self-filtering and start saying what they actually think. The underlying ideas (assertiveness, authenticity, the research of Brené Brown, principles of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy) aren’t new. What the YAP Challenge did was repackage these concepts into a structured social challenge that made an old idea feel urgent and accessible. The innovation was in delivery and branding, not invention. That distinction, how you package, position, and present an idea, is often the difference between a brand that blends in and one that breaks through.
So what does that actually look like in practice? After working with dozens of founders across accelerators and my own consultancy, here’s what consistently separates brands that stand out from ones that don’t.
1. Know Your Consumer Truth
Brands that deeply understand their consumer differentiate better, and more clearly. I worked with the founder of Fridie Outdoors, a brand encouraging people to go camping and build an outdoor lifestyle. Their real insight was that people know they want to try camping but talk themselves out of it: the overwhelm, the logistics, the guilt of unplugging. Once she understood that, the brand’s job became shifting the mindset from “I’ve been meaning to go” to “I’m so glad we did.” The emotional promise came first, and the features and benefits followed.
Not every founder gets this right. I’ve seen a spiked probiotic beverage positioned toward men, until the data revealed that 70% of actual buyers were women. Other founders skip consumer work entirely and can barely articulate who they’re for beyond an age range and gender. Consumer insight is the foundation of everything. A brand tethered to a real consumer truth has a much easier time differentiating in a way that’s specific, credible, and ownable.
Smith Tea, a Portland-based premium tea brand, is a masterclass in this. Their consumer isn’t just a tea drinker. They’re someone who believes life is too short for bad tea: uncompromising, well-traveled, curious. Once you understand that person, everything else clicks: the elevated flavor profiles, the refined packaging you’d leave out on the counter when hosting friends rather than hide in a cabinet, the premium price point.
2. Commit to One Thing
Clarity is the ability to say one thing brilliantly. A lot of founders I meet are trying to communicate everything at once: the ingredients, the quality, the sustainability story, the community mission. It’s usually an attempt to cover all the bases and not alienate anyone. But by speaking to everyone, they’re talking to no one.
“Quality” comes up constantly. “Our differentiator is quality.” My response is always the same: quality matters, but every brand claims it. What is specific to your brand? What is ownable and defensible? Committing to a single emotional anchor is genuinely hard. It requires restraint, and it requires saying no to ideas that are perfectly fine but dilute the core. That discipline is what separates brands people remember from brands people scroll past.
3. Build Community, Not Just an Audience
Community is not a follower count, a Facebook group, or a loyalty program. Real brand community goes beyond functional benefits. It creates a sense of belonging and shared identity. When people see themselves reflected in a brand, whether through inclusion, humor, values, or shared experience, it builds trust and advocacy that no feature can replicate.
My Block Skin, a sun protection brand I mentored through SEED SPOT, is a strong example of this. They’re working to replace a harmful ingredient that is toxic to both individuals and the environment, but what makes them stand out is an equally important insight: men of color have largely been left out of the sunscreen conversation. The product innovation matters, but the community they’re building around inclusion and representation is what will make My Block Skin a brand people champion, not just purchase.
A great product gets someone to try you. A community is what makes them stay, and bring others along.
4. Make People Feel Something
Strong brands don’t just solve a problem. They create a feeling. The moment someone uses your product, they should feel something: capable, relieved, seen, in control, indulged. That emotional experience is a core part of your brand, and it needs to be designed just as intentionally as the product itself.
I worked with AHO Wellness Tech, a platform for leadership development grounded in ancestral wisdom. The product was genuinely differentiated. The brand communications were not, because they led with the methodology rather than the experience it created. My feedback was to anchor the messaging in how participants actually feel after going through the program: less burned out, more grounded, better equipped to lead. The framework becomes the proof, not the pitch. The founders revised their homepage and materials, and the shift was significant.
This applies just as directly to CPG. When founders ask me how to differentiate, I often turn the question around: how do you want someone to feel the moment they use your product? Start there.
5. The Most Common Mistake: Differentiating on Features & Benefits
Founders who anchor their entire identity in product features are building on fragile ground. In food and beverage, competitors can reverse-engineer your recipe. In tech, a competitor can clone your features over a weekend. I’ve worked with a number of AI founders lately who are laser-focused on building the best technology while treating brand as an afterthought. That’s a risk. Technology is increasingly commoditized. A differentiated brand is not.
The Bottom Line
Real differentiation isn’t a claim, a tagline, or a feature list. It’s a point of view that consumers can feel and experience. The brands that stand out have done the harder work: they know exactly who they’re for, they’ve committed to one compelling idea, and they’ve built something people want to belong to. They’ve also thought carefully about the moment of use, the feeling they leave behind every single time someone interacts with their product. In a crowded market, clarity is a competitive advantage. So is the courage to stop trying to be everything to everyone, and instead become exactly the right thing for someone.
By Marianna Burchfield, Brand Strategist & Innovation Leader | Creator of Brand Breakthrough | SEED SPOT Mentor and guest contributor
