The trick to selling people on your brand is to be different in a way that is highly relevant to your audience. Different in a way that creates competitive advantage. Advantage that is, over time, as sustainable as possible. All of which is to say--it's not easy.

A successful differentiation is not imitated by your competitors, even though it brings you unmistakable success with consumers. It seems impossible? Not quite so. I am about to reveal to you the unexpectedly simple and wonderful secret of successful differentiation: you must think beyond the core benefits of your product category. Think: Off-Core Differentiation.

A spate of recent articles about the Obama brand have, in my view as an expert on marketing, neglected the brand's strategy and focused its verbal or visual expressions. But far more important is the distinction between the short-term brand, "Candidate Obama," and the long-term brand, "President Obama." (See Fast Company: "The Brand Called Obama.")