MEANINGFUL BRANDS FROM MEANINGLESS DIFFERENTIATION - THE DEPENDENCE ON IRRELEVANT ATTRIBUTES

Conventional product differentiation strategies prescribe distinguishi ng a product or brand from competitors' on the basis of an attribute t hat is relevant, meaningful, and valuable to consumers. However, brand s also successfully differentiate on an attribute that appears to crea te a meaningful product difference but on closer examination is irrele vant to creating that benefit-''meaningless'' differentiation. The aut hors examine how meaningless differentiation can produce a meaningfull y differentiated brand. They argue that buyers may infer that a distin guishing but irrelevant attribute is in fact relevant and valuable und er certain conditions, creating a meaningfully differentiated brand. T hey outline the consumer inference process and develop a set of hypoth eses about when it will produce meaningful brands from meaningless dif ferentiation. Experimental tests in three product categories support t heir analysis. They explore the implications of the results for produc t differentiation strategies, consumer preference formation, and the n ature of competition.