Marketers love to talk about differentiation and unique value propositions and you can burn a lot of energy trying to perfect something that really doesn't change anything in your performance. "What makes us different?" It's the wrong question. I know that sounds provocative. So let me explain. Byron Sharp's research at the Ehrenberg-Bass Institute — built on decades of data across hundreds of categories — makes a distinction that most marketers have never been taught: differ

Most purchases don't start with an ad or Google search. They start with a memory . I spent nearly a decade at J.P. Morgan — Doing everything from building multimillion-dollar, global campaigns and managing sales enablement functions across some of the most complex B2B categories out there. And one thing I saw over and over again: Teams pouring budget into performance marketing while the brand quietly faded from buyers' minds. The research backs this up. Professor Jenni Roma