Michael Campion: So the next brand protocol, revolves around sameness and difference, and brands have a choice, don't they? Brands have a choice when they engage with the marketplace to either be the same but better, or they can choose to be different. They can choose to be innovative, but if you're not meaningfully different, you may as well be invisible. So talk to me about how Fresh Britain engineers sameness and difference and how a great brand pivots off its differences.‍

Bob Sheard: We don't go to brands because they're a bit like other brands. You know, we don't go to Columbia because it's a bit like North Face. It's a lot like North Face, but the essential difference is it's cheaper. So, similarly, we don't go to Caterpillar because it's a bit like Timberland. It's an awful lot like Timberland, but the key difference is it's got on the inside, a seam, that Timberland doesn't have on the inside of the shoe, which enables it to be manufactured in a more efficient way, which means it can be 20 quid cheaper in the marketplace. So the key difference from Caterpillar to Timberland is it's 20 quid cheaper. Those are just some rather prosaic, rational differences, but actually the critical difference is our emotional difference and our emotional superiority. So, people will come to you as a brand because of your essential difference.

So when we were working with Dr Martens, the prevailing trend, the brand that was killing it at the time, was UGG, and it was killing it because it was really the uniform of sort of LA celebrity culture. If you wanted to dress like Paris Hilton, you wore UGG. Our observation was that was never going to be Dr Martens. Dr Martens is a very masculine industrial product, which was great because it meant if you didn't want to be defined by Paris Hilton, then there was a uniform for you that wasn't UGG and it was Dr Martens, and it was that simple observation that helped us turn it around, and we turned it around on the back of female consumers. The other clear difference, a brand that's successfully turned a difference into an asset, is Guinness. It's actually a deficiency. It's an inefficient drink to have in a pub environment because it takes ages to pour. But Guinness managed to transform that deficiency, a product deficiency, into a brand asset. And the brand asset was that you had to have patience because it takes time to pour. So patience becomes a really powerful quality because patience, those people have patience, are time rich. Those people that are time rich tend to be people that have made it in the world. They've arrived, they're at their destination and they've got the time to dwell and the time to spend on savouring a pint of Guinness. So Guinness were able to say good things come to those who wait and turned a product deficiency into a brand difference which has paid dividends and continues to pay dividends year after year after year.