Bounded Or Unbounded. What Do You Want Your Brand To Be?
Understanding the difference between “bounded” brands and “unbounded” brands is how toddler companies become unicorns.
Most companies provide their Users with solutions to their problems and slog away at becoming better, faster, cheaper, stronger, more powerful, more engaging, easier to use, better fitting, frictionless. These companies compete with other enterprises within their vertical: whether it’s banging their heads the over 100 other brands of blue jeans, 300+ brands of automobiles, or the hundreds of drinks to choose from when you woke up this morning — from coffee and tea to milk, Red Bull, Coke, energy hits, or just water.
If you were to graph how well these companies perform, you would discover that all the top performers bounce around near the top of a bell curve of baseline advantages (better, faster, cheaper, stronger, more powerful, better tasting, better fit, better feeling, easier to use, etc.). And despite endless points of differentiation: all jeans look, feel and fit pretty much the same. Any automobile transports us from Point A to Point B. And whether you’re drinking water, coffee, soft drink, bubble tea, or Red Bull, just about any choice you made this morning quenched your thirst or helped launch your day.
