Certain Habits

It’s marketing dogma. “Differentiate. Be different. Position yourself so you’re the only one: the best, the least, the most.” The catch? It’s hard to do. There are so many companies, products, and people in this world that it’s hard to be the most of anything.

Or is it?

Art Prize starts today. And it illustrates how powerful it is to be the most of anything (in this case, the “world’s richest art competition”). It also shows that sometimes it’s not that hard to be the best.

Since it was announced a little over eight weeks ago, Art Prize has achieved international attention, garnering news coverage in more than 40 countries and bringing artists from around the world to compete.

Dozens of entries, international acclaim, a city energized. How much had to be invested to achieved these results? Five or ten million dollars? Twenty million? Nope. The offer that attracted all that attention a $250,000 grand prize.

Of course there are start-up costs. Between the name and logo, website, event planning and launch festivities, as well as the time invested, the total investment was a multiple of the purse.

Even so, being “the world’s richest art prize” has created attention, awareness and brand value that would probably cost tens of millions to build if it were just “one of the world’s richest art prizes.” That’s the leverage you get from being clearly different, clearly the most.