This is a guest post by Gary Marshall, a designer and brand director with 17 years of industry experience dealing with international blue-chips and exciting SMEs. He helps to bring brands alive and increase their profit.

Recently, PC World put out a e-shot which included an offer on Apple Macs. The response among some of my Twitter followers was one of surprise – they didn’t think that particular store would stock the Apple range. Now technically speaking, the Apple Mac is a PC (Personal Computer), along with many other leading brands, but the truth is most people don’t see it that way, including Apple.

Why? It’s all about branding. In a competitive marketplace, why try and fight for market share when you can create a marketplace of one: you?

A marketplace of one

Now when most people start a company, they usually begin in one of two positions. They either believe they have had a eureka moment and invented something totally unique to the world that nobody has ever seen or thought of before (whether this is true or not), or they see a market leading company and set up an identical offering, believing they can become market leader themselves by copying the what has gone before.

Often, what the real market leaders do is a mixture of the two. Most recognise the huge value of a current market (for example, PCs) but realise that to take on the market leaders successfully would require a hard slog and lots of money. So, they create a new market within an existing market.

Apple used creativity and design to appeal to a market of professional designers and creatives. Now most people have only been introduced to Apple in the last five years or so, but I remember using them nearly 20 years ago when no one knew who they were. They positioned themselves in a market of one within a busy sector.

A league of their own

Apple are not the only example of ‘league creation’. There are a plethora of brands offering “vacuum cleaners” but Dyson have positioned themselves as the only cleaner that doesn’t use a bag. Similarly, Google wasn’t the first to market, but understood what it took to become the market leader.

Procter & Gamble with their Pringles snack are another example of the same principle. Recently, and in the interests of avoiding VAT charges, they went to court to try to convince the government that Pringles were not a potato based snack because the product is 33% fat and flour. Although the case was thrown out, the case illustrates how Pringles defines itself in a league of one. The combination of product, branding and pack format ensure that for most consumers it is, at essence, a Pringle and not a crisp.

The lesson here: to become a market leader, choose an established marketplace, but be the first to claim a distinct niche.