“Glow-in-the-dark” marsupial reveals the power of standing out

Last month, a cat-sized, meat-eating marsupial landed on the cover of a most prestigious science journal after it’s “glow in the dark” fur was featured in a tiny science photography contest that almost no one has ever hard of.

Yet, if you google anything even remotely resembling what I’ve just told you, you will easily find its picture plastered all over the internet.

As a cat-lover I might be a bit biased, but aside from the fact that they’re adorable and their fur glows under ultraviolet light — similar to way a white shirt would — there doesn’t seem to be anything particularly impressive about this ‘native cat’ from your typical “wow, nature is crazy” standpoint.

At least not anything that would land them on the cover of the world’s most influential and widely read academic periodicals.

Claude Hopkins writes about a similar experience he had in his book Scientific Advertising.

Back in 1908 he was asked to work for a well established American brewery that was struggling to stand out. American beer was a pretty cut throat at the time. However, every single company in the market was all saying the same thing.

“Pure beer…” “fresh taste…” “best quality…” but nothing unique.

So when Schlitz Beer first employed Hopkins, he toured the brewery and took notice of all the little things that stood out to him.

How they cleaned their bottles with live steam, how they filtered their beer through white-wood pulp, how they cleaned their pipes twice a day, how they used artesian well water, how their workers wore white gloves while handling the equipment, and more…

But when Hopkins asked, “Why don’t you tell people about this?”

The brewers shrugged, “Because that’s how every brewery does it.”

Which is pretty interesting when you think about it…

Because what Hopkins said next took them from ranked 8th nationally to battling Anheuser-Bush head-to-head for the #1 spot in the American beer market just a few years later.

Basically it went something like this:

Even if every brewery does it the same way, the public doesn’t know that, and the first one to tell people about it convincingly will become the one who owns it as a unique differentiator.

Furthermore…

Even though there are hundreds, maybe thousands of known species in the animal kingdom who “glow-in-the -dark” under ultraviolet light, there’s only one who was featured on the cover of Nature, and only one that will continue be known as the “glow-in-the-dark marsupial”.

So even though every brewery in the world probably cleaned their bottles with live steam…

Only one of them rose to the top by featuring it convincingly in their advertising before anyone else had the chance to get to it first.

Speaking of which, if you want some quick clarity on the wee little things you might be able to feature in your advertising so you can stand out most uniquely in your industry, then reply back to this email.

I’m testing out a new ‘bite-sized service’ to people like you who are on my list, and at a much much lower price than it would normally cost (in order to remove any concerns or risk on your part as it will be the first time I’m doing it).

Much, much less than Schlitz would have paid Hopkins for taking a casual stroll through the brewery.

After all, there is no risk on your part just to simply hear the details.

So reply back to learn more.

Your pal,

Kevin Hood