A category of one sounds like one of those marketing phrases someone came up with in a conference room because saying, “Be different” didn’t seem expensive enough. But the idea is actually pretty simple. A category of one is a company that has made comparison difficult, maybe even pointless.
Most companies spend their marketing trying to prove they’re better than the competitor across the street. That’s a trap. Here’s what a category of one is, why “better” keeps you stuck, and how to find the difference your company already owns.
I was in Seattle recently, and I had coffee, or I was going to have coffee, until my friend threw a bit of a wrench into things. I was heading into a coffee shop, just a local, certainly not Starbucks but oddly similar in layout and colors, when my buddy said, “You know the shop across the street is better. Much better.”
He’s the local. He’s my guide. So off we went across the street to the better coffee shop. As we walked in, my friend spread his arms wide as if to encompass the entire place and give it to me. He smiled, nodded his head, and waited for me to- I have no idea, ooh and aaahh maybe, dance, scream, “Oh my God, this is so much better than that one across the street.”
I did none of these things because, to my untrained eyes, this coffee shop looked and felt exactly like the one across the street. I mentioned this to my friend, and he replied, “But this one is so much better.”
I looked around and noticed that this place had the same color palette as the shop across the street, which had the same color palette as the Starbucks down the street. It also had signage that echoed Starbucks, as did the place we’d just left. The similarities were abundant, and yet my friend insisted this one was so much better.
We both got our coffee, grande- where had I heard that before- and sat at a table by the window, watching people come and go from the coffee shop across the street, the one my friend had steered me away from because this one, the one we were sitting in, was so much better. After a few minutes, we were laughing and doing the old “remember when we…” and the comparisons between the two, at least in my mind, identical coffee shops faded away. And that was that.
But was it?
I couldn’t shake the feeling as I rode the ferry back to my wee hovel. How many coffee shops were there in Seattle? How many of them were just Starbucks knockoffs, and how many, despite claiming they were independent and nothing like the colossus Starbucks, were so similar to Starbucks that you had to look really, really closely to find the differences? Mostly, I couldn’t stop wondering why the coffee shop I ended up in was so much better than the one my friend pulled me out of. And was it fair to compare them that way?
And is comparison even right? The problem is, if you start to compare, then you’ve already accepted the competition’s premise. Your shop is across the street from their shop, and you’re standing at the door screaming to passersby, “We’re better! Compare us to those guys across the street! We’re better!”
In this case, what you’re really saying is, “We’re just like them, only with blue cups.” Or, “Only we have a view of that side of the street.”
Maybe that’s wrong. Maybe you don’t need the comparison at all. Better yet, maybe you make the comparison impossible.
How?
By becoming a category of one.
Becoming a Category of One
A category of one sounds like one of those marketing phrases someone came up with in a conference room because saying, “Be different” didn’t seem expensive enough. But the idea is actually pretty simple. A category of one is a company that has made comparison difficult, maybe even pointless. It isn’t trying to convince you it does the same thing as everyone else, only better. It has given you a different way to think about what it does.
Joe Calloway popularized the phrase in his 2003 book Becoming a Category of One, and the idea was pushed further in Play Bigger, where Christopher Lochhead and his co-authors explored what they call category design. The basic premise is that instead of fighting for position in a market somebody else created, you define the problem and, in doing so, begin defining the market around it.
Which brings us back to coffee.
If my friend had taken me into that second shop and I had immediately understood why we crossed the street, he wouldn’t have needed to tell me it was better. I wouldn’t have needed to inspect the cups, study the signage, taste the coffee, or stare suspiciously at the furniture looking for evidence. The difference would have been apparent because the place would have given me something the other shop didn’t. Not necessarily better coffee, better chairs, or a better view, but a different reason for existing.
That’s the trap in chasing better. Better requires somebody else. You can’t be better alone. You need another company standing beside you so customers have something to measure you against, and the moment you invite that comparison, you’ve made your competitor part of your own story.
A category of one changes the story. Instead of asking people to decide which version of essentially the same thing they prefer, you give them a reason to see you differently in the first place. You’re no longer the coffee shop across the street screaming that your coffee is better.
You’re the reason they crossed the street.
You Have to Give Them Something to See
Becoming a category of one doesn’t mean inventing something completely new. You don’t need to create a product nobody has ever seen, develop technology nobody else possesses, or discover a previously unknown species of coffee bean. You need a point of view people can understand and a reason for them to see you differently.
That starts with knowing what you believe about the problem you solve. Not what you do better. Not the collection of words every company in your industry has already beaten senseless. Innovative. Leading. Best-in-class. Those words don’t separate you from anyone because everyone is using them.
At ThoughtLab, this is part of what we mean by Depth-Before-Design & Development. Before you start changing the logo, rebuilding the website, or deciding that everything needs to be purple now, you have to understand what you’re actually trying to say. What does your company see that everyone else has missed? What problem can you put into words that your customer already feels but hasn’t quite been able to name?
Because once you can do that, design has something to express. Your website has something to say. Your salespeople have something more interesting to talk about than why you’re better than the guys across the street.
You’ve given people a reason to cross it.
You Don’t Have to Invent Anything
Here’s the good news. You don’t have to be new to become a category of one. In fact, you might have been in business for fifty years and already have everything you need. You just haven’t recognized it yet.
Companies get used to themselves. The things that make them unusual become ordinary because they see them every day. So when it comes time to talk about the business, they look outward. What are our competitors saying? What do their websites look like? What language does our industry use? Before long, they’ve taken everything interesting about themselves and buried it beneath everything familiar about everybody else.
Sometimes becoming a category of one isn’t about inventing a new difference. It’s about finding the one that was already there and having the nerve to build around it.
That requires looking inward before you look across the street. Because the moment you start with the competition, you’re back where we began, trying to figure out how to be a slightly better coffee shop.
And we already know where that gets you.
The Takeaway
There’s nothing wrong with being better, but ThoughtLab isn’t interested in helping you become a slightly improved version of everybody else. We’re not here to move you two spots up the comparison chart, give you prettier packaging, and send you back across the street to continue shouting.
We create categories of one.
That’s a much bigger ambition because it requires more than design. It means finding the thing that belongs to your company and nobody else. The point of view, the problem you understand differently, the experience you can own. Then we build the brand around that until the comparisons customers used to make no longer make much sense. That’s why Depth-Before-Design & Development matters. We have to find the difference before we can express it.
Because a new website can make you look better. A new identity can make you look sharper. A clever campaign might get you noticed. But if all of it still leaves your customer asking whether you’re better than the company across the street, we haven’t done enough.
ThoughtLab creates brands that change the question.
We help companies become the thing everyone else gets compared to.
