You think your business or product is really unique, but it isn’t. We are all too close to our brands to realize just how similar we all are to each other.

To the average consumer walking the grocery store aisle, all those boxes of breakfast cereal look pretty much the same. You might think your organic flax-infused cereal stands out, but it probably doesn’t jump out from the crowd nearly as much as you think it does.

The only brands that stand out are the ones that are the clear cut category leader and the brands that are meanginfully different. The really cool thing is, if you create something meaningfully different, you create your own product category. Proof? Southwest Airlines created the low-cost airline category and turning that niche into American aviation domination. Subway turned the submarine sandwich category into the largest single-brand restaurant chain in the world with 34,187 locations.

When you become different in a big way, people have no choice but to notice you.

Elvis did it. KISS did it. The Village People did it. Lady Gaga is doing it. Hell, even the painfully bad Rebecca Black did it a few weeks ago.

Do something other brands don’t do. Offer something nobody else is offering. Say something nobody else is saying.

Only then will you get noticed. And getting noticed, in today’s world, is most of the battle. If you have a great product and you can get noticed, you’ve got it made.

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Last night on “60 Minutes” they spent some time with undersea explorer Bob Ballard.  He’s the man who led the 1986 expedition that found the world’s most famous shipwreck, The Titanic.  Reporter Lara Logan asked Bob how he was able to find the elusive shipwreck, when three expeditions just prior to his failed to locate it.  His answer was simple: because he thought out of the box.

Instead of looking for a ship on the bottom of the ocean floor, Ballard’s team looked for something much larger.  They hunted only for a debris field that they knew would have naturally happened when undersea currents interacted with the sinking ship.  Once they found the debris field, Ballard said it was easy to find the ship itself.  The debris was like a path directly to the sunken beast.

Bob Ballard is a rock star explorer because he does things his own way.  That’s what rock stars do. 

U2 created their own unique sound in the early 1980′s, and by the time they hit us with “The Joshua Tree” in the spring of 1987 they were well on their way to being the world’s biggest rock band.  A year later another English group, The Escape Club, were lauded as “the next U2″ by critics.  While “Wild Wild West” went to the top of the charts, the band never went anywhere.

Bob Dylan gave us an entirely new sound when he sang his poetry in the early 60′s.   For Donovan, being called “the next Bob Dylan” was as big a curse as he could ask for.  Even though Donovan had his share of memorable music and stardom, his legacy is far behind Mr. Zimmerman’s.

Rock star brands speak in their own voice and do things their own way.  Southwest Airlines wasn’t just another airline.  They were the low-cost airline and everything they did, from inception until today, has contributed to that identity as the low-cost airline.

Instead of becoming another competitor in a crowded category (airlines), rock stars find an entirely new product category (discount airlines) and instantly establish leadership.

The lesson for your brand: stop trying to be the next of something.  Instead, focus on being something entirely new… something entirely you.

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