Buddy Holly had a pair of black horn-rimmed glasses that he wore on stage. At the time, nobody else wore black horn-rimmed glasses, let alone a rock star on stage! Buddy Holly stood out among his peers.

A young John Lennon was heavily influenced by Buddy Holly. In fact, he named his band in homage to Holly’s “Crickets”, calling his band “Beatles”. But John was also influenced by those glasses, and decided to wear his own glasses on stage quite frequently. Today, people often refer to round wire glasses as “John Lennon glasses”.

Does your brand have a visual cue that helps establish your identity, or do you look pretty much the same as all of your competitors?

Car dealers are notorious for sameness. Open up any newspaper to see their ads all looking nearly identical. Same with real estate agents. Does anybody have the guts to stand out?

Here’s a way to gauge this: If your logo was removed from your advertising piece, and your competitor’s logo was put in its place, would your advertising still work?  If the answer is yes, you aren’t different enough. Your ad should only work with your company, and look ridiculous with anyone else’s logo.

Be brave. Be different. Stand out.

Buddy Holly did it. Elton John did it. KISS did it. Lady Gaga does it.

You can do it too.

To help make your business stand out in the crowd, order Brand Like A Rock Star now. And don’t forget to grab your free 100 page Musical Companion from Amazon. It is the #1 most popular free marketing book in the Kindle store.