Today is National Look-alike Day. You may have heard it said that everyone has a twin somewhere in the world. There are websites that will match your face with that of people in history, movie stars, cartoon characters, etc. I particularly like a site called civilwartwin.com. You can see my photo with my so-called Civil War twin to the left.

Doppelgangers fascinate us. You might remember the 1993 movie "Dave” where actor Kevin Kline plays a man who has a side gig impersonating the president of the United States, only to be recruited to replace the chief executive when he has a stroke. In life, look-alikes are beguiling to us. However, in marketing, the opposite is true. If your brand looks like another, neither will be distinct. Your brand will be overlooked. That being said, marketing is one of those areas of business where people often try to copy what their competition is doing. Why are we drawn to cloning in marketing? It typically boils down to three things: a lack of creative thinking, not understanding your target market and laziness. If you want your marketing to be effective, you need to give someone a compelling reason to look at your brand and look past your competition.

Being different is important, but it is not the whole of marketing. We all have seen edgy marketing that gives bizarre a new name. It may attract your attention, but is it effective in getting consumers to buy a brand? If you cannot remember the brand after experiencing the marketing, then no. If it doesn't compel you to believe good things about the brand, want to find out more about it, or want to buy it again - no. But if the marketing connects with a defined target market so that the brand name is established in the minds of consumers and they are thinking good thoughts when they hear the brand name, then yes, it is effective.

The trick is defining who is and who is not a good customer. Who is likely to want to buy your brand's product or service? What does it do for them? Does it make life easier or make them feel good about themselves? After you define your target market, figure out what they want from you. What are their likes and dislikes? Market to their tastes, not your own.

Take one final step before you create your marketing message. Find out where you meet the needs of your target market better than your competition and promote it. In other words, do everything you can to make your brand look distinct in an area where you are most dissimilar to your competition – not a look-alike of another brand. This is marketing working at its best.

Effective marketing is the anti-twin – the opposite of a mirror image. It helps your brand stand apart from the pack. You can have fun looking for your look-alike on doppelganger websites, just don’t do it to your marketing.