Something Different exists to help businesses find their "something different"

Starting, building, and growing a business takes courage, commitment, and passion. In today’s crowded marketplace, blending in isn’t an option. Your beliefs about your customers and the value you offer drive your actions, products, and experiences, as well as your brand and how you present yourself to customers and prospects.

I’m here to help you stand out from the crowd, outperform the competition, and achieve sustainable business success. 

This is effective business, brand, and marketing strategy made more straightforward.

Services

Audit: Discovery & Diagnosis
Approach: Strategic Direction
Actions: Execution and Implementation
Training, Coaching & Ongoing Support
Strategist for Hire
Fractional Marketer
Audit: Discovery & Diagnosis

To better plan where you are going, we must be clear about where you are.

Business & Market Audit

  • Identify internal strengths and weaknesses
  • Pinpointing opportunities, challenges, and threats
  • Assessing customer insights, competitors, and marketplace trends. 

Brand and Marketing Audit

  • Analyse how the brand is currently perceived
  • Identify gaps in messaging and market positioning
  • Conduct stakeholder and customer interviews or surveys

Key Benefit for Clients:
You will gain clarity on your current situation, what’s working, and where the opportunities for improvement (or untapped growth) lie.

Musings

Thoughts and musings about business, brand, marketing, human behaviour, media, and great campaigns that will help you overcome your business problems, maximise your opportunities, and find your something different.

Marketing Strategy
The prime, nudge, convert, retain framework
22 Apr 2025
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8 min read
When it comes to marketing your business and thinking about what to communicate, the Prime, Nudge, Convert, Retain framework is a beauty. Allow me to explain.
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Marketing Strategy
12 marketing principles worth knowing and applying
20 Mar 2025
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8 min read
With lots to occupy our minds and lots we could do here are 12 marketing principles worth knowing and applying.
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Marketing Strategy
The long and short of it for startups and SMEs
18 Mar 2025
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20 min read
The Long and Short of It is one of the best pieces of marketing research, and this is how its principles can be applied to startups and SMEs.
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Marketing Strategy
How Brands Grow for startups and SMEs
11 Feb 2025
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20 min read
How Brands Grow is one of the best marketing books, built from decades of buyer data, and this is how its principles can be applied to startups and SMEs.
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Marketing Strategy
A decidely useful guide to marketing
26 Nov 2024
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20 min read
A guide to marketing that will help bring focus and clarity to what is most important to drive effectiveness.
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Business Strategy
Becoming Something Different
14 Jan 2025
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20 min read
How will you find your competitive edge and new ways to create value? How will you find your something different? This series of workshops will help uncover how.
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Business Strategy
In business what you believe matters
21 Jan 2025
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15 min read
What you believe shapes how you behave, the value you create for customers, the brand you build, and how you present yourself to the world.
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Business Strategy
A personal reflection on 2024
12 Dec 2024
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4 min read
2024 was the year I went solo and started my own thing. Here are some learnings.
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Marketing Strategy
The Magnificent 7 Communications Ideal-dos
6 Dec 2024
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3 min read
7 ideal-dos for when it comes to communications and embracing the Promotional 'P' of marketing.
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Business Strategy
Its not about you
2 Nov 2024
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4 min read
It's important to remember that in life, business, and personal growth, it's not about you but what you can do for someone else.
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Marketing Strategy
The Magnificent 7 Maketing Ideal-dos
15 Nov 2024
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3 min read
When it comes to marketing, there are so many things you could do and many you shouldn't, so here are 7 things you should ideally do.
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Business Strategy
What is the problem?
1 Nov 2024
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4 min read
It's important not to be a solution looking for a problem. Businesses should focus on identifying real, impactful issues before jumping into solutions.
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Business Strategy
Something different is scary
24 Oct 2024
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5 min read
Doing something different can be scary for a host of reasons, but it can also open up many opportunities to drive innovation, growth, and success.
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Business Strategy
What is your something different?
22 Oct 2024
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5 min read
Strategy is about finding your place, space, and competitive edge. It's about finding something different to set you apart from your competition.
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Marketing Strategy
Its worth remembering humans are irrational
15 Oct 2024
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5 min read
You see it in advertising all the time: lots of rational information. It is important to remember, though, that humans are irrational.
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Marketing Strategy
Why emotion matters in advertising
14 Oct 2024
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5 min read
We talk of brand-building, building future demand, and connecting emotionally, but why is emotion important? Emotions direct our attention; attention builds memory
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Marketing Strategy
Getting strategy right first matters greatly
7 Oct 2024
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5 min read
Where should I concentrate my marketing efforts to make the most significant positive impact on helping the business achieve its short and long-term ambitions?
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Marketing Strategy
The keys to effectiveness and what to measure
2 Sep 2024
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10 min read
Focusing on these key things will increase your marketing's effectiveness and your ability to grow your business
Read Musing
Marketing Strategy
Less is often more
13 Sep 2024
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6 min read
Most brands, big and small, try to do way too many things and communicate about all of them, but doing fewer things, as well as you can, is usually better.
Read Musing
Business Strategy
Release the handbrake to achieve your goals
2 Oct 2024
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3 min read
When examining a business problem, it is essential to determine what is stopping you from achieving your goals before focusing on moving forward.
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Marketing Strategy
I loathe wasting money
5 Sep 2024
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4 min read
Brands waste a lot of money on things that they simply do not have to. Here are a few that I think are worth pointing out.
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Brand Strategy
What are you fighting for
25 Sep 2024
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3 min read
To create a rallying cry for your entire organisation, ask yourself, what are we fighting for? What are we fighting against?
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Business Strategy
Things to ponder, discuss, answer, and then do
12 Aug 2024
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7 min read
With so much for business owners, leaders and marketers to think about, here is a collection of really useful things
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Marketing Strategy
The marketing Olympics
30 Jul 2024
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5 min read
If there was a marketing Olympics, would your brand make it onto the podium? Is Gold a possibility?
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Marketing Strategy
Customer value framework
31 Jul 2024
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5 min read
Businesses often lose sight of the customer, and this framework puts the customer and how you meet their needs front and centre again.
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Brand Strategy
Taking responsibility for your brand
22 Jul 2024
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4 min read
Each interaction a customer or potential customer has with your brand matters; creating positive memories is everyone's responsibility.
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Marketing Strategy
Don’t be ignored
23 Mar 2024
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5 min read
A few years ago, the Ehrenberg-Bass Institute, the preeminent marketing institution, researched how many ads TV viewers could ..
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Business Strategy
The issue with short-termism and working in silos
20 Jun 2024
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5 min read
Humanity's challenges are complex, with political divides and short cycles hindering progress. Businesses also suffer from silos and short-termism.
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Marketing Strategy
Speaking finance for marketers
20 Aug 2024
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5 min read
Marketers often don't speak the language of CFOs and the C-Suite, yet marketers are instrumental in delivering business success. Speaking the same language helps.
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Marketing Strategy
From knowing nothing about your brand to knowing something
5 Jul 2024
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4 min read
Saying less is usually more in helping category buyers know at least something about your brand
Read Musing
Business Strategy
Reflections after 4 weeks of Something Different
18 Jun 2024
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3 min read
After taking the leap and going out on my own, here are some reflections after the first 4 weeks.
Read Musing
Training & Development
The foundations of better business and marketing part 1
16 Apr 2024
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10 min read
The fundamental principles that all businesses should understand and adopt as they have been proven to be effective across industries, geographies, and time.
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Training & Development
The foundations of better business and marketing part 2
1 May 2024
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10 min read
Part 2 in the foundations of what makes for better business, brand and marketing strategy
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Marketing Strategy
Know where you are before you plan where you are going
10 Jun 2024
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2 min read
It's important to understand where your business is in the market, in relation to your competition, and in buyers' minds before setting your strategy.
Read Musing
Brand Strategy
Brand salience is so very important
11 Jun 2024
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3 min read
Growing your brand salience will help grow your business. Salience is a beautiful thing for any business to nurture and grow.
Read Musing
Business Strategy
Focus and simplicity are wonderful things
2 Jul 2024
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3 min read
Focusing on SMART goals for your business, your TO, and then defining how you'll achieve it, your BY are so essential
Read Musing
Business Strategy
Get yourself some grade A talent
25 Sep 2024
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4 min read
Talented professionals who are new parents are perfect for part-time or more flexible positions that allow them to put their talents to good use for businesses.
Read Musing
Marketing Strategy
Survive and thrive through economic uncertainty
23 Mar 2024
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5 min read
Economic headwinds will undoubtedly remain through 2024 and into 2025. Beyond that, who can say with any great certainty? ...
Read Musing
Marketing Strategy
Creativity can be scary
15 May 2024
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7 min read
While creativity is lauded as the catalyst for innovation and growth, it's often shunned in practice, because it can be different, confronting, or scary to embrace
Read Musing
Business Strategy
Why Something Different?
23 Mar 2024
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2 min read
Helping businesses believe, build and become Something Different
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Business Strategy
The power of doing Something Different in business
23 Mar 2024
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5 min read
In an ever-evolving business landscape, businesses need to understand their customers' needs and how they shift and evolve to ...
Read Musing
Marketing Strategy
The power of doing Something Different in marketing
23 Mar 2024
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5 min read
In the vast ocean of marketing, standing out requires more than just following the herd; it demands making your path.
Read Musing
View All Musings

Contact

Something Different is a strategic consultancy I founded after a 20+ year career honed overseas and in Aotearoa. I am an award-winning strategist and have worked with some of New Zealand's and the world's biggest brands, like Unilever, IBM, Activision, Spark, ANZ, Lotto NZ, Foodstuffs, Mercedes-Benz, Restaurant Brands, Bayer, GSK, HP, Mediaworks, Nissan, Pernod Ricard & DB Breweries, challenger brands like 2degrees and Skinny (who are now pretty big), and some who were and are just getting started. 

Gareth 0'Conner
Gareth O'Connor
Founder & Consultant
Get in touch
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