Be Unique

Recent news reports are claiming that Setanta, the Irish Pay-TV channel are in deep financial trouble. The channel introduced a Premier League package at the beginning of this season to try and combat the dominance of Sky Sports. As a huge football fan, I saw the introduction of a rival broadcaster as a terrible thing, with the consumer the one losing out. People are already paying large monthly fees in order to receive the Sky Sports package, so through the introduction of Setanta, consumers are faced with more outgoings if they want to see as much Premier League football as possible.

Setanta have failed to understand that just because they have bought the rights to broadcast, consumers will not automatically hand over their hard earned cash without receiving something different from what they are already receiving with Sky Sports.

This is the main problem. Far too many companies simply try to offer consumers something that is pretty much exactly the same as everything else on the market. The key is to offer something better, something unique. Another example is Google and its many rivals. Google has succeeded at offering internet users relevant and easy to understand search results. Other search engines such as Microsofts new Bing platform claims that users are up to 42% more likely to read the sponsored results as a result of their aesthetic makeover. Once again, this may be a victory on the business side of things, but to get people using the site, it has to provide more value to the consumer than they are currently getting out of Google.