I don’t care to belong to a club that accepts people like me as members.- Groucho Marx.

The famous Groucho Marx quote underlines a basic concept in marketing, the concept of exclusivity. From a marketing perspective, the goal of exclusivity as a marketing tool is to create the inverse of what Groucho says, make a club that everyone wants to be a member of because the club doesn’t accept people like them. The problem for marketers seeking exclusivity is finding ways to make membership in your “club” so exclusive that people want to “join.”

This article talks about how the Fiji bottled water brand created an aura of exclusivity for itself. It began as a product in limited distribution, being sold only in exclusive stores. It then moved into restaurants and slowly branching out from there. By the time, it had reached national distribution, the brand had acquired the cache of an elite brand.

One of the other elements discussed in the article was the price point for the item. Fiji water costs more than the average brand. As I’ve discussed before, most people believe that expensive, exclusive products are better than their less expensive counterparts. Scientific studies have shown that people respond better to medicines and wines which they are told are more expensive. We have been conditioned to believe that the more expensive a product is, the better it is.

But price is not the only thing that can create an aura of exclusivity for a product. Think of Volkswagen’s long time advertising campaign “Drivers Wanted.” The implication is that the Volkswagen product isn’t for everyone. Only “Drivers” can handle owning a Volkswagen. By creating a mythical characterization of “Driver,” it allows a potential purchaser to consider themselves elite in owning such a vehicle.

A variation on the same theme is to make your product the “intelligent choice.” The concept here is that your product is for the more discerning customer, the one who won’t be fooled by hype or advertising. This is a common theme in automobile advertising, with the advertising comparing itself favorably to a more prominent luxury brand and then telling the customer that the advertiser’s car costs thousands less. In many ways, it is inapposite to the theory that the more expensive an item is, the better it is that I discussed above. The point with this strategy is to make the viewer think they are not getting a much less expensive (and by extension lower quality) vehicle, but rather that they are getting a vehicle just as good, but for less. The implication which makes it work is that the viewer is allowed to feel that they are getting this deal because they are smarter than the average buyer.

A spirit of competition can help create an exclusive feel for a product as well. By showing your product to be superior to a competitor, it makes your product more exclusive. People want to use your product because it is better than the others. I’ve discussed the Apple v. PC campaign before, how it makes Apple more exclusive by comparing it to a “boring” PC. Another example along the same lines is the advertising by Alltel Wireless. The campaign portrays Alltel competitors like Sprint and Verizon as nerds wearing polo shirts with their brands name and color. Alltel is then presented as being smarter than the nerdy competitors. The implication is that the customers of the other company are nerdy and not as cool as those who use Alltel.

In conclusion, the creation of an aura of exclusivity around your product can help create a demand for the product. You know that your product and service is better than your competitors. The task ahead for you is to show everyone else that this is the case and making your product seem exclusive will go a long way towards achieving that goal.