One of the most frequently used — and consistently wrong — marketing strategies is to copy what other marketers have already done successfully. This copy-cat marketing approach is as old as the profession itself, and usually not terribly smart.

Now, some will say that copying other brands and their marketing success stories is a tried and true (and very efficient) way to build and grow a big business (e.g, Hyundai’s new Genesis, which is a Lexus copy-cat). There are not many true originals, in life and definitely not in marketing, so there is nothing wrong with the copying philosophy. Plenty of retailers have copied the Gap, and some have gone on to even greater success (Abercrombie and Fitch, for example).

(Note: Hyundai didn’t just create its recent breakout success by copying Lexus or Toyota. They first changed the game with their totally original 10-Year Warranty, and then created interesting products at an incredibly high value price point. Last year, during the worst of the recession, Hyundai launched their unique Assurance Program, which allowed buyers to return their Hyundai cars, no questions asked, if they lost their jobs. In other words, Hyundai succeeded by building a great brand!)

I still firmly believe that creating strong, lasting brands cannot be done on a copy-cat foundation. As it turns out, building a really compelling brand is a lot harder than it looks.

A particularly telling example of this can be found in the frozen yogurt category. Organic, "designer" frozen yogurt became very hot in the past few years, and much if not all of that popularity can be traced to one breakout brand: Pinkberry (full disclosure: Pinkberry is a portfolio company of the Seattle-based VC Maveron, which is a client of my marketing firm THUNDER FACTORY).

Pinkberry’s success has been pretty dramatic. People literally go wild for Pinkberry’s brand of organic, natural, high quality frozen yogurt. The brand has literally become a cult in the cities where it is available. This incredible success has spawned many copy-cat yogurt companies, all thinking they could ride the massive popularity spawned by Pinkberry.

It didn’t happen. There have been a couple of reasonably successful Pinkberry copiers, but most have quickly fallen  by the failed brand wayside. But, that does not stop entrepreneurs from trying. I work in San Francisco (a town that revers organic, healthy food), and have seen no less than five Pinkberry wannabes in the past several months open their doors and then shut down just a few months later.

The latest Pinkberry wannabe failure occurred a block from my office on Kearney St. in downtown San Francisco. The store was called ‘Chill." It had a nice storefront, great looking logo, bright and clean interior, and zero customers. Chill tried to stay in business for a few months, but you can’t survive when you never have anyone in the door. I just noticed yesterday that the Chill logo and sign were gone, replaced by some sandwich place called "Urban Food" (or something like that). No doubt the owners saw the handwriting on the wall and are trying something new to salvage their investment.

As noted, the exact same fate has befallen 4-5 other Pinkberry copiers in the Bay Area alone (this phenomenon is multiplied many times around the country). They start up with great hopes and aspirations of matching the Pinkberry cult-like success, and then crash and burn in a few months (sometimes it takes just weeks).

I would bet the yogurt at these wannabe shops was fine. In fact, it would not surprise me that I would be hard put to distinguish between the copy-cat yogurt from Pinkberry’s high quality dessert.

Creating a product (even a very good one) is not all that difficult. Building a brand is an entirely different cup of organic frozen dessert. It really is hard. Copying your way to brand success seldom, if ever, happens.

We all know that a brand is a promise made and a promise kept, consistently over time. A brand also represents a relationship with its users/stakeholders.

But, a brand is even more than that.

A brand is an idea that takes old in the consumer’s/customer’s mind, very often for reasons that we can’t even articulate. As we marketers know, brands are clearly differentiated. That differentiation is a key aspect of what makes a strong brand.

Another key attribute of a great brand is originality. And, originality in a category usually does not strike twice. Consumers typically won’t accept the newcomer because it just does not live up to their emotional perceptions and expectations that have been engendered by the original brand.

Pinkberry is vivid proof of the importance of originality in strong brands. Apple is another great example, and so are IBM, American Express and BMW. All of these category leading brands were, in their own ways, originals and innovators in their categories. They remain strong brands because they keep up this level of innovation to constantly refresh and re-energize their originality.

It is why the Google brand is going to be hard to beat. And, it’s also why that great new smart phones, like the Palm Pre and Motorola’s hot new Droid, are not really giving the "original" iPhone that much of a competitive challenge.

If you want to create a breakout brand, focus first on an original idea that really grabs the imaginations of your intended customers. That is where truly successful brands are born.Not in a copy-cat marketing plan.

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