A few days ago I partook in a half-day consulting workshop with my colleagues at work. Several important fundamentals about branding and positioning were Powerpointed out to us; I was made familiar with målgrupper (target groups), huvudbudskapet (the main message) and kanaler (channels). The entire session did wonders to my Swedish, and I even articulated my own opinioner about why webbloggar are a great kanal to get our huvudbudskap to the savvier målgrupper out there.

If only they had kept the whole thing in Swedish. For some reason I cannot fathom, the consultants — a company specializing in something called brand-focused differentiation strategies — decided to title their presentation “Dare to Differ!” I was tempted to differ there and then about the suitability of using that slogan in a marketing situation, unless of course you want to argue with your customers.

As the projected slogan illuminated a darkened conference room, my mind wandered to one of my favorite scenes in Woody Allen’s Zelig, where a newly cured Leonard Zelig ends up in fisticuffs with a visiting psychiatrist because he has become too adamant in his opinions. Sort of like the newly minted MemeFirst, actually.

I’m sure that is not what the consultants had in mind. They probably thought their slogan was a clever little riff on Apple’s Think Different campaign. But “differ” is an ambiguous word. I can mean to be different or to vary (“these specifications differ from the norm”), but when agents with free wills are the subject of the verb, to differ implies disagreement. It is usually a subtle shift in emphasis, but in 360-point all-caps on a monday morning it is not.

I’m now off to London to give Eurof a dressing down for his most recent comment.