As someone who created THE Social Media Marketing Blog, I wholly concur. ;-)

Where the rubber meets the road is how you live up to being "THE" ___. If you give your customers just another experience, your brand promise is going to be compromised. Your product/service needs to live up to your name.

Paul - Thanks for the simple but thoughtful post. (As an editor, by the way, this is a message I completely embrace... words -- even articles -- DO many a difference. Hemingway wrote "The Old Man and the Sea"... not "An Old Man and a Sea.")

In other words...You're The Man...!

; )

The rib joint? CARSON'S of Chicago. They used to advertise with "The Place for Ribs" but that seems to have gone away. If you go to their web site, you can see the tagline in the META tags, but not on the site, kind of odd... but it does show up in a Google search
http://www.ribs.com/

Thanks for the thought-provoking item and useful links. You've given me a good boost on a consulting gig I've got coming up. One point, though, in presenting oneself or one's company as THE: who will be the judge of that?

I may believe I'm THE cat's pajamas...but if I promote myself as that, I have to be able to prove it, measure it, and of course, live up to THE assertion of remarkable-ness. Doesn't Google deduct points for using superlatives in one's ads without proof?

I bring up this point partly as a reflection of Lewis's point in his recent "crowded out there" post. And partly because there's power in taking on being THE as your vision...and risk in claiming that you've achieved it.

Thanks again for an energizing item!

Paul, I agree with you in principle. Yet, like anything else, if we all started to use this same approach in marketing material, one would begin to cancel out THE other. The word, "the" would become just as common as the word, "new." Yawn.

Besides, there's a fine line between seeming confident as a supplier, and boastful or too sure of oneself.

In the macro of this discussion, I believe that if we feel like, and act like we are "the" rather than just an "a," AND we live up to customer expectations and often exceed them, then our brand ambassadors will refer to us as "THE."

Your post looks suspiciously like this one http://hellomynameisscott.blogspot.com/2007/04/difference-between-and-thee.html
right down to a paraphrase of Scott's "let me ask you this" at the end. Not cool.

Reader... I will have to send Scott a note... It looks as if I am "A" blogger talking about this topic not "THE" blogger. (I find that kinda cool, actually!)

Elaine - I agree. I was using the rib place (Tony Roma's) as my starter conversation... It is about BEING the THE not saying you are THE.

I have worked with clients who have identified their goal as being A seller of this... or A provider of that... But they - and we - should strive to be THE in all we do...

To your point through performance customers will reward with THE reputation.

Thanks for your comments!

Paul,

You just need to be specific enough to justify being "The" vs. "a" and not sound disingenuous. After all, what we live is "a" reality and "a" life or we could not have the chance to change it for the better ;-)

Paul - you boil down the basic framework of a positioning statement to its core. I completely agree that a brand (whether a person or a product) needs to find out how to move from an "a" to "THE." The contrast between the two reminds of Jim Collins' book which says that "good" might actually be the opposite of "great."

i partly agree with you. Let's look at this from a customer perspective.

As a prospective customer, I'm much more bothered about how you are going to solve the problem rather than drooling because you are The right person for me. Ofcourse it certainly does help if you are an authrority but you'd still have to please a customer not because you are a faboulous brand, it's because you are able to undertstand a customer's problem / opportunity and provide a solution for it.

As someone else has pointed out, there are many "the" people spriniging up by the minute - which means more choices for the customer and more competition for your business.

Unless you innovate, improve, understand , refine, learn - unlearn and reach out to the customer any big brand is doomed.