When is a commodity not a commodity?

When the company decides to invest in its brand and create awareness for the company.

This appears to be the case in the PVC plastic pipe arena with JM Eagle staking a claim to increasing awareness of what, we in the industry, consider a commodity.

Okay, you’re asking, PVC pipe? JM Eagle? and why am I mentioning this?

Saturday night, while channel surfing, I ran across a television ad for JM Eagle.  The emphasis of the commercial is their municipal water offering but towards the end of the ad it mentions their electrical and plumbing products.  For a product that frequently is considered a commodity, JM Eagle is seeking to differentiate itself by creating name awareness at the buyer (who is also a consumer most of the time.)

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Perhaps this underscores a trend, or perhaps increased understanding, that companies need to differentiate themselves and create awareness of their product category.  We’ve seen this in lighting with Cree and Philips, we’ve seen ads from Legrand, some others are using print in end-user publications.  We’re seeing manufacturers market themselves to either build a market (in the case of LEDs), upsell (in the case of Legrand) or possibly take share believing that the market may only experience modest, if any, growth and hence share is the only means to growth (and there is only so far down any pricing can, or should go).

What other “commodity” companies do you feel have done a good job over the past few years to create a brand and differentiating themselves?