Must-Haves and Parity Must-Haves
Give customers a reason to buy — and remove every reason not to.
- Difficulty
- Moderate
- Time to result
- ~months to results
- Steps
- 3
- Confidence
- 85%
Aaker distinguishes two kinds of must-haves. A differentiating must-have is a feature customers insist on that gives them a positive reason to choose you and refuse alternatives. A parity must-have is a feature you need not to win on, but to remove a reason not to buy — most often reassurance on a dimension where your model looks weak. A low-priced e-commerce razor, for example, must still convince buyers it is genuinely good quality, since they cannot feel it or get a store clerk's reassurance. Winning a subcategory requires both: give a reason to buy and eliminate reasons not to.
Origin
Aaker illustrates the concept with Dollar Shave Club, whose feisty four-minute video mocked the Gillette buying experience and won 18,000 subscribers in two days, selling to Unilever for a billion dollars in four years. But like Warby Parker and Casper, it faced the parity problem: convincing skeptical buyers that a cheap, unseen, online product was actually good quality.
Core principles
- 01A must-have is something customers insist on and will not consider alternatives without.
- 02Differentiating must-haves give customers a positive reason to choose you.
- 03Parity must-haves neutralize reasons NOT to buy you.
- 04A weakness like low-price skepticism or lack of in-store reassurance is itself a reason not to buy.
- 05You need both kinds simultaneously to win a subcategory.
How to run it
- 1
Identify your differentiating must-haves
Pin down the features customers will insist on — the reasons they will refuse offerings that lack them, such as online convenience or a curated selection.
Pro tip A true must-have means the customer will not even consider products without it.
- 2
Find your reasons not to buy
Surface the weakness your model creates. For a low-price online product, buyers cannot taste or feel it and get no clerk's reassurance, so quality doubt becomes a reason not to buy.
Watch out An unaddressed reason not to buy can sink an otherwise compelling differentiated offer.
- 3
Add parity must-haves to neutralize doubt
Deliver and communicate the reassurance features that bring you to parity on the dimension where you look weak, such as demonstrating genuine product quality.
Pro tip Parity must-haves do not need to win; they only need to remove the objection.
In the wild
Dollar Shave Club's differentiating must-haves were low price and a simple monthly subscription, launched with a viral video mocking Gillette's locked-cabinet buying experience. But selling cheap razors online meant customers could not feel the product or get a drugstore clerk's reassurance, creating doubt about quality — a reason not to buy.
→ By convincing buyers the product was actually good, it won 18,000 subscribers in two days and sold to Unilever for a billion dollars within four years.
Common mistakes
Winning attention but ignoring objections
A strong differentiator draws interest, but leaving a reason not to buy unaddressed — like unproven quality — stops customers from converting.
Treating parity features as differentiators
Parity must-haves only remove objections; expecting them to also win the sale wastes effort that should go to true differentiators.
Is it for you?
Best for
Challenger and DTC brands whose differentiation creates a new customer objection they must neutralize.
Not ideal for
Established category leaders with no glaring adoption objection to overcome.
From the transcript
“a must have something you must have that means that you will not consider other products that don't have it”
“How do you reassure people that it is, you know, actually a good product and that's a reason not to buy.”
From the episode
Dave Aaker: Brand Strategies For Market Leadership with The Father of Modern Branding
Dave Aaker