Agencies fall into the commodity trap because they use the same language, serve every client, and neglect to build a brand for themselves. Escaping it takes sharp positioning: choosing a specific niche, building a provable point of difference, and operating consistently from the inside out.
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In Vietnam's media and creative industry, there is a paradox so common it has become almost invisible. The people who are best at building brands for others leave their own brand drifting without direction. The international marketing consulting world calls this the “cobbler’s children” effect (the shoemaker's children go barefoot). In the Vietnamese market, it shows up more concretely. Hundreds of agencies use the same language. They serve the same pool of clients. And they compete on the same lever: price.
When every media company says the same thing
Open any agency website and you will see a familiar phrase: “creative, strategic, measurable results.” Sometimes it is joined by “a young, passionate team” or “partnering with your business.” These phrases are not wrong. They simply do not tell one agency from another.
This is exactly the commodity trap: when there is no recognizable point of difference, clients fall back on the only criterion left to compare, which is price. When every agency chases that criterion, the whole sector's profit margins shrink together.
Ries and Trout wrote as far back as 1981: “Positioning is what you do to the mind of the prospect.” Positioning is the act of claiming a specific place in the prospect's mind, not describing the full range of your capabilities. Yet most agencies do the opposite. They list every service and serve every industry. The result is that they claim no place at all.
The three most common types of invisible media companies
Not every agency is invisible in the same way. There are three common types, and each needs a different approach to break out.
The first type is the generalist agency with no niche. It can do everything, from social media content to events, from design to media buying. For small clients who don't know what they need, this is a short-term advantage. For large clients with real budgets, it is a reason not to make the shortlist. Large clients don't look for someone who can do everything. They look for someone who understands their problem in depth.
The second type is the agency that follows its project portfolio. It does whatever clients need, accumulates every kind of reference project, and calls that diverse experience. But a portfolio with no axis does not create a signal of expertise. It only proves that you can execute, not that you understand any one thing in depth.
The third type is the agency that depends on its founder. Every client comes because they trust one specific person. When that person is busy, clients worry. When that person leaves, the agency nearly disappears. This is a personal brand, not an organizational brand.
Sharp positioning does not mean narrowing
The most common concern about niche positioning is: “If I only take one type of client, I will lose the rest.” This is a misunderstanding of how positioning really works.
Marty Neumeier writes in The Brand Gap: “A brand is not a logo. A brand is a person’s gut feeling about a product, service, or organization.” What a prospective client senses before meeting you is a signal of expertise. And a clear signal of expertise in one field often spreads to neighboring fields much faster than a general message does.
An agency with clear positioning, such as “specialists in building brands for tech startups from seed to Series A,” will be remembered the moment someone has that need. It may also be referred to fintech, healthtech, or edtech startups, because the signal is specific enough for the referrer to know who they are recommending to whom.
The agency that “can do everything” does not get referred, because no one knows how to describe it in one sentence.
Positioning is not about the product. It is about the mind of potential customers.
Positioning is not what you do to a product. It is what you do to the mind of the prospect.
Al Ries & Jack Trout, Positioning: The Battle for Your Mind (1981)
Four components that create a positioning that can hold
Positioning is a set of consistent choices that clients recognize from a distance, not a slogan or an about page. It has four concrete components.
- A niche you can name: for example, “building brands for F&B chains in their expansion stage” or “repositioning for agencies that want to escape price competition.” Don't use a generic phrase like “brand and communications.” A niche must be specific enough for the listener to know right away whether they belong to it.
- A provable point of difference: it needs evidence, not just a claim. A named working method, a transparent process, or a portfolio with a clear through-line is stronger than any descriptive adjective.
- Signature style is recognized by: writing style, presentation of thinking, visual aesthetics that repeat across all products. It is not declared, but recognized. Wally Olins calls this one of the four vectors of brand expression: product, environment, communication, and behavior.
- Consistency from the inside out: for example, an agency advises on brand but its internal emails are inconsistent, every proposal looks different, and its website has not been updated since last year. That sends a very clear, unspoken signal to prospective clients.
A media company works for its clients, but first it has to work for itself
This is the hardest part, and it is harder psychologically than technically. Agencies usually fall into one of two states. One is being too busy working for clients to have time to build their own brand. The other is believing that “industry clients” don't need to look at the agency's brand and only need to see its project portfolio.
Both are wrong in the same way. A project portfolio only answers the question “What have you done?” A brand answers the question “Who are you, and can I trust you?” For projects with large budgets and high risk, the second question matters more.
An agency that wants to escape the crowd needs to do exactly what it advises its clients to do: start from strategy, not from a new logo or a new website. It needs to find what it genuinely does better than others, and identify who truly benefits from that. Then it builds a system that communicates this consistently across every touchpoint with clients.
Nothing guarantees this will deliver results immediately. But one thing is certain: an agency without sharp positioning will keep competing on price, and that is a race with no winner.
References
Marty Neumeier, The Brand Gap (2003). Byron Sharp, How Brands Grow (2010). Wally Olins, On Brand (2003). Ries & Trout, Positioning: The Battle for Your Mind (1981). DMA / Econsultancy, "The Cobbler’s Children" pattern (agency sector). Brandsvietnam (Vietnamese agency context). McKinsey, The Business Value of Design (2018).