Comments on: Go on, ignore competition!!!

By: Rory Sutherland

Rory Sutherland — Fri, 31 Jul 2009 22:20:22 +0000

Damn. I was just about to write a blog post about this very subject. But anything I wanted to say and more has been said above. And thanks for the Bucky quote.

The analogy I was going to make – an instance where people have entirely lost sight of the primary audience and instead focus on competitors – is women’s clothing. Originally conceived to attract men, the fashion industry has so lost sight of its initial target audience that it no longer employs many heterosexual males, or indeed much interests them. That is because all the effort has been displaced from the primary target and is now squandered on the secondary one – in other words fashion is now used not to appeal to men but to intimidate other women.

Creative awards have taken this same path. It’s now about the peer group, that’s all.

The distinction you need to make is between competing *for *something vs competing *against* other people. The first is creative, the second destructive.

By: Steve Taylor

Steve Taylor — Wed, 29 Jul 2009 09:31:46 +0000

From a business strategy p.o.v. (and, Hugh,from a branding p.o.v. as well)absolutely THE most powerful thing you can do is to create an offer and positioning that definitively reposition the competition as old-school, inefficient, inadequately user-oriented, dull, un-innovative etc etc. Use your own positioning to redraw the competitive map in a way that puts your brand/company/product in a new space, where it is unquestionably number one. As Buckminster Fuller said (with apologies to anyone who has been in my office, where this quotation hangs on the wall in 96pt type); “You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete.”

By: liriandersson

liriandersson — Fri, 24 Jul 2009 16:31:46 +0000

Excellent comment Tim (as usual). Baring in mind that Jeff Bezos said this around 2002, I wonder what he would say today, a today where not only do we have a relationship with our customers (or trying at least), but these customers are journalists, innovators, contributors, friends, enemies, competitors, technology gurus, content producers, artists, writers,…and they are promiscuous (in the way they switch their brand loyalty) – how do you have a successful relationship with these individuals? Isn’t the answer to that the Holy Grail of Holy Grails for anyone working in the comms/advertising and branding industry today!?

By: liriandersson

liriandersson — Fri, 24 Jul 2009 16:20:55 +0000

Well put Hugh!!! This is exactly what I mean when I say Look for a sustainable advantage by focusing your attention on what is NOT already done, what is NOT available, what no one has thought of, but mostly on what people need, what they value. As always Hugh, you say it so much better than me

By: Hugh Roberts

Hugh Roberts — Fri, 24 Jul 2009 15:05:11 +0000

Nice article…and i agree that obsessing with the competition seems unhealthy. Sports psychologists tell us to focus on the things that we can control and to ignore the rest. We can control our attitude, our behaviour and our physical processes – we cant control the way the ball bounces when it hits the fairway, or the scores of our competitors. So dont get hung up on these distractions.
Having said that, in my line of work (brand design) its always instructive to look at the competitor landscape and identify the visual codes at work. This often leads to insights about ways to communicate differently, about vacant positioning territories, about opportunities for improvement or innovation. In other words, look at the competitors – and do the opposite.

By: Tim Forrest

Tim Forrest — Thu, 23 Jul 2009 11:46:00 +0000

Very well put! Your third point opens the door to a strategy based not on the competition but the customer – ‘Strategy is being obsessed with finding new ways of satisfying needs’.

As soon as I read this i was reminded of 2 things:

1) a quote from the Amazon founder, Jeff Bezos, talking to his staff: ‘Look. I want you to wake up every morning terrified with your sheets drenched in sweat, but don’t be afraid of our competitors, be afraid of our customers, because those are the people with whom we have a relationship.’

2) the book by Hugh Davidson, ‘Even More Offensive Marketing’.