When Not To Copy Your Competitors
Filed Under (Advices, Competitors Studies) by admin on 18-04-2008
The great question is this: Why are other brands better than my brand? Do they have a trick up their sleeves? Do they know something that I don’t?
The answer would probably a resounding ‘yes’.
Fortunately for you, the trick is simple and easy to understand. The trick is your readiness and willingness to change the way you manage and grow your brand.
The irony of it is that the key tool to building a great brand is your competition. Why? Because it is your competition that makes your brand stronger. Let me explain.
In this highly competitive environment your brand has to stand out. My granddad used to say, “If you want to get ahead of the leader, don’t follow his tracks in the snow.” It’s the same thing with any business. If you want to get ahead of the game, you don’t follow what your competitors have already done. Rather, you create your own path to success. There are just too many brands that have become obsessed with their competitors, imitating and shadowing their every move. You wouldn’t want to be counted among them, right?
Even if your product is an ordinary off-the-shelf everyday grocery, your brand can stand out. It is just a matter of packaging or if I may suggest, repackaging the brand.
Remember Listerine? It has been in the market for over 100 years but despite this fact, its sales have been diminishing. Why? Because the market for mouthwash has been steadily decreasing. With more toothpaste brand and new oral hygiene products in the market today, consumers have forgotten that there is a need for mouthwash.
Rather than being ‘washed away’ into oblivion, Listerine made that step toward repackaging itself. Listerine repackaged itself to match its new environment, an environment with more mobile people, a borderless world, an environment that was not evident in the 1870s up until the late 80’s. So, Listerine examined its consumers’ habits and they came out with a “new†brand.
Listerine used to be a product hidden in your grandparents’ medicine cabinet but it reinvented itself to something that is more mobile. In 2001, the world’s first oral care strips arrived in the market. Listerine PocketPaks contained postage-stamp sized Listerine strips that dissolve in the tongue. Listerine PocketPaks strips, as their brochure printing would now claim, overtook the market.
So, if you want to continue being a “good” brand, keep your focus on your competitors. If you want your good brand to become great, make a clean sweep and change that focus. Stop following the tracks in the snow and get ahead of your competitor by pioneering your own path.
