How to put a "negative" label on your competitor

The parent of positioning/Jack Traut (Trout consulting company for "it Time Magazine")

Businesses need to be positioned not only for themselves but also for competitors, which are often overlooked.

David Ol (Davidogilvy) is a legendary figure, his unique understanding of low-cost trading is intriguing: fools will also do low-priced trading, but creating a brand requires talent, faith and perseverance.

In the opinion of the Olympian, the aim of labeling the competitor negatively is to establish a positive image for himself. Many years ago, red-card vodka labelled US rivals as "Made in America", saying its rivals were "counterfeit Russian vodka", setting up "authentic Russian vodka".

Beware of attacking competitors

Recently, as the economy has been depressed and consumer spending has fallen, many companies have used attacking opponents to scramble for customers. Kodak compares the inkjet printers it produces with expensive products from other brands.

Similarly, McDonald's is trying to sell its latte and cappuccino to Starbucks with a negative label of "conceited coffee". It has even built its own website to make sure people don't need to learn a second language to order.

Sometimes there are no winners in the category. Johnzhang, a Wharton School of business, found that "hostile advertising – beer makers, especially AB and Miller – could backfire. Not only does it not appeal to consumers, but it can make people lose interest in all the products in the category. This will also enable companies to reduce prices to attract customers, which leads to the entire industry profits too low. ”

When you are ready to launch an attack against a competitor, beware of being attacked. For example, the Campbell Soup Company has advertised its new product line, saying its rival, Pune, uses monosodium glutamate (MSG). Purkinje responded that Kimbaoton was also using monosodium glutamate, which results in a mutually--internecine.

Many years ago, the scope mouthwash claimed that consumers who used Lisch Delin would be full of "medicine", thus labeling Lisch Delin "bad taste" negative labels. This establishes a "taste good" positioning for scope. Afterwards, Lisch Delin use the Frank law to respond, put forward "you hate taste, two times a day" concept, intended to emphasize: the medicine so heavy, certainly can kill a lot of bacteria. This is the attack and the counterattack.

Repositioning competitors, often in the opponent's strength to find weaknesses, and attacks, but not directly to find weaknesses, which will cause other people's disgust. But there is another weakness, which is caused by strength. such as A.V.I. (Avis) Once the slogan: "The choice of the flying bar, we have a shorter team before the counter." "Hertz (Herz) is not able to counter this strategy, as the largest car rental company, which is the inherent weakness of hertz, and most leaders can not avoid the shortcomings."

Similar ideas can be used against powerful opponents everywhere. How do you deal with the soup of the Campbell Soup Company? Don't hit the taste and price of the idea. In fact, you should forget everything in the tin box, and focus on the cans itself, which is the weakness of the Campbell Soup Company.

Iron cans rust easily, but the Campbell Soup Company, which makes iron cans, is worth billions of dollars, and it will never give up the equipment easily. But competitors will not be subject to this restriction, they can try plastic, glass or anti-corrosion packaging, and then can play with the Campbell Soup Company "canned".

Don't expect any business to accept these strategic ideas quickly. The concept of excellent competitive relocation is difficult to sell because these concepts are inherently negative, contrary to the "positive thinking" of most managers.

Looking for weak links

Sometimes, a company's marketing is its weakest point. The first mineral water brand in Russia is Aquaminerale. In fact, the brand for Pepsi-Cola, so its marketing airtight, it is not surprising. By disguising the water source, Pepsi has realized the effective positioning of the brand. They added the word "minerals" to their names, and they printed the mountain patterns on their trademarks, which allowed consumers to believe that water was from the mountains and was wise.

The initial mineral water brand in the Russian market is Borjomi. Because it is an old brand, many old customers regard it as the leader of mineral water. However, the brand did not make good use of this, but the brand extension, the introduction of the "refreshing Borjomi" and "Borjomi Spring", weakened the brand.

The obvious strategy is to reposition the Aquaminerale, in the advertisement that it is not the real spring water, but the disguise of the spring water, and the real spring water is the best. The concept is very simple, put the two kinds of water trademarks together, with a big title: "You can not identify the real spring water through the trademark."

Below the Aquaminerale trademark, you can say: "This kind of water is not produced from mountainous area." "Under Borjomi's trademark, you can say:" This kind of water originates from the mountains, the natural water is the best. "Just as in judo, you should use your opponent's power to fight back," he said. "This is a classic case of attacking the opponent's strong marketing."

Every time you put a negative label on your competitor, this negative label must quickly be recognized by the consumer. Everyone knows Lisch Delin tastes bad, but not everyone knows Starbucks "ego", this concept does not resonate.

When "Boar king" cooked food claims that their meat and cheese do not contain artificial coloring, it is repositioning rivals to make people feel that their competitors ' products are not good. This approach can resonate with people.

When you state your concept, the customer should quickly agree that no further explanation or justification is required. If a concept has no "explosion effect" or requires more explanation, it is not a good location.

Not related to price

Prices are usually a differentiated enemy. However, when prices become the focus of information dissemination, or become the focus of corporate marketing activities, you are destroying the rules of the game. What you do makes the price a major consideration for the customer to choose you rather than your competitor, which is not a healthy path.

Few companies are satisfied with the low price method, for the simple reason that every competitor can adjust the price at any time. As Michael said: "If competitors can reduce prices as low as you, then the price reduction is usually stupid behavior."

To support Porter's point of view, let's give an example. A new company has developed a unique packaging system designed for small carrots. This packaging system makes the company have an absolute price advantage over the existing two major suppliers in its peers. In order to put the supermarket shelves, the company entered the market at a lower price rather than a better carrot. Two of big suppliers immediately cut prices, flat with the new company, forcing the new company to lower the price, but the opponents followed the price.

The new company's management believes that rivals will not continue to reduce prices because it is "irrational" – the packaging technology of two big companies is obsolete and they are losing money. The director called me and asked me what action the opponent would take next. I told him that the other side would continue to cut prices-how could they make it easy for a new company with a price advantage to enter the market?

On the next board, we encourage the management of the new company to sell the new production system to one of the old brands. They profited handsomely from it. Everybody is happy, but another low price strategy has collapsed.

Abandoned positive positioning

Years ago, I was in Venezuela providing a location service for a ketchup brand Pampero. When the company asked us to go, Monte and Heinz had squeezed it out of the first place, it was going downhill.

After doing some research, we found that Pampero removed the skins of tomatoes to make the taste and color better. and competitors in the production process, are not peeled. This is an interesting concept, because many people know that if you use the whole tomato as raw material, most recipes require peeling. It can be fully used "peeled", and other manufacturers to distinguish it.

When I told the management of the company that it was the only way to rebuild their brand awareness, they became very upset because the company, in order to reduce costs, was preparing to turn to the Monte Automatic production process (in the way of the "Heinz") and they did not want to hear the idea of maintaining the traditional method.

Our suggestion is to stop the factory modernization plan because "peeling" is the concept of differentiation. Doing the same with a strong competitor is tantamount to suicide. The right thing to do is to label your competitor as "not peeled" and create a "peeled" positive positioning. Unfortunately, this repositioning concept has not been implemented.

Repositioning a strategy is not just as simple as putting a negative label on a competitor, but also to place a leading competitor, or rather, a second. We have offered this advice to Spanish olive oil manufacturers.

Few people know that Spain is the true largest producer of olive oil, accounting for more than 1/2 of the world's total production. As the second largest producer, Italy produces only half as much as Spain.

But there is a big problem, although Spain's olive oil production is in the clear lead, but many people regard Italy as the king of olive oil. As a result, Spain produces most of its olive oil, but Italy earns most of its money from its olive oil brand. They bought olive oil from Spain and packed it out as Italian olive oil.

I offer the following solutions for Spanish producers:

The first step is to explicitly "position" Spain as "the world's first olive oil producer", a little-known fact that has to go into the minds of olive oil customers and potential customers. At the same time, Italy was relocated to the use of Spanish olive oil producers.

The second step is to dramatize this information by borrowing historical facts, and we suggest that Spain make the following message by advertising: 2000 years ago, the Romans were their best customers, and now. The main point of the plan is that Italians can always identify high quality olive oil when tasting olive oil.

The third step is about identification. We designed a label that allows customers to easily identify Spanish olive oil-using a simple logo labeled "100% Spanish olive Oil", which is printed on each package.

After relocation, the Spanish olive oil back to the boss's position.

Source: it Time magazine