11 Competitive Dynamics

• Market shares

  • 40% - market leader
  • 30% - market challenger
  • 20% - market follower
  • 10% - market nichers
• Historical market leaders

  • Microsoft
  • Gatorade
  • Best Buy
  • McDonald's
  • Blue Cross Blue Shield
  • Visa
• Responsive marketer


  Finds a stated need and fills it
• Anticipative marketer


  Looks ahead to needs customers may have in the near future
• Creative marketer


  Discovers solutions customers did not ask for but to which they enthusiastically respond
• Two proactive skills

  • Responsive anticipation
  • Creative anticipation
• Responsive anticipation


  Performed before a given change
• Reactive response


  Happens after the change takes place
• General Attack Strategies

  • Frontal Attack
  • Flank Attack
  • Encirclement Attack
  • Bypass Attack
  • Guerrilla Attacks
• Frontal Attack


  Matches opponent's product, advertising, price, and distribution
• Flank Attack


  Identifying shifts that are causing gaps to develop, then rushing to fill the gaps
• Encirclement Attack


  Attempts to capture a wide slice of territory by launching a grand offensive on several fronts
• Bypass Attack


  Avoiding the enemy altogether to attack easier markets instead
• Guerrilla Attacks


  Small, intermittent attacks, conventional and unconventional, to harass the opponent and eventually secure permanent footholds
• Four Broad Strategies

  • Counterfeiter
  • Cloner
  • Imitator
  • Adapter
• Counterfeiter


  Duplicates the leader's product and packages and sells it on the black market or through disreputable dealers
• Cloner


  Emulates the leader's products, name, and packaging, with slight variations
• Imitator


  Copies some things from the leader but differentiates on packaging, advertising, pricing, or location
• Adapter


  Takes the leader's products and adapts or improves them
• Nichers' tasks

  • Creating niches
  • Expanding niches
  • Protecting niches
• Product Life-Cycle


  Curves are portrayed as bell-shaped
• Stages of Product Life-Cycle

  • Introduction
  • Growth
  • Maturity
  • Decline
• Introduction


  Slow sales growth, heavy expenses of product introduction, no profits
• Growth


  Rapid market acceptance and substantial profit improvement
• Maturity


  Slowdown in sales growth, profits stabilize or decline due to increased competition
• Declin

  Sales show a downward drift and profits erode
• Cycle-recycle pattern


  Often describes the sales of new drugs
• Special categories of product life cycles

  • Styles
  • Fashions
  • Fads
• Style


  Can last for generations and go in and out of vogue
• Fashion


  Currently accepted or popular style in a given field
• Stages of fashion

  • Distinctiveness
  • Emulation
  • Mass fashion
  • Decline
• Fads


  Fashions that come quickly into public view, are adopted with great zeal, peak early, and decline very fast
• Growth stage


  Marked by a rapid climb in sales
• Maturity stage phases

  • Growth
  • Stable
  • Decaying maturity
• Ways to change the course for a brand

  • Market modifications
  • Product modifications
  • Marketing program modifications
• Market Modification


  Expanding the market for a mature brand by increasing the number of brand users and usage rate per user
• Product Modification


  Improving quality, features, or style to stimulate sales
• Quality improvement


  Launching a "new and improved" product to increase functional performance
• Feature improvement


  Adding size, weight, materials, supplements, and accessories that expand the product's performance, versatility, safety, or convenience
• Style improvement


  Increasing the product's aesthetic appeal