by Agus Priyanto

Created on: April 18, 2010   Last Updated: April 20, 2010

Such thinking is inevitably competitor-focused rather than consumer-focused. After all, war is essentially about destroying or subjugating the competition. Being competitor-focused leads to me-to imitation product(gee, if your competition offers this product, you should too), copying strategies (under the assumption that you don’t know what you should be doing, but somehow your competitor does), and heavy discounting (often referred to as “price wars”).A competitor – focus encourages a myopic fixation on market share and sales volume rather than profitability, as market share and sales volume are more publicly visible metrics.

 This focus on combat perhaps derives from the competitive nature of western society, perhaps from the competitive focus in business school, or perhaps simply from the natural tendency to compare how we are doing against other. The final arbiter in these battles, though, in the consumer. Is the consumer that you encourage the voting to go your way.

 Consider the introduction of a new brand of pet food. National sales meetings are big events with at least one objective to generate excitement and enthusiasm among the sales force. One new brand was conceived and designed to specially target one of the companies were well know for their dislike of each other.

 Outside the large meeting auditorium, a boxing ring was constructed. During breaks, two kickboxers sparred for the attendees, one kickboxer wore trunks emblazoned with the logo of the new brand, while the other boxer’s trunks bore the logo of the competitor brand. The kickboxers battled with the encouragement of the growing crowd. Cheers and applause erupted when, inevitably, the new brand boxer KOed the competitor boxer.

 Such theatrics make for great fun with the sales force. But the success of this brand comes not because of the management’s desire to knock out the competitor, rather, the success of this brand comes from the brand’s capability to connect with its target audience, to create a compelling product offering, and to fundamentally offer a more powerful value proposition.

 SABmiller competes closely with Anheuser-Busch. Miller has run a series of humorous ads directly targeting A-B. In one ad, a Dalmatian riding along in a carriage pulled by Clydesdales (visual references to A-B icons) sees a Miller beer truck with “Miller lite has more taste than Bud light” on the side. At a stoplight, the dog

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