The Law of the Opposite - Law #9 under the 22 Immutable Laws of Marketing
“If you are shooting for the second place, your strategy is determined by the leader”. The key of # 2 is to leverage an opponent’s strength into a weakness.
It is always good to keep an eye on the one ahead of you, but at times it is better to keep an eye on the one leading the pack. Some of the critics have always promoted the practice of taking one step at a time, which in simple business terms means to take on the competitor who is immediately ahead of you first and then the next and then the next and so on until you reach the front. This will take years given the current number of competitors you will have to deal with considering you’re starting something afresh. It is also true that there will be people who would want to buy from the leader and there will be people who will not want to buy from the leader but to give business to the immediate best alternate or probably just want a change from what they have been using over a period of time. Therefore, the second position is a really good place to be in and hence the rush to get there.
We need to understand one basic reality here, the leader is doing something right and which is why have the majority market share and therefore the leader’s tag. It is always good to learn from the best than to learn from the second best. You as a company will start thinking like the leader if your focus is on the leader. There are instances where a new market entrant like Flipkart beat the existing competition like Homeshop18 and Indiaplaza to climb to the top. This could happen because Flipkart took the time in analyzing the market trends and gaps and started bridging it with their services. That’s something the market wanted and therefore hopped on to it almost immediately. Flipkart finally was successful in flipping the market positions upside down through its innovative thought process.
The primary focus of any market entrant or an existing player is to keep their focus on the leader and to know how and why the leader is different from them. By doing so, we get to know why they lead the pack and therefore their strengths supporting them to stay on the top. We also get to know how we are different from the leader and as a result identify our strengths. This process will help them understand the strengths and weaknesses of the leader and the contender. Now is the time to strategize and plan your moves in the direction that will bisect the path of the leader and then give you a chance to take over the reins. All it takes is the perseverance by the competitor and a mistake from the leader for the topple to happen. By adopting to this practice, the best thing that can happen is that the leader gets replaced by the most eminent of the lot and that might be you if you have planned it well. The least that one can expect is to at least get to the second position which is lucrative enough position to be in.
To aim for the top, one will need to be on the attacking mode all the time. Keep targeting the leader and never rest until you topple the leader. Form that stage, start projecting your brand independently with a sense of positioning your brand in a way that suits your product or service line well. The brand positioning phase is one of the riskiest and the most delicate phase to deal with as there is a threat of losing your position if not dealt with appropriately. There are multiple instances where the competitor was successful as long as they were involved in brand bashing activities that yielded them with increased customer turn up and revenues. Things changed when they got comfortable with their position they had reached by then and started to reposition themselves as an alternate to the leader. This did not go well with the customers who always thought that they needed some more maturity and efforts to be put in order to be identified as the leader.
One important thing we see here are the customer emotions associated with the market leader. You cannot topple a market leader until there is a miss from the leader which as a result has bad blood spilt in hurting the emotions or the sentiments associated with the brand. A situation where a brand has let their customers down is a very good opportunity for the competitor to take advantage of, but for that to happen, the competitor has to be on their toes all the while and waiting patiently for this opportunity.
