How do you treat your competition? Is your stance more adversarial or friendly?
I’ve noticed two main narratives in how companies view their competitors.
Either it’s a “fight to the death” approach – exactly like what we see between Replit and Lovable (though it seems Replit does more of the provoking 😄) – basically: “We speak badly about our competition.”
Or it’s more motivational: “We speak positively about our competition.” – Tho I do not know whether I have seen some example of this competition, I can see it only in terms of personal branding when people do not want to say bad things about someone, even when they are competitors.
How do you perceive your competition, and how do you approach it?
Is there any significant rivalry among major brands that sticks in your memory?
For me, it has always been Coca-Cola vs. Pepsi or Apple vs. BlackBerry and Microsoft. I try to learn as much as possible about their marketing communication, including how these companies handle their competitors. Feel free to share some good examples.
Replies
The "fight vs. friendly" debate is a great way to frame it. In my product strategy work (i.e. not marketing directly, but work that feeds into marketing), I help companies decide this by looking at market maturity and their strategic position. It's less a hard rule and more about choosing the right game to play.
The fight approach is often a calculated choice for a challenger in a mature market. The rules are set, and the goal is to displace the leader by forcing a direct comparison. Collaborative is usually smarter for growing a new category. Your real competitor here is inertia. Sharing insights helps expand the entire market for everyone.
One way I find helpful to look at this is to move beyond comparing features. Useful insights come from looking at how customers achieve their goals with a competitor's product and the reasons they chose it. Where is the process clumsy, confusing, or opaque? Then track that back to your own product to decide how to position it. IMHO, the most effective approach is to champion how you are better at solving those problems, without ever naming the alternative.
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@dorothy_m_danforth That's why I incline towards also companies that are okay to share some things open-source – especially because of the knowledge transfer that supports innovation :)
@busmark_w_nika Agree. That's the confident play. If you don't have sufficient moats to handle collaboration you might not have a long-term viable product. I don't have something to open source, but I'm trying to share things I learn as I go. We all need to pitch in to the set the table, IMO.
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@dorothy_m_danforth I will repeat some words I already used in one of the LinkedIn comments: we need competitors in terms of "increasing" our potential.
If we compete only with 2 or 3 people in our country, the bar can be pretty low in terms of skills, capabilities, etc.
If we compete with a broader sample, we can learn new things and improve ourselves. :)