Marketing Warfare Al Ries

2. MARKETING WARFARE
 Military strategy Marketing situations
 How does a country win a war?
 Marketing is WAR
 Customer-orientation is inadequate
 Become Competitor-oriented
 The principle of force:
 Easier to get to top than to stay there.
 Disagreement
 Once at the top, a company can use the power of its leadership
position to stay there.

3. TERMS OF REFERENCE
Warfare Marketing
Enemy Competition
Warring sides Competitive firms
Territory Market Share
Weapons Marketing Mix

4. STRATEGIES
•Frontal
•Flank
•Encirclement
•Defence
•Guerilla
•Pre-emptive
•Positional
•Counter-offense
•Mobile
•Contraction

5. IS THE COMPARISON JUSTIFIED
• Zero Sum Game
• Cold War – 80s – Let’s Move on
• Is Marketing WAR
• Price Wars
• Market Invasion
• SWOT Model : Strengths, weakness, opportunities &
threats

6. IS THERE A BETTER METAPHOR
• Game : Team Work
• Organism : Life Cycle; growth & adaptation
• Marriage : Commitment & Trust
Can there be cooperation
Apple & Nike Bundle

7. • Business War Games by Barrie James, 1984
• Marketing Warfare by Al Ries and Jack Trout, 1986
• Leadership Secrets of Attila the Hun by Wess Roberts, 1987
“Do not assume the enemy will not come,
but be prepared for his coming…
Do not presume he will not attack,
but instead make your own position unassailable.”
Sun Tzu
MARKETING WARFARE LITERATURE

8. Market leader
• Largest Share
• Initiator of Price Change in the Market
• First in product development
• Financial Strength
• Widest Distribution
• Promotional Budget
• Examples :
• Hero Honda, Maruti, HUL, McDonalds, Coca Cola, Tata
Strategy : Monitor & Confront the competition
Hold Objective
DEFENSIVE MARKETING WARFARE

9. DEFENSIVE MARKETING WARFARE
Market leader

10. DEFENSE
Type Example
Positional Rin
Mobile ITC-ever evolving
Flanking Red Bull
Contraction
Selling of tower business
by Reliance

11. • Add Value/features/lower prices
• Exploit weakness
• Pepsi/Burger King/Honda-Navi
Strategy – Build Objectives
• Market expansion (Users/uses/frequency)
• Market Share(Product/Promotion/Distribution – Innovation)
• M&A
• Startegic Alliances
CHALLENGER

12. CHALLENGER

13. ATTACK
Type Example
Frontal Pepsi
Flank Cannon on Xerox
Bypass Ipod to Walkman
Encirclement HUL & ITC

14. • Against market leaders by challengers who are small
and have limited resources
• Launching small, intermittent hit-and-run attacks
often aims at harassing, demoralizing, and
weakening an opponent through random attacks
• Attacking specific products or segments with sales
promotion initiatives including coupons, rebates,
and temporary price cuts
GUERILLA WARFARE

15. SPECIAL CASE : LOW COST RIVALS
COURTESY:-
Strategies to Fight Low-Cost Rivals
Nirmalya Kumar
FROM THE DECEMBER 2006 ISSUE

16. FINALLY