For the most part, category competitors, despite all protestations to the opposite, try to differentiate themselves and grow market share by touting category benefits. They, in effect, continue to support the supremacy of the market leader through their current marketing and advertising. Banks expect prospects to switch and c

What do you know? What don’t’ you know? What is knowable?

Until you fully understand the REAL issues facing your brand, you cannot solve your marketing problem. Your ultimate success is therefore much more dependent upon the questions you ask then the answers you find. The price of success is the risk of unsettling the boat — rocking the very foundation upon which your business currently floats.

Committing your brand to grow its market share is a courageous effort, it is not the bailiwick of the feint of heart because it requires as its co-requisite an intent to challenge everything — even slaying all the sacred cows.

Art and Science Increasing your market share requires both a mixture of art and science (right and left brain thinking). The cognitive side of the process needs to lead the emotional side — the process will enable you to manage the risk of change.

You would be surprised how many of your competitors are self-when assessing opportunities and issues. This fact is your biggest opportunity if you have the courage to look long and hard at your own business model and marketing strategy. Rest assured that most of your competitive set lacks the fortitude for such assessment — except, of course, the new market leader who rises to everyone’s surprise. Upsetting the apple cart is the recipe for success. Keeping to the old model is the recipe that the market leader hopes you salute in dead earnest.

A Concrete Example Let’s look at this in a more concrete way. An old and well-accepted adage if you are in second place in a category you will only help the market leader when your marketing is designed to grow or build the category. We agree with this, but not for the reasons you might think and our reasoning explains why it is so hard to kick the king of the hill off his throne by conventional and traditional means.

For the most part, category competitors, despite all protestations to the opposite, try to differentiate themselves and grow market share by touting category benefits. They, in effect, continue to support the supremacy of the market leader through their current marketing and advertising. Banks expect prospects to switch and cu

Committing your brand to grow its market share is a courageous effort, it is not the bailiwick of the feint of heart because it requires as its co-requisite an intent to challenge everything — even slaying all the sacred cows.

Art and Science Increasing your market share requires both a mixture of art and science (right and left brain thinking). The cognitive side of the process needs to lead the emotional side — the process will enable you to manage the risk of change.

You would be surprised how many of your competitors are self-when assessing opportunities and issues. This fact is your biggest opportunity if you have the courage to look long and hard at your own business model and marketing strategy. Rest assured that most of your competitive set lacks the fortitude for such assessment — except, of course, the new market leader who rises to everyone’s surprise. Upsetting the apple cart is the recipe for success. Keeping to the old model is the recipe that the market leader hopes you salute in dead earnest.

A Concrete Example Let’s look at this in a more concrete way. An old and well-accepted adage if you are in second place in a category you will only help the market leader when your marketing is designed to grow or build the category. We agree with this, but not for the reasons you might think and our reasoning explains why it is so hard to kick the king of the hill off his throne by conventional and traditional means.

For the most part, category competitors, despite all protestations to the opposite, try to differentiate themselves and grow market share by touting category benefits. They, in effect, continue to support the supremacy of the market leader through their current marketing and advertising. Banks expect prospects to switch and c

You would be surprised how many of your competitors are self-when assessing opportunities and issues. This fact is your biggest opportunity if you have the courage to look long and hard at your own business model and marketing strategy. Rest assured that most of your competitive set lacks the fortitude for such assessment — except, of course, the new market leader who rises to everyone’s surprise. Upsetting the apple cart is the recipe for success. Keeping to the old model is the recipe that the market leader hopes you salute in dead earnest.

A Concrete Example Let’s look at this in a more concrete way. An old and well-accepted adage if you are in second place in a category you will only help the market leader when your marketing is designed to grow or build the category. We agree with this, but not for the reasons you might think and our reasoning explains why it is so hard to kick the king of the hill off his throne by conventional and traditional means.

For the most part, category competitors, despite all protestations to the opposite, try to differentiate themselves and grow market share by touting category benefits. They, in effect, continue to support the supremacy of the market leader through their current marketing and advertising. Banks expect prospects to switch and c

A Concrete Example Let’s look at this in a more concrete way. An old and well-accepted adage if you are in second place in a category you will only help the market leader when your marketing is designed to grow or build the category. We agree with this, but not for the reasons you might think and our reasoning explains why it is so hard to kick the king of the hill off his throne by conventional and traditional means.

For the most part, category competitors, despite all protestations to the opposite, try to differentiate themselves and grow market share by touting category benefits. They, in effect, continue to support the supremacy of the market leader through their current marketing and advertising. Banks expect prospects to switch and c

For the most part, category competitors, despite all protestations to the opposite, try to differentiate themselves and grow market share by touting category benefits. They, in effect, continue to support the supremacy of the market leader through their current marketing and advertising. Banks expect prospects to switch and customers to choose based on having multiple ATMs, friendly employees, competitive rates, and convenient locations — the very foundation upon which Bank of America has built its franchise.

Budweiser Too! Beers try to unseat Budweiser by out “budding” the “King of Beers.” They all claim great taste, choice ingredients and brewing prowess. Once again the foundation of the Budweiser brand franchise.

Let’s look at these marketing challenges dispassionately. First, if you are a bank, take all the table stakes (the category descriptors that define your business) off the table. For the sake of this experiment, assume that all benefits are well understood by the category as equal. After all, no one remains with a bank if the employees are not pleasant, the ATMs convenient and plentiful and the rates and fees competitive. What is left? Something is left because the market claims to have preferences and it is by simple deduction that we can eliminate 99% of the banking claims as “not the culprit”.

Will a beer drinker change brands because you claim to have won more awards, taste better or use better ingredients? Logic would say yes, provided the competitor’s customer does not like the taste of the beer they currently prefer or dislike the quality of their current beer's ingredients. In blind taste tests, few beer drinkers can identify their own brand and seldom can they tell one American lager from another. Often, their taste choice is not their preferred brand yet beer brands continue to battle over category benefits like taste. So, if you eliminate the table stakes, what is left? We never said the answers were easy to find, we only promise that the answers can be found once you discount the obvious.

The Road Untaken The easy road is not the best choice and finding the sw