December 9, 2011
OPEN Forum Message
Affordably Build Your Brand
FedEx Global Brand Management Director Monica Skipper shares a cost-effective way to build a bigger brand for your small business.
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Featured Response
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Boris Fowler
Who is your unbeatable competitor? The company that is so impossibly big or entrenched or visionary that no matter what you do you will never really be able to compete with them. Go ahead and think of it—for once it is ok to admit they exist. For nearly every marketing campaign and client that I’ve worked on, it is one of the things that almost everyone hates to do…but let’s change the stakes a bit this time around.
Now imagine you are sitting in the boardroom in 1962 at Avis Car Rental. You’ve spent the last decade trying to outperform and outgrow Hertz, and are still stuck in the No. 2 spot. What would you do? What Avis and then CEO Robert Townsend decided became one of the greatest advertising stories of the last 50 years. They launched a new ad campaign with the slogan “Avis is only No. 2. We try harder.”
It was immediately truthful and human, and offered them an incontestable point of difference. Of course they tried harder—because the implied message was that they would always be hungrier for your business and therefore treat you better as a customer. What is usually mentioned as a sidenote to the story, though, is just how nice being second can be.
We’re not used to embracing second. Around the Olympics, you often hear the competitive saying that no one ever “won Silver,” they only “lost Gold.” Few companies start their mission statements or annual planning with an aim of being the No. 2 company in their industry, but perhaps more should. Here are just a few reasons why being second is actually a great thing.
1. Capitalize on the overflow. Depending on the industry, sometimes the leading company can never handle all the demand. Hertz will always be sold out of cars. A professional agency will always have moments when all their staff is fully booked. Being No. 2 means you need to have a smart strategy for handling the overflow. Often, if you treat them right, you can turn a one-time customer into a loyal repeat customer.
2. Get better customers. When you are in the second position, sometimes you can afford to be more selective because those who simply have the most money will often try to go to the No. 1 company in an industry. While making more money is great, being No. 1 sometimes means you take on customers simply for the money even though they may be a toxic client and one that drives staff crazy. Without that pressure, you may be able to be a bit more selective and get theright clients instead of just the ones who want to pay more.
3. Redefine what matters. If you are No. 2 in your industry or space based on a commonly used metric, such as annual revenue, you can recast your business as No. 2 with that metric, but No. 1 in something else (such as customer service). In that way you can actually make being No. 2 a strength because it is a proof point that you chose to focus your business on something else that you think matters more to your customers.
4. Claiming No. 2 positions you as a leader. When it comes to many businesses that rely on local customers, people know very little about who is the best in the industry. As a result, there might be lots of people claiming to be the No. 1 plumber in the Cleveland area, for example. Claiming No 2 could be a unique strategy that positions you above those who just issue empty marketing claims. You will, of course, probably get the question about who is No. 1, but at least all your potential customers will know that you are among the best, which already sets you apart.
However you choose to define your business, consider what the surprising upside might be of embracing a position as No. 2 instead of always shooting for No. 1.
Rohit Bhargava leads Digital Strategy at Ogilvy, one of the world’s largest marketing agencies, and is the author of the best selling marketing book Personality Not Included, a guide on using personality to create a more human small business. His new book Likeonomics: How To Be More Believable In The Affinity Economy will be published by Wiley in early 2012.
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Boris Fowler 5 months ago
Again, this is an example of how being honest can be the best marketing strategy. I am very much in favor of these techniques. This was very clever and Im sure it got a lot of attention from frequenters of airports and rental cars.