Management Guru Assignment on Marketing Warfare

Under Guidance of Prof. Isaac Jacob

Submitted By :
Shakti Agrawal (101) Bhavin Doshi (107) Sumit Gosar (115) Bhavesh Panchal (135) Pratik Sisodiya (156) MMS B

Marketing Warfare

Contents
INTRODUCTION ........................................................................................................................ 3 THE PRINCIPLE OF FORCE .................................................................................................... 3 THE SUPERIORITY OF THE DEFENCE ................................................................................. 4 THE NEW ERA OF COMPETITION ......................................................................................... 4 THE NATURE OF THE BATTLEGROUND .............................................................................. 5 THE STRATEGIC SQUARE ...................................................................................................... 5 OFFENSIVE MARKETING WARFARE .................................................................................... 7 FRONTAL ATTACK .................................................................................................................... 8 FLANKING MARKETING WARFARE ....................................................................................... 9 MARKETING WARFARE THROUGH ENCIRCLEMENT ..................................................... 10 MARKETING WARFARE THROUGH BYPASS .................................................................... 10 GUERILLA MARKETING WARFARE ..................................................................................... 11 DEFENSIVE MARKETING WARFARE .................................................................................. 12 FORTIFICATION MARKETING WARFARE........................................................................... 13 COUNTERATTACK .................................................................................................................. 13 MARKETING WARFARE THROUGH MOBILE DEFENSE .................................................. 13 STRATEGIC RETREAT ........................................................................................................... 14 MARKETING WARFARE THROUGH POSITION DEFENSE .............................................. 14 CURRENT MARKETING WARFARE ..................................................................................... 14 MARKETING WARFARE IN THE COLA WARS ................................................................... 15 MARKETING WARFARE IN THE BEER WARS ................................................................... 15 MARKETING WARFARE IN THE BURGER WARS ............................................................. 15 MARKETING WARFARE IN THE DETERGENT WARS ...................................................... 16 LEARNING FROM NAPOLEON.............................................................................................. 18

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INTRODUCTION
Marketing Warfare is a term used to describe some of the techniques and tactics marketers use in their everyday language. The marketing concept states that a firm's goal should be to identify and profitably satisfy customer needs. In Marketing Warfare the author argues that marketing is war and that the marketing concept's customer-oriented philosophy is inadequate. Rather, firms would do better by becoming competitor-oriented. If the key to success were to introduce products closest to those wanted by customers, then the market leader simply would be the firm that performed the best market research. Clearly, much more is required. To illustrate their point, we will compare marketing to a football game. If a team simply identifies the goal line and moves the ball towards it without regard to the competing team, they most likely will be blocked in their effort. To win the game, the team must focus its efforts on outwitting, outflanking, or over-powering the other side. This is the case in football, war, and marketing, according to Marketing Warfare. Because of the importance of the competition faced by the firm, a good marketing plan should include an extensive section on competitors. There is much that marketers can learn from military strategy. The author tells the story of several famous battles in history that illustrate lessons of warfare. These battles range from Marathon in 490 B.C. when the Greeks used the phalanx to defeat the more numerous Persian invaders, to the Normandy invasion of the Second World War. The lessons from these famous battles illustrate the concepts of planning, manoeuvring, and overpowering the opposing side. These principles are relevant not only to warfare, but also to marketing.

THE PRINCIPLE OF FORCE

There's a saying that it is easier to get to the top than to stay there. The author disagrees, arguing that once at the top, a company can use the power of its leadership position to stay there. All other things equal, an army with a larger number of troops has an advantage over smaller armies. A larger vehicle has an advantage over a smaller vehicle in a collision. When several companies enter a new market, the one with the larger sales force is likely to become the leader. The larger company has the resources to outnumber smaller competitors. It can advertise more, perform more R&D, open more sales outlets, etc. This is not to say that smaller companies do not stand a chance. Rather, smaller companies must recognize the principle of force and attempt to win the battle by means of a superior strategy, not by brute force.

Marketing Warfare
Some managers may believe that they can overcome a larger competitor through superior employees. The author maintains that while it may be possible to assemble a small group of star performers, on a larger scale the employee abilities will approach the mean. Another argument is that a better product will overcome other weaknesses. Again, The author disagree. Once consumers already have in their minds that a product is number one, it is extremely difficult for another product, even if superior, to take over that number one place in the consumer's mind. The way to win the battle is not to recruit superior employees or to develop a superior product. Rather, the author argues that to win the battle, a firm must successfully execute a superior strategy.

THE SUPERIORITY OF THE DEFENCE

An entrenched defence that is expecting an attack has an advantage that can only be overcome by an overwhelmingly larger attacker. For example, a defensive position that is in a trench or foxhole will be shielded from the attackers, and the attackers will suffer many more casualties than the defenders. For this reason, the attackers require a much larger force to overcome the defensive positions. The same is true in marketing warfare. Many companies with insufficient resources have tried unsuccessfully to attack a leader. A study was made of 25 brands that held the number one position. Sixty years later, 20 of those 25 brands still held the number one position. It is very difficult to overtake the market leader. The element of surprise helps the attacker, but when the market leader is large the attackers also must be large, and the logistics of launching a large scale attack or a large promotional campaign are such that the element of surprise is difficult to maintain and the defensive position becomes yet more difficult to upset. When the defenders are taken by surprise, it usually is because they ignored warnings or did not take them seriously.

THE NEW ERA OF COMPETITION

Increasingly, one hears marketing terms that are borrowed from the vocabulary of military strategy. From "launching a breakthrough campaign" to the "cola wars", the analogy between marketing and warfare is evident. As in military strategy, it is unwise for a firm to publicly state deadlines for its victory. Deadlines often are missed, and the firm loses credibility in the propaganda war if it fails to live up to a prediction. Politicians who are wise to this rule tend to make their campaign promises vague. Publicly stated marketing promises should be vague for the same reason. Firms also should avoid the trap of thinking that if they work hard enough; they will succeed in their attack. The author argues that it is strategy and not hard work that determines success. In warfare, when a battle turns to hand-to-hand combat, the advantage resulting from the strategic plan no longer exists. In marketing, a firm achieves victory through a smarter strategy, not by spending longer hours with meetings, reports, memos, and management reviews. When management declares that it is time to "redouble our efforts", then the marketing battle has turned to hand-to-hand combat and is likely to end in defeat.
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THE NATURE OF THE BATTLEGROUND
In military warfare, a battle often is named after the geographic location where it took place for example, The Battle of Waterloo. The author argues that marketing battles do not take place in geographic areas, or in stores. Rather, marketing battles take place in the mind of the consumer. Before a military battle, the battlefield usually is mapped and studied in great detail. In marketing, market research traditionally has served this function. However, the author proposes that the most important information is to know which positions are held by which companies in the mind of the consumer. In other words, who holds the high ground? In military warfare, mountains and higher altitude areas represent strong positions and often are used to present a strong defence. In marketing warfare, the question is one of who holds the mountains in the consumer's mind. For example, in the U.S., Kleenex holds the facial tissue mountain since it is the number one facial tissue in the minds of most consumers and many consumers consider the word "Kleenex" to be synonymous with facial tissue. Mountains often are segmented and competitors may launch different brands each targeting a specific segment. General Motors successfully attacked Ford's market leadership when it launched Chevrolet, Pontiac, Oldsmobile, and Buick, each targeting a specific segment of the automobile market. Too often, the leader responds by attempting to counterattack in each segment, only to fail and even to lose its original leadership position.

THE STRATEGIC SQUARE

The author discusses four strategies for fighting a marketing war:

defensive offensive flanking guerrilla

A firms market share relative to that of competitors determines which strategy is appropriate. There often is a significant market share gap between two competitors such that each has approximately a factor of two more market share compared to the next weaker competitor. Because of this large gap, the principle of force plays an important role in the choice of each firm's strategy. For this discussion, assume that there are four firms and each is approximately twice the size of the next closest to it.

Marketing Warfare

In such an environment, each of the four firms has different objectives:

Number 1 firm: market domination Number 2 firm: increased market share Number 3 firm: profitable survival Number 4 firm: survival

According to The author, the main competitor of the market leader that holds the majority of market share is not one of the other firms in the industry, but rather, the government. If the market leader attempts to grow larger, then anti-trust issues will be raised. If a major market leader wins the marketing war and causes the next largest firm to exit the market, then the government may take steps to break up the firm that is dominating the market. Consequently, the best strategy for such a firm is a defensive one. The number two firm's best strategy is an offensive attack on the market leader if there is a large gap between the number two firm and number three. The reason is that the gaining of market share from the number three firm is unlikely to make a large impact on the much larger number two firm. However, there are potentially significant rewards if market share can be gained from the dominant firm. The number three firm is too small to sustain an offensive attack on a larger firm. Its best strategy often is to launch a flanking attack, avoiding direct competition, for example, by launching a product that is positioned differently from those of the larger firms.

Marketing Warfare
The smallest firm probably does not have sufficient resources to launch any type of sustained attack. If it launched a flanking product, a larger competitor likely would launch a similar one and would have the resources to win more customers. The smallest firm would do best to pursue a guerrilla strategy, identifying a segment that is large enough to be interesting to the small firm but not large enough to attract competition from any of the larger firms. On the mountains in the mind of the consumer (see The Nature of the Battleground discussed previously), the high ground at the top of the mountain is owned by the market leader. The number two firm's offensive battle would seek to gain high ground from the leader. The leader's defensive battle involves coming down from the top to fight off offensive attacks. The number three firm's flanking attack would go around the mountain. The smallest firm's guerrilla tactics involve its going under the mountain.

Now we would discuss the various warfare methods in marketing in brief;

OFFENSIVE MARKETING WARFARE

Frontal attack, Flanking, Encirclement, Bypass and Guerrilla warfare are some examples of offensive strategy. When using the offensive strategy in marketing warfare, suggest three offensive principles which include: Called for when your organization is # 2 or 3 in the market, and you have the resources to sustain a challenge to the leader. Principles : 1. The main consideration is the strength of the leaders position. 2. Find a weakness in the leaders strength and attack at that point. 3. Launch the attack on as narrow a front as possible. Key Points : -Whats good strategy for the leader is bad strategy for #2, and vice versa. -Where absolute superiority is not attainable, says Clausewitz, you must produce a relative one at the decisive point by making skilled use of what you have. -Theres weakness in strength, if you can find it.

Marketing Warfare
FRONTAL ATTACK
Frontal attack occurs when a company takes all of their forces and face them directly opposite of the opponent. In order to be successful with this type of an attack, statistics show that a factor of five to one is needed for a successful frontal attack. For example, in the 1970's three electronic giants tried to attack IBM head on against their stronghold on the mainframe computer market. Each electronic corporation failed because they used a pure frontal attack against IBM's massive stronghold. There are many types of frontal attacks including: a pure frontal attack, a limited frontal attack, price based frontal attack, and research and development based frontal attack. A pure frontal attack involves matching a competitors product in all areas of marketing. The product is matched price versus price, promotion versus promotion, characteristic versus characteristic and so on. Basically, a pure frontal attack is taking a "look alike" or "me too" strategy. When using a pure frontal attack, companies should be prepared to expend large sums of money. The next type of frontal attack is the limited frontal attack. A limited frontal attack focuses on specific customers and tries to lure them away from competitors. One example of a limited frontal attack may occur when a new product enters the market such as a new type of paint. The paint company would pursue a select number of their competitor's customers and bring them in on a whole number of product dimensions simultaneously. Another type of frontal attack is the price based frontal attack. In priced based frontal attack, the aggressor focuses mainly on the price of a product to gain more customers. Every product characteristic is matched; however, the competition beats his competitor on price. Finally, research and design is a fourth type of frontal attack. This is a more difficult type of attack to employ. The competitor tries to reduce production costs, improve the product, and other characteristics which would enhance product value. With this type of attack, more creative ideas are implemented which allow for a better product. There are three conditions that need to be met by a firm before it embarks in a frontal attack. First, the firm needs an adequate amount of resources to support the attack. Second, the firm must be able to create and sustain a competitive advantage over its competitors. Finally, the company must be able to persuade their competitor's customers to try their product and become their loyal customer. In the frontal attack, it is important that everyone in the firm and those who purchase the product perceive a competitive advantage.

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FLANKING MARKETING WARFARE

A second type of offensive strategy is the flanking strategy. In a flanking strategy, a company focuses its forces on the weaker sides of its competitor. Three principles of flanking warfare are mentioned in The author's book, Marketing Warfare. Called for when your organization is 4-6 in the market, and you have the resources to pursue your flanking move, sewing up that market segment. Principles : 1. A good flanking move must be made into an uncontested area. 2. Tactical surprise ought to be an important element of the plan. 3. The pursuit is as critical as the attack itself. Key Points : -The success of a flanking attack often hinges on your ability to create and maintain a separate category. -Flanking skill requires exceptional foresight. The reason is that in a true flanking attack, there is no established market for the new product or service. -Reinforce success, abandon failures. What if you dont have the resources to follow up the launch of a successful flanking attack (the pour it on principle)? Perhaps you shouldnt have launched a flanking attack in the first place. Perhaps you should have waged guerrilla warfare. Usually this offensive strategy is used by a company that does not have overwhelming superiority, but may have an advantage in one particular area. For example, in the mid 1970's Xerox owned eighty-eight percent of the plain-paper copier market; however, almost ten years later the Japanese based Canon Copier took over half of Xerox's market. The main reason Canon took over such a large portion of Xerox's market was by use of the flanking strategy. Canon focused on the small size copier market that could not afford Xerox's larger copiers. This attack was successful because it put the attackers strength against the defenders weakness. There are two types of flanking strategy; Geographical and Segmented flanking. Geographical flanking occurs when a firm attacks different areas within the world or country where competitors are nonexistent or not very strong. The Coca-Cola Company uses this type of marketing strategy. When I interviewed Anna Whaley, Director of worldwide marketing and sales, she said a majority of Coca-Cola's profits will come from the international areas where competition is not as fierce. A second type of flanking involves identifying market areas or needs not being served by competitors within a geographical area. Segmented flanking potentially can be more powerful than geographical flanking attacks because they satisfy market needs the competitor
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has ignored. The Japanese have used segmented flanking when entering the United States market. They brought products that were different and aimed them at neglected market segments. These products were smaller or stripped down versions of established products, and they had more features for the same or lower price. The overall idea of flanking strategy is to bring a broader coverage of a markets varied needs.

MARKETING WARFARE THROUGH ENCIRCLEMENT

Encirclement is a third type of offensive strategy. When using this type of strategy a company must have superiority in all areas. Encirclement attacks the competitor from all sides simultaneously. A ratio of ten to one is needed to employ this type of strategy. The basic idea of encirclement is to force the competitor to protect their product from all sides. For example, Smirnoff Vodka used encirclement strategy when another product was introduced and positioned itself directly against Smirnoff, but at a lower price. Smirnoff counterattacked by first raising it's prices, which preserved their quality image. After raising their prices, they introduced another brand, marketed it at the same price as the competition, and introduced another brand at a lower price. There are two types of encirclement strategy: product encirclement and market encirclement. Product encirclement introduces products with many different qualities, styles, and features that overwhelm the competition's product line. Many Japanese firms have encircled U.S. products such as televisions, radios, hand-held calculators, watches, and stereo equipment. Market encirclement goes beyond the end user, and focuses on the distribution channels. Seiko is one example of market encirclement. By gaining every available distribution channel for watches, Seiko took over as much shelf space as possible. There are some risks to be aware of when employing the encirclement strategy. Having the substantial resources and organizational commitment are two factors needed before using encirclement strategy. Because it is necessary to have these two requirements; winning a battle through encirclement takes a great deal of time.

MARKETING WARFARE THROUGH BYPASS

A fourth type of offensive strategy involves the bypass. A bypass attack wins the battle through attacking areas not defended. When Colgate-Palmolive tried to enter the nonwoven textiles and health care business, it did not have to fight Procter and Gamble's strengths because they used the bypass strategy. There are basically three types of bypass strategy: develop new products, diversify into unrelated products, and expand into new geographical markets for existing products.
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Developing new products is a fairly easily understood bypass method. Rather than copying the leader, the competitor creates entirely new products thus gaining a larger market share of untapped customers. Diversifying into unrelated products is a second type of bypass strategy. Rather than remaining in a single-industry business the firm will venture out into product lines that are different from their one single product. Sony has employed this bypass strategy through entering the restaurant and construction business. One reason companies may use the bypass strategy is the large amount of congestion in the competitive battleground. For example, if a company produces a new product, the company basically moves the new product to a new level within the same product market area. Moving into digital and electronic watches may bypass the mechanical watch market; however, the company is still fighting for a position within the watch industry. Conversely, movement into an entirely new geographical market usually allows a company to bypass competitors completely.

GUERILLA MARKETING WARFARE

A final type of offensive warfare is guerrilla warfare. Some of the principles that can be used when determining when to use guerrilla warfare are the following: Appropriate for the other 96 organizations in a 100 org market.

Principles : 1. Find a segment of the market small enough to defend. 2. No matter how successful you become, never act like the leader. 3. Be prepared to bug out at a moments notice. Key Points : -Theres a critical difference between flanking and guerrilla warfare. A flanking attack is deliberately launched close to the leaders position. The objective of a flanking attack is to bleed or unravel the leaders share. -How small a market should a guerrilla set its sights on? Thats where judgment comes in. Try to pick a segment small enough so that you can become the leader but never act like the leader. Successful guerrillas operate with a different organization and a different timetable. Get as high a percentage of your personnel on the firing line as possible. Guerrilla warfare basically involves winning small victories that can over time amount to a large gain in market share. This attack works because it is very unconventional which makes
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it difficult for the defender to counter-attack, and because they are aimed at small, weak, and unprotected market positions. One example of guerrilla warfare occurred when IBM won a lawsuit against Hitachi on the grounds that Hitachi stole IBM software. Because IBM won this small battle, Japanese computer manufacturers had to become defensive by investing large sums of money into scarce software research and development personnel who had to re-write old programs and develop new programs which did not interfere with IBM's intellectual property rights. This type of guerrilla warfare pushed Japanese computer makers back many years. Guerrilla strategy is usually implemented by companies who are smaller in market position and resource base than the firm they attack. This strategy has usually been used by the Japanese on U.S. firms which have caused a large drain on the resources used by the U.S. firms.

DEFENSIVE MARKETING WARFARE

Defensive marketing strategy involves employing those tactics and strategies to maintain the market share a company has already achieved. There are many ways a company can maintain its market share. Some important guidelines in defensive marketing warfare are: Called for when your organization is the clear market leader. Principles : 1. Only the market leader should consider playing defense. 2. The best defensive strategy is the courage to attack yourself. 3. Strong competitive moves should always be blocked. Key Points : -You strengthen your position by introducing new products or services that obsolete your existing ones. -Its better to take business away from yourself than have someone else do it for you. -Attacking yourself may sacrifice short-term profits, but it has one fundamental benefit. It protects market share, the ultimate weapon in any marketing battle. -When you own the pie, you should try to increase the size of the pie, rather than of your slice. Fortification, counter attack, mobile defence, strategic retreat and position defence are five techniques a company can use in a defensive strategy.

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FORTIFICATION MARKETING WARFARE

First, fortification is based on the concept of the protected fort. The idea is to have every area of the company or product protected leaving no weaknesses for the attacker to exploit. One example of market fortification is within General Foods coffee business. General Foods has entries in physical, price, and perceptual positions in the marketplace. From decaffeinated coffees to premium brands, General Foods has complete coverage of the market. Because of such market domination, other competitors have few unserved or poorly served markets to attack. This type of defence can be risky. A pure position defence presumes little change in the product market or the industry. It is important when using this type of defence to move the product with the changing technologies and market evolution or else the product can become outdated or even lose it's marketability.

COUNTERATTACK
Counterattack is a second type of defensive strategy. A counterattack exploits the competitor's weaknesses where it may involve an attack on a defended terrain. This type of defence allows the attacker to move in and the defender capitalizes on the attackers mistakes. One method of counterattack is to aim the counterattack at the competitors source of cash. There are two ways a counterattack can succeed: 1. Cut-off the aggressor's cash supply 2. Through the counterattack the counter attacker gains because the attacker cannot defend and attack simultaneously.

MARKETING WARFARE THROUGH MOBILE DEFENSE

A third type of marketing warfare involves mobile defence. Mobile defence occurs when there is a high degree of mobility in the defence which prevents the attacker from localizing and gaining forces for a battle. The basic idea of a mobile defence is to avoid holding unnecessary ground. One example of mobile defence came in 1977 when the Japanese went beyond the narrow television receiver a produced video cassette recorders and tapes. The Japanese did not limit their mobile defence to just products they also used mobile defence in their manufacturing strategy. Rather than keeping the manufacturing plants in
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Japan they also broadened their operations to off-shore facilities in Mexico and the Far East. Because of their mobility they have found lower labour costs, and new markets.

STRATEGIC RETREAT
Strategic retreat is fourth type of defensive strategy. The best way to describe strategic retreat is through an example of what Chrysler Corporation did to defend their company. Chrysler had just been taken over by Lee Iacocca in 1978 went he second oil price shock hit in the beginning of 1979. With all the problems facing Chrysler, Iacocca had to use strategic retreat in order to save the company. Iacocca cut his salary from $360,000 to one dollar, he cut salaries of higher official ten percent, and he cut stockholdings in all areas. Rather than making deliveries on expensive freight trains, he turned to deliveries by truck, and used a simple black and white annual report. Iacocca sold off many of the plants Chrysler could not afford to operate, and within three years Chrysler had dropped the breakeven point from $2.3 million to $1.1 million dollars.

MARKETING WARFARE THROUGH POSITION DEFENSE

A fifth and final type of defensive marketing strategy is position defence. Position defence uses all of a company's resources to consolidate one's position within the existing market segment. This type of defence usually occurs under stiff competition or major structural changes, i.e. the drop in consumption of oil. Basically position defence means staying with the product or service a company knows best and avoiding the temptation of diversification.

CURRENT MARKETING WARFARE

Some examples of current marketing warfare include the cola wars, the beer wars and the burger wars. In The author's book they divide marketing warfare into four principles. These four principles addressed in Marketing Warfare include: Principles of flanking marketing warfare, Principles of guerrilla marketing warfare, and the principles of defensive and offensive marketing warfare .In the following sections of this report each of the current marketing warfare battles will be analyzed through these principles.

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MARKETING WARFARE IN THE COLA WARS

First, in the cola wars, Coca-Cola the one-hundred year old soft drink did not have any competition until Pepsi came out with the twelve ounce bottle that sold for the same nickel that bought 6.5 ounces of Coca-Cola. Because of the advertising scheme used by Pepsi, Coca-Cola was on the spot. Coca-Cola had spent $15 million dollars on advertising and Pepsi just $600,000. The consumer went for quantity rather than quality. If they increased quantity, Coca-Cola was left with a billion 6.5 ounce bottles, and hundreds of thousands of nickel soft drink machines. Pepsi had created a successful flanking attack which turned into an offensive attack against the heart of Coca-Cola's strength. Pepsi had used offensive principle number two which was: find a weakness in the leader's strength and attack at that point. A more modern day experience of marketing warfare occurred when Coke introduced new Coke, one of the biggest marketing blunders of the century. After many years of being a leader, Coca-Cola did something a leader should never do - change their formula to match the sweetness of Pepsi Cola. Coke had undermined their position. One key learned from Coca-Cola's mistake was that perception is reality. Because Coca-Cola had undermined "the real thing" consumers perception was that nothing could taste better than the "real thing"; thus, Coke threw in the towel and re-introduced Classic Coke.

MARKETING WARFARE IN THE BEER WARS

Another example of the current state of marketing warfare is occurring in the famous beer wars. Consumers are bombarded daily with commercials and advertisements about who has the best beer. One example of marketing warfare occurred when imported beer was first introduced into the United States. Heineken was an imported beer and that was its strength; however, it was imported from Holland. Lowenbreau was the second imported beer and they could have used offensive principle number three against Heinken. Offensive principle number three states: Launch the attack on as narrow a front as possible. Lowenbrau could have launched an attack against Heinken. Being from Holland a country famous for windmills, cheese, and canals, the perception of the market was stronger for Lowenbrau because it was imported from Germany. Today, as marketers, we are constantly fighting a battle within the consumers mind which is consumer perception.

MARKETING WARFARE IN THE BURGER WARS

Guerrilla principle number one: pick a segment of the market that is small enough to defend. This is what McDonald's has done in their attack in the burger war. Up until the birth of McDonald's there had been coffee shops all across America famous for different
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delicacies. Rather than trying to combat each type of delicacy, McDonald's chose to specialize in the hamburger. Because of their strict standards to cleanliness, procedures, and continuity, McDonald's has remained the leader of the burger war from its start. Even though their uniformity was a major strength of McDonald's it was also a weakness. Burger King, the second fastest growing food chain took on offensive principle number 2: find a weakness in the leader's strength and attack at that point. Burger King did just that, they pinpointed the seam which held McDonald's strength together and they hit it hard. Burger King focused their advertising on "Have it your way" McDonald's was squeezed and Burger King's sales increased with this manoeuvre.

MARKETING WARFARE IN THE DETERGENT WARS

Comparative advertising can be used to great effect The detergents business is a dirty business, if you will forgive the pun. The contestants fight bitter and often unsavoury battles to garner a few percentage points of market share and once in a while, advertising is the means to secure the sordid end. Hindustan Unilever (HUL) has been the leader in the detergents market for as long as one can remember but its position has been challenged by a number of regional brands that have been eagerly snapping at its heels over the years, and recently big global players such as Procter & Gamble (P&G) too have joined the fray. The last named, a global major that knows a thing or two about marketing warfare and strategy is still a late entrant into the country. It would be reasonable to say that the company has come to terms with India and its consumers and has made slow but steady progress in recent times. P&G recently introduced a low-cost detergent, Tide Naturals, claiming in its ads that it provided whiteness with special fragrance. The product was clearly positioned against HUL's leading brands Rin and Wheel. This claim was challenged and the Madras
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High Court passed an order directing P&G to modify the ad as the company was not able to substantiate the claim. The court has granted an injunction and directed P&G to respond within three weeks. But that was just the trailer with the main movie hitting the small screen over the weekend when the courts were closed, with a new Rin commercial (shown time after time in programme after programme) featuring two mothers with shopping baskets, waiting for their respective children to return from school. One of the ladies has Rin in her basket while the other has Tide Naturals. The Tide lady speaks smugly about the brand's fragrance combined with whiteness while the Rin lady, of the strong, silent type, waits for her son's shirt to do the walking and talking. The much-awaited bus eventually arrives (after all, it is only a 30second commercial) and the Tide boy appears in a dull shirt (what else?) while the Rin boy breezes in, in a sparkling white shirt with a flabbergasted Tide Auntie' staring in wonder. Of course, the well-behaved Rin boy cannot resist taking a pot-shot and innocently asks Aunty chaunk kyun gayi?, a reference to Tide's advertising line thereby certainly providing enormous mirth to HUL's sales force at least, for it is still debatable whether this particular campaign will make them laugh all the way to the bank. As commercials go it certainly didn't make us stand up and cheer, but to put it mildly, all hell broke loose as the media got into it. Dark threats were uttered secretly, if not publicly; legal action, complaints to ASCI were poured out In fact it was all happening and people like us wondered what the lather was all about. While it seems obvious that the marketing bigwigs at P&G are getting hot under the collar, now that Holi has come and gone, let us objectively look at the situation and see what it means for advertising, the consumer and the companies in question. The Leader Wears an Uneasy Crown HUL has ruled the roost in detergents, toilet soaps and shampoos for as long as one can remember. It also used to be the widow's stock, the safe option that you could bequeath to your family (people need to bathe and wash their clothes) and a day-one' company on campus at IIMs. It continues to be one of the largest advertisers and one of the best marketing companies in the country. But things have changed and sadly, for the worse. Comparison not new

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Comparative advertising has been used to great effect by challengers such as Pepsi and mavericks such as Apple. In India Thums Up (earlier) with Don't be a bandar' and more recently, Sprite, have cheekily continued to make youngsters smile and cheerfully sip the soft drinks, even as they took pot-shots at the competition. In recent times Horlicks and Complain have gone for each other's jugulars. As a general rule, comparative advertising works when the audience is more discerning and aware of the products in question. There is research to suggest that it works better in the case of high-involvement products. People buying cars and motorcycles might be interested in feature-for-feature comparisons, as to which has the greater bhp and fuel economy and so on. But will it work for detergents? In India, brands have desisted from naming their competition but the legal position is changing with the times and now brands can claim superiority as long as they do not disparage their competitors. Does the Rin commercial disparage Tide Naturals? Let's leave that to the courts and focus on the brand's choice of strategic direction. Earlier advertising in the Indian context, in startling contrast to advertising from the West, fought shy of actually naming its competition. Pepsi would say We replaced his Pepsi with a cola' in India, while they would say We replaced his Pepsi with Coke' (in the MC Hammer commercial). Complan would say that they were better than brand H and e ven mentallychallenged consumers would recognise the blinding flash of the obvious and say, Oh, are they talking about Horlicks? Today it is okay to name the competition and often that can open up a can of worms. It is interesting to note that research suggests that when you claim that brand X is better than brand Y, consumers actually end up being confused as to which is actually better and end up buying brand Z. Often, we forget that consumers are not waiting with bated breath for our commercial and do not hang on to our every word the way we would like them to. Questions remain HUL might be patting itself on the back for hitting out at Tide which is a smaller player, but is the commercial really something to write home about? Is comparative advertising the way to go? How credible are these independent laboratory tests on which the commercial is based? How different is the theme of this commercial from detergent advertising of two decades ago? In the mid-Eighties Surf Excel ran a commercial with Lalithaji, where envious ladies tell the camera that she is showing off with new clothes on Sport's Day while the truth is that she has washed her clothes with Surf.

LEARNING FROM NAPOLEON

To understand how business strategists used military strategies, we can look at the innovations of Napoleon and apply then to business situations. Napoleon made four key innovations. They were 1) increase his armys marching rate, 2) organize the army into self contained units, 3) live off the country, and 4) attack the opponents lines of supply. All four provide lessons for business strategists: 1) By increasing the speed that the army marched and fought, they created a military advantage. They could implement their tactics faster than the enemy. Hitler used the same strategy with his Blitzkrieg. The enemy was overrun before they were able to organize a viable resistance. But once these innovations were used, other armies made adjustments and the nature of warfare changed. All armies had to increase their pace of operations to be effective. Businesses, like armies must operate at a faster pace than their competitors in order
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Competitive advantage. They must develop and introduce products faster, implement strategies faster, and respond to environmental factors faster. They must be proactive. 2) Napoleon returned to the cohort organization of the Greek phalanx. These were self contained fighting units of citizens that knew each other in daily life, and had a wide variety of skills and various skill levels. Under the Roman Empire the phalanx was replaced by specialized legions containing 100 fighters (centurion). Each legion had a specialized skill (such as the archer legions from Thrace). For more than 100 years, businesses have taken Adam Smiths advice and organized by functional specialization, just like the Roman legions did. Accountants populated the finance department and technicians populated the operations department. According to Adam Smith this is the most efficient way of organizing. But as the speed of business increases we need a more flexible system. We use cross functional teams (like the Greek phalanx) that have enough breadth of knowledge to see the big picture, are objective enough to get accurate and unbiased perceptions of environmental factors, and are flexible enough to act quickly. 3) Napoleons armies lived off the country instead of bringing supplies with them. This allowed them to march faster. The disadvantage is that stealing from the local population created resentment. But this was a longer term problem. It could be dealt with when the time came. The short term advantage outweighed the long term disadvantage. In business we no longer stock inventory based on an EOQ model. We use a Just in Time model and this reduces costs considerably. However it makes us vulnerable to our supply channel partners. Just as Napoleon had to manage the local people that supplied him his provisions, businesses today have found supply chain management to be a critically important part of doing business. 4) Striking at the opponents lines of supply is known as a flanking strategy. It is effective because it eliminates the need to fight the enemy head-on. An attack on a poorly defended supply line can render the whole enemy army unable to fight. In business today we attempt to do this with exclusivity agreements with suppliers (if you sell Pepsi, you cant sell Coke). If Pepsi has exclusivity agreement with Pizza Hut, Coke will effectively be eliminated from that part of the market.

CONCLUSION
In conclusion, Marketing warfare will continue to be an integral part of the marketing world. Each principle discussed in the above paper will aid a company in ways it can become more competitive. It is important for companies to employ offensive and defensive tactics when necessary. Through monitoring competition a company will know when to use the appropriate warfare techniques to be successful in the marketing arena

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