58 innovative plans for marketing

Chapter 6 Market Competition Planning (2)
Method: 6 people were divided into 3 groups, namely A, B and C groups.Set up a scenario, Group A is an industry leader, and Group B and C are newcomers. Group A plans defense strategies against the entry of groups B and C.

Rules: The time is 30 minutes. Within the specified time, Group A must effectively resist the attacks of Group B and Group C.If there is no effective defense, it will be considered that Group A is out.

Purpose: Through the game, cultivate the ability of the participants to plan effective defense strategies.

5. Improve plan
Reference answer

1. Situational case: timely and proactive counterattack.

2. Role simulation: unite with more powerful industry alliances.

3. Thinking enlightenment answer ideas: when the attacker is completely driven out of the market, in marketing activities.Market leaders don't want to spend too much money on this.The best expenditure should be that which is necessary to keep competition within certain limits, and keep the rest in reserve.You can have the financial resources necessary to protect your position in the event of a competitive attack.

Classic look back
In 2001, when Pei Tianrui, the first president of L'Oréal Asia, came to China from Paris, he was surprised. The best-selling cosmetics counters in the mall were brands such as Little Nurse, Dabao, and Yue Sai, which he had never heard of.In the entire Chinese market, the world's largest cosmetics company is only ranked tenth.

In order to open up the market, in the summer of 2003, Maybelline, whose unit price was close to 90 yuan, realized a comprehensive price reduction. The price of makeup lipsticks fell to 39 yuan, and the price of some types of lipsticks even dropped to nearly 20 yuan, which was equal to or even lower than that of many domestic brands. , which greatly stimulates consumers who are sensitive to prices but have a tendency to pursue famous brands.According to L'Oreal's post-survey, Maybelline's brand awareness reached 95%.Consumers immediately responded sensitively to Maybelline's new positioning: Maybelline's market share increased by 130%.

In order to ensure that new products can be launched continuously, L'Oreal Asia has increased investment in research and development, which is the region with the largest increase in its research and development investment in the world.L'Oreal is also investing in Shanghai to build its first research and development center in China. At present, 35000 women in China are invited by L'Oreal to participate in the test every year.

Four years later, Yue Sai and Little Nurse have joined the L'Oreal global brand camp consisting of Lancome, Maybelline, L'Oreal Paris, and Vichy. In 4, L'Oreal's sales in China were close to RMB 2004 billion, 30 times that of when it first entered China in 1997.

In just 8 years, L'Oreal not only successfully introduced 17 of its 12 major international brands into China, but also annexed Little Nurse and Yue Sai in one fell swoop.According to third-party data, in 2004, L'Oreal accounted for 9% of the Chinese cosmetics market (only including make-up, skin care, hair dye and other products, excluding shampoo), ranking second only to Procter & Gamble, and a year ago The data is about 6%, ranking third.

It can be seen from the case that in order to enter the Chinese market, L'Oreal has adopted a series of offensive strategies such as price wars, strengthening research and development, and merging existing brands.

Skillful touch
Competition in the market is like war, and different offensive strategies need to be selected according to changes in the environment and one's own strength, but the most direct and most commonly used is the active frontal attack.

Another alternative to the frontal attack is for the attacker to launch a modified frontal attack, most often by using a price cut to compete with the opponent.It is more common to mark a lower selling price on the leader's product to combat it.This can work if the market leader doesn't cut prices accordingly, and it becomes a real bargain once the competitor convinces the market that its product is equal to, or at a lower price than, the competitor's product. the value of.

Another type of price attack strategy is that the attacker invests heavily in research to reduce production costs and then attacks competitors on the basis of price.Texas Instruments, for example, used the price weapon strategically to great success: It invested heavily in research and development and reduced production costs very quickly.

In addition to frontal attack strategies, enterprises also use encirclement attacks, flank attacks, guerrilla warfare, and detour attacks when conducting market attacks.

thinking innovation
While it is generally accepted that guerrilla warfare is less expensive than frontal, enveloping, and flanking attacks in conducting market attacks, a series of guerrilla campaigns can be costly.Guerrilla warfare is more about preparation for war than war itself.If the attacker wishes to "beat" the opponent, it must back it up with a stronger offense.Therefore, guerrilla warfare is not necessarily an inexpensive combat activity in terms of resource conditions.

Practical points
Enterprises must pay attention to the following when conducting market attacks:
1. Frontal attack emphasizes that the attacker concentrates his forces on his opponent's forces. It attacks the opponent's chest instead of his weak point.The result depends on who has more strength and staying power.In a pure frontal attack, the attacker targets the opponent's products, prices, advertisements, etc.

2. The flanking strategy is to identify unappreciated market segments—that is, the gaps caused by the product outline of the industry that has not yet been formed and can still be developed, and rush into and fill these gaps, and develop them into large and small Another word for sub-market.This strategy replaces a "bloody" battle between two or more companies for the same market.

3. The strategy of encirclement always attempts to penetrate deep into the enemy's territory.A siege attack involves launching a large attack on several fronts simultaneously, so that the enemy must simultaneously defend its front, sidelines, and rear.The attacker can offer the market better and more things than the opponent, and this tactic will be unstoppable.Such a siege makes more sense as a strategy when an attacker has a greater resource advantage over the opponent and believes that the siege will be accomplished quickly enough to break the opponent's will to resist.

4. Detour is the most indirect offensive strategy, which is to avoid any engagement that is more directly directed at the enemy's current territory.It means bypassing adversaries and attacking easier markets to expand one's resource base.There are three ways to implement this strategy: diversify into unrelated products; diversify into new geographic markets with existing products; invest in new technologies to replace existing products.

5. Guerrilla attackers will use traditional and non-traditional methods to harass their opponents.In the business world, these methods usually include: selective price reduction, supply intervention, raids, intensive explosive promotions and corresponding legal actions against the other party.Legal action is increasingly becoming the most commonly used method of disrupting competitors.

Scene reconstruction
1. Scenarios
As early as 1990, Peugeot Furniture set its sights on the world and proposed "Because it is not the first, so work harder". In September 2001, Peugeot Furniture was invited to participate in the Cologne Furniture Fair. As the first furniture company in Beijing to participate in the international furniture exhibition - "Cologne Furniture Fair", Peugeot Furniture opened a precedent for Beijing's furniture industry and also began to successfully move towards First steps in Europe.After research, Peugeot Furniture decided to register its own company in Germany, branded the "ESSEN SUMMIT" trademark, centered on brand development, and invested tens of millions of yuan to establish a professional marketing company and hired German marketing personnel.

To become a localized European company is the goal of Peugeot Furniture.Their plan is: set up a branch in Germany, open a store in Cologne to display the products, brand and image of Peugeot Chinaren, and then quickly push Peugeot furniture to the German and European markets.After that, Peugeot Furniture will acquire one or more European factories within three years.

Peugeot furniture has been changing in the struggle, and the only thing that remains unchanged is focus, focus on innovation, focus on quality, and focus on catching up with the world's top furniture companies.

Question: How did Peugeot attack the European market?

2. Role simulation
Assuming that your company is a foreign bank that has just entered China, what kind of offensive strategy should you adopt in the face of domestic Chinese commercial banks with strong government resources and customer groups?
3. Thinking Enlightenment
One of the principles of offensive operations is to "shrink the front as much as possible."In the business war, how do you understand this sentence?

4. Physical training games
Props: some paper, some pens.

Number of participants: 10 people.

Method: 10 people were divided into two groups, 5 people in each group, two groups A and B respectively.Demonstrate a specific scenario; Group A is the market attacking enterprise, and Group B is the original market leader.

Rules: Group A should formulate a complete market offensive strategy, and Group B should find an active and effective defensive strategy. The time is 30 minutes. After 30 minutes, the two groups switched roles and played again.

Purpose: Through the game, cultivate the offensive planning ability of the participants to open up new markets.

5. Improve plan
Reference answer

1. Scenario case: the spirit of single-mindedness; the strategy of establishing a branch first and then merging.

2. Role simulation: fully understand the domestic market.

3. Thinking Enlightenment Solution Ideas: The offensive should be launched on as narrow a position as possible, and the most ideal offensive state is a single product. A "full line of products" is a luxury only leaders can afford.Offensive warfare should be concentrated on narrow positions to ensure the first results.If a company invests a variety of products in a very broad position at once, launches an all-out attack, and tries to gain as much territory as possible, it will eventually lose all the territory.Because at any time, the leader always has an absolute power advantage, whether it is financial resources, industrial relations, distribution channels, or customer awareness.

Classic look back
Since 1996, FOTILE Kitchenware has jumped from the last place in more than 200 range hoods in China to No. 2, and has created four FOTILE whirlwinds in the market, maintaining the first market growth rate for four consecutive years, and the economic growth rate. First.However, Mao Lixiang, the chairman of Fotile, said: "Fangtai does not strive for the first place, and is willing to be the second."

It is a strategy to be willing to be the second child, and it is also related to Fangtai's market positioning.The market positioning of FOTILE is mid-to-high-end. In terms of market share, mid-to-high-end will never be number one. FOTILE can compete for the top brand, but not the top sales.Therefore, Mao Lixiang, Chairman of Fotile, said: "We want to be the second child honestly and willingly. If we can be the second child for a long time, we will be a winner and a winner. Even if one day, the boss comes down, don't rush to fight for the boss. If someone is going to fight for the number one, you should still keep the number two position. Always remember: always being the number two is your way out.”

Only by clarifying the strategic positioning can we be a good second child.Since 1998, FOTILE has been in the second position in the range hood industry, and this sitting has lasted for four years until today.This is also rare in China's corporate world.

This relies on Fotile's magic weapon - "Don't make a loose big cake, rather make a hard diamond". Specifically, it is the three strategic positioning of Fotile: industry positioning - specialization, market positioning - mid-to-high-end, Quality positioning - produce high-quality products.

The market is huge, but a manufacturer should not be too greedy, and must choose its own target market.Today, the era of exclusive market monopoly is over. FOTILE chooses the mid-to-high-end market as its target market, and selects mid-to-high-end customers as its target customers, so as to make its service direction clear and concentrate its energy, which is conducive to new product development and market positioning.Therefore, Fang Tai is willing to be a successful second child!

Skillful touch
A market follower is different from a challenger. Instead of launching an attack on the market leader and trying to replace it, he follows the leader and consciously maintains a coexistence situation.

An important feature of the marketing strategy of market followers is to follow the business behavior of leading companies, provide similar products or services to buyers, and try their best to maintain the stability of the industry market share.This state of "conscious coexistence" is common in capital-intensive industries with homogeneous products (steel, chemicals, etc.).In these industries, the product differentiation is very small, but the price sensitivity is very high, and price competition may occur at any time, resulting in mutual losses.Therefore, companies in these industries usually consciously do not compete with each other for customers, and do not aim at short-term market share, that is, follow the lead to provide similar products to the market, so the market share is quite stable.

thinking innovation
Market followers must find a path of development that does not provoke competitive retaliation.A market follower must know how to capture existing customers and win more customers among new customers.Every market follower should seek to bring real benefits to their business—location, service, financing, etc.Furthermore, since followers are often the main targets of attack by challengers, followers must maintain low manufacturing costs and high product quality and services at all times to avoid being hit.In addition, once a new market appears, followers should actively enter the market.Followers, however, do not merely passively imitate the leader; instead, followers must determine for themselves a path to growth that does not provoke retaliation from the leader.

Practical points
When following the market, companies should keep in mind the following three strategies:
1. Closely follow the strategy, which is to imitate the leader as much as possible in each market segment and marketing mix.This kind of follower sometimes seems to be a challenger, but as long as it does not fundamentally violate the position of the leader, there will be no direct conflict. Some are even regarded as parasites who make a living by picking up the remnants of the leader.

2. Distance-following strategy, which follows the leader in major aspects, such as target market, product innovation, price level and distribution channels, but still maintains some differences from the leader.Such followers can grow themselves by acquiring small businesses.

(End of this chapter)