Brands share customers in proportion to market share, so competitors are rarely the ones a brand thinks they are.
Ehrenberg's finding overturns most brand positioning: a small brand's buyers are mostly light buyers of the category who also buy the leader, so the leader is always the main competitor.
In practice
- A challenger coffee brand positions against the artisanal independent and loses most of its shoppers to the supermarket own-label.
- A boutique gym benchmarks itself against other boutiques while its members' other membership is the budget chain.
- Subject
- Economics & Incentives
- Essay
- The regularities money obeys