Marketing Leadership

Al Ries writes a great article, “the Googling of the marketing industry: and what we can learn from it,�? on marketing and branding in an advertising age column this week. He uses Google as his main example to explore the two strategies of achieving market leadership. (a) Building a better product, and (b) being the first in category and maintaining that leadership by focusing on the product and category to beat off the competition. As a marketer who has worked for many companies that were not leaders in their industry. I see his point. You can develop the best product in the industry, but if the perception exists that your competitor is the market leader, so long as they keep their eye on the ball, they will typically maintain their market leadership. In order to beat such category winners, moving the goal posts or the category in which you compete can give a company more room to maneuver and develop leadership.

Is your company a market leader? Have you developed a new category? Or are you clients creating that new category? Tell me your story of market leadership.

Posted by johncass at January 3, 2006 10:08 AM