Every Blue Ocean Will Eventually Turn Red; Create An Unfair Advantage Instead

The vast red and blue oceans of the marketing world tsunamied into our awareness and vocabulary a few years ago, when two INSEAD professors, W.Chan Kim and Rene Mauborgne, claimed that competition can be rendered irrelevant. Their book, Blue Ocean Strategy, heralded the news to marketing managers and CEOs all over the world: after years and years of surviving in red bloody oceans, swarming with murderous competitors, finally there's a better alternative! Casella Wines, an Australian winery, decided to "de-complex" wine for the sake of intimidated unpretentious adults.

It decided to create new wine drinking rules, and to make a fun wine, sweet and fruity, to suit any taste. The brand quickly became the number one imported wine into the USA, without a promotional campaign or consumer advertising. In just two years it emerged as the fastest-growing brand in the histories of both the Australian and US wine industries. Casella Wines even grew the overall market.

In sports competitions, competitors are compelled to completely defined rules while striving to achieve a superior result. In the business world, competitors also strive to achieve a better result of the same type: a larger share of the consumer's wallet. However, the competition does not restrict participants to any specific actions.

The contrary is true. And yet, it is in this aspect exactly that Kim and Mauborgne are wrong and misleading, upon claiming that competition can be rendered irrelevant. Even in the case of Yellow Tail, which obviously turned many non-wine-consumers to active buyers, clearly when consumers are buying Yellow Tail they are buying other types of alcohol that they would have purchased in its absence.

The prospect of raising demand infinitely simply does not exist. This is where the Blue Ocean Strategy finds its limitation. One must credit the writers that they are not blind to this fact. In other words, the most brilliant BOS will grant you with no more than a limited, relatively peaceful, period of time.

Does this mellow promise of the BOS express maximal possible achievement, Naturally, you can guess that my answer is no. Introducing the Unfair Advantage. An UA is a situation in which you become unique and adored by your customers, while competitors do not imitated you. Beyond the not so simple challenge of creating a differentiated value innovation, the critical question is: what can be done which is immune from imitations,

Exactly because the benefit is considered relevant by your consumer. On the other hand, when your innovation and differentiation offer further benefits which are not considered relevant in your category (I call it Off-Core Differentiation), there is a good chance of avoiding imitations, even after years of success. This kind of differentiation, when it manages to excite consumers, is that which creates the Unfair Advantage. Why will you not be imitated,

Because what you offer is perceived by your competitors as weird, irrelevant, or overly-unique, such which is pointless to imitate. This is the big secret. This is your competitor's trap. There are two main types of Off Core Differentiation: Imported Benefits, and Peculiar Particularity. In many cases we find a combination of the two. The first type happens when you import a benefit which is important to consumers in other product categories, but are not considered relevant in yours. The other type is a unique style which is not typical to the category. Take Toblerone, the Swiss chocolate brand.

It has been producing its triangular alp-summit look alike chocolate bars since 1908. No one has imitated them. The Body Shop chain has grown to 2,000 shops in 50 states, to become the second largest cosmetics chain in the world. It is an active crusader fighting for environment protection, underprivileged rights, human rights and animal rights, worldwide. It fine tunes its acquisition policy, employee volunteering requirements, marketing communication budgets etc, for serving these purposes. Again, no one has imitated them.

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If you run a business, then you know this in a hurry. But what options do you have, If you run a business, then you know this in a hurry. But what options do you have, After all, you don't want to move to cash and check only, because you limit the convenience to your customers and the reach of your business's profitability.

It's far better to enter the shark infested waters of commerce and fight to be the top fish in the sea. To do so, you'll need to be mindful of the ways that thieves operate, and you'll need to stay ahead of the game when it comes to defeating their efforts. Chargeback results Chargebacks are perhaps a business owner's worst nightmare because they represent a sale lost along with missing merchandise.