Page 86 - 100 Great Marketing Ideas (100 Great Ideas)

39 DON’T COMPETE

Most of the jargon of business strategy is derived from warfare.
Campaigns, guerrilla attacks, capturing markets, and so forth
make us think in terms of killing off the opposition, seizing their
territory, and establishing a new regime with ourselves as leaders.
There is no reason why business should be a battleground, however.
It is perfectly possible to cooperate rather than compete—provided
you stay within the law.

Cooperation with non-competitors has been a common marketing
ploy for many years: takeaway food outlets cooperating with video
rental stores, for example, and tourist attractions cooperating with
local hoteliers are obvious partners. Increasingly, though, there
is a trend for competitors in the same industry to look for joint
projects as a way of cutting development costs—car manufacturers
cooperating on design (the Ford Galaxy, VW Sharan, and Seat
Alhambra are essentially the same car). This idea can be extended
considerably, however.

The idea

When Communism ended in most of Eastern Europe in 1989,
Western manufacturers soon realized that there would be a relaxation
of trade restrictions between East and West, and the West would
be flooded with shoddy, but extremely cheap, Eastern European
products. Skoda was already establishing itself in the West, and was
actually producing some half-decent cars (even if the designs were
somewhat old-fashioned). Their reputation for clunky reliability
made them a threat, but rather than compete head-on with them,

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