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entirely new distribution and media channels. In short, they commented, ‘today’s Davids have better slingshots’. Which is why smaller doesn’t always stay smaller very long.
So if in the past we saw iconic challengers individually impacting a big brand or established category, now we see a different picture: a more fundamental transfer of share across many categories – except, of course, those occupied
by the Dominators. While this shift is not as simple as ‘from big to small’, it has become increasingly difficult to remain a mid-to-large size legacy brand and sustain growth. Technological disruption may play a part in some of this change, but it would mischaracterise the nature of the shift to label
it simplistically ‘the age of disruption’: as the
BCG study noted, there is a broader range of challenger strategies responsible here.
Of course, it is dangerous to oversimplify.
There are still markets and cultures where Big
is highly desirable, and will remain so. Indeed, some might argue that it is not the small brands but the Dominators who are going to be the apex challengers of the future: look at Amazon’s push into grocery and OTC drugs, or the creation of ZhongAn online insurance by Tencent, Alibaba, and Ping An in China, which in just five years has underwritten 1.5 billion insurance claims. Big will continue to have appeal for some.
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