The world of marketing is brutally competitive; each brand fighting for mind share of customers. Advertisements can strengthen a product’s existence in the market. There is so much creativity in advertising that it can change the scene for a product in shortest no time.   While creative advertisement might be entertaining, comparative advertisement, one of the aggressive forms of marketing, is a whole new ball game altogether. But are creative ads more effective in inspiring people to buy products? Yes they are.  They certainly outshine ads that simply describe catalogue product attributes or benefits. Numerous empirical experiments have found that creative messages get more attention and lead to positive attitudes about the products being marketed, but there is not sure short evidence that shows how those messages influence purchase behavior. Each individual has his/her unique perception, likes and dislikes. At the same time, some creative campaigns have failed miserably because customers found them too bitchy.

We come across advertisement wars regularly, where brands take on one another. Some brands openly mock the rival brand through print, digital or broadcast media. We have witnessed Apple’s campaign vs. Microsoft’s, TOI’s vs The Hindu’s, Pepsi vs Coke, FedEx vs DHL and many more such. It is marketing, morals and ethics are for book reference, big or small brands are all game in mudslinging at each other and they don’t shy away from getting dirty in this game of ad wars. Such advertisements where companies make direct references to the competition are interesting for the rest of the world to watch. Here are some of the brilliant virtual ads from around the world:

Kingfisher and Jet Airways

Kingfisher and Jet Airways nagged at each other with these billboard advertisements.In its panic, Jet Airways invested Rs. 10 crore in ad campaign to publicize its rebranding through its “We have changed” ad campaign. Jet insisted that they have grown consumer friendly and more services are on offer. But, Kingfisher through “Equus Advertising” resorted to the ways of Ambush marketing and hijacked the campaign from Jet airways. The Jet hoarding at Cadbury Junction, near Jet CEO Naresh Goyal’s residence in Mumbai, was superseded by a Kingfisher billboard saying “We made them Change”.

Though today the scene has changed. Jet Airways has booked profits in the fiscal year 2016, while Kingfisher Airlines is in crisis.

Dove vs Pantene:

This is an ad war of 2010. The story started on July 23, when Mumbai woke up to hoardings that screamed: ‘A Mystery Shampoo!! 80% women say is better than anything else’. P&G, it was later found, was planning to unveil the new Pantene on August 1. When the suits at HUL found out, they saw an opportunity to score a point. They ambushed P&G. On July 28, even as the P&G hoardings stood tall on its skyline, Mumbai woke up to another hoarding that was upfront, and suggestive of its source of inspiration. It said: ‘There is no mystery. Dove is the No.1 shampoo’. Dove is one of the four brands in HUL’s shampoo portfolio. The HUL national campaign took just one day to go from brief to execution, and was handled by Ogilvy & Mather India. This was the quickest advertising turnaround in the company’s history.

Apple vs Samsung:

Two tech giants Apple and Samsung are always seen warring; we have seen their ad wars for last couple of years, we have seen these two rival brands competing for supremacy in the smartphone market. In 2011, Samsung began its ad campaign to promote their then new smartphone, Galaxy S II. In the ad, they showed Apple fans waiting in line for the next iPhone release were ironically checking out the Samsung Galaxy S II of passers-by. The ad not only mocked iPhone users with lines like “Why don’t you guys just get 4G phones?” but also took the opportunity to feature their larger screens.

McDonald vs Burger King:

In a tug of war between McDonald and Burger King, McDonald’s came out with a print ad, backed up by a video, for which it erected a huge roadside sign giving directions to a Burger King Drive 258km away, next to a sign reading ‘McDonald’s Drive 5km’.  In a quick retort, Burger King created a new ending for the McDonald’s video, which shows a French couple driving from the sign to the nearby McDonald’s Drive. They order coffee to sustain themselves on their 258km journey to the Burger King Drive, where as they tuck into their Whoppers the man says to the woman: “It wasn’t that far at all.” The tagline on the ad reads: “Thank you McDonald’s for being everywhere”.

Uber vs Ola:

In India the taxi war between Ola and Uber is benefiting the customers. Uber banks itself as a premium service where the user is paying an affordable price for the experience of travelling in luxury cars, whereas Ola always focused on getting more cars, taxis, and auto-rickshaws on their platform and more riders to use their services. But the lines are increasingly getting blurred with the launch of Ola’s business class service called Ola Prime. In May 2015 both taxi aggregators launched their ride sharing verticals called Ola Share and uberPOOL. With these, users can now share cab rides with others heading to the same destination or in the same direction. It took Ola four years to come out with its nationwide (multi-channel) campaign titled ‘Chalo Niklo’ by Happy Creative Services, which aimed to position Ola as the go-to transport platform of choice for immediate and spontaneous city travel needs, across cabs, autos and taxis. Both Uber and Ola have used social media for their campaigns. While they keep fighting for cutting into each other’s market, while customers are enjoying the rides!

Ford vs General Motors:

The advertising wars between Ford and General Motors started in the first decade of the 20th century and are still going strong more than a century later. The two brands have ridiculed one another over price, features, safety, looks, financing and luxury features. Each advertisement seems to say how their brand is more reliable, harder working, more powerful, and ultimately more American. This rivalry has involved each brand’s fan base, as t-shirts, bumper stickers, and other memorabilia bashing and praising each brand have become extremely popular. Even today, this rivalry continues on and has expanded to social media and the use of YouTube. In fact, GM recently went on the attack releasing a series of commercials featuring demonstrated ability of GM trucks to fare better than Ford trucks in car accidents!

Britania vs Patanjali:

Today, Baba Ramdev’s Patanjali has its presence everywhere and is sweeping away everything in its path. From local stores to Amazon,Patanjali Products have a strong presence on all shelves. The product quality is best in breed, the prices competitive and the distribution chain is probably the first that is surpassing even the Cola majors. FMCG majors are unable to match Patanjali strategies. Britannia is so scared by Patanjali biscuits that they’ve launched their own Baba Ramdev, guess who it is Farhan Akhtar. Britannia NutriChoice has rolled out an ad film featuring Bollywood actor-director Farhan Akhtar conceptualized by Lowe Lintas, the film looks to showcase NutriChoice as the healthy offering among biscuits. This just shows strength of Baba Ramdev as brand ambassador, that Britannia had to hire the versatile and suave Farhan Akhtar – their Farhandev.

Core competence and competitive advantage

Core competency: Organizations with core competencies enjoy global leadership. It represents the organization’s will to harmonize their multiple resources and skills. It distinguishes the firm in a market place because of its products and service’s uniqueness and because they become difficult to imitate by others. In such an organization, all business strategies revolve around the core competency. Core competencies give a company one or more competitive advantages, in creating and delivering value to its customers in its chosen field. Organizations which believe in spending generously on research and development can and the ones which experiment and investigate the processes can develop core competency. Core competencies lead to the development of core products. Core products are not directly sold to end users; rather, they are used to build a larger number of end-user products. For example, let’s take the example of Honda’a expertise in engines. Honda was able to exploit its core competency to develop a variety of quality products from lawn mowers and snow blowers to trucks and automobiles. Honda can boast of its sharp and competitive engineer’s team who can be credited for its core competency. In another example, Microsoft has expertise in many IT based innovations where, for a variety of reasons, it is difficult for competitors to replicate or compete with Microsoft’s core competences in building software.

The term was popularized by Hamal and Prahalad, back in 1990 in the Harvard Business Review. Peter Drucker was one of the first to mention it in 1964 when he focused on ‘strength analysis’. A core competency comprises of reliable processes, synergy with customers & suppliers, a patent, an industrial design, know-how, unique product development, a brand/s, marketing strategy, business strategy, supply chain etc.

Core competencies are a pack of skills and technologies that are very difficult or impossible to copy or match; skilled employees, tacit knowledge, organizational endowment, collective values, supreme technology, and organizational ethics culture – these are some features which add to the core competency of an organization. The primary reason for 3M’s success is its people. 3M has always motivated its employees to innovate, think different and progress in their relative careers. This company has been blessed with generations of imaginative, industrious employees in all parts of its enterprise, all around the world.

Globally leading organizations are realizing that one of the components of core competency is people. A study was conducted on three hundred and fifty-eight Managers across the Johnson & Johnson Consumer & Personal Care Group (JJC&PC Group) globally to assess if there are specific leadership traits and competencies that distinguish high performers from average performers. The company did not stop only at conducting a study, it designed and organized educational and developmental programs for its employees across different ranks globally, to familiarize employees with the concepts of emotional, social and relational competency, and to share strategic leadership process. These sessions also served as the launch for the newly enhanced leadership models. As usual many other organizations have already replicated them.

Companies with core competencies identify their key business processes, manage them centrally, and invest in them heavily, looking for a long-term payback.

Sony’s  innovations have become part of mainstream culture, including: the first magnetic tape and tape recorder in 1950; the transistor radio in 1955; the world’s first all-transistor TV set in 1960; the world’s first color video cassette recorder in 1971; the Walkman personal stereo in 1979; the Compact Disc (CD) in 1982; the first 8mm camcorder in 1985; the Minidisc (MD) player in 1992; the PlayStation game system in 1995; Digital Mavica camera in 1997; Digital Versatile Disc (DVD) player in 1998; and the Network Walkman digital music player in 1999.
Today, Sony continues to fuel industry growth with the sales of innovative Sony products, as well as with the company’s convergence strategy. The company has never compromised on persistence in R&D.

Back home, a cigarette manufacturing company ITC has got into a wide range of diversifications such hotels, processed foods, biscuits and greeting cards. How does ITC manage this unrelated diversification? Unrelated diversification will succeed only if it is based on the core competency of the firm. ITC has leveraged beautifully on its core competency of distribution, brand building capability and its strength of quality outsourcing.

Core competencies take a long time to build and practice. Organizations which continue the practice with perseverance by adding accuracy and particular sets of skills succeed in building core competency. New sets of skills and newly acquired knowledge should be steadily spread in the organization to facilitate the processes.

Competitive advantage is a business strategy where companies find ways to differentiate themselves from their competitors to attract more business. Service-based industries, such as hospitality, banks, health care use competitive advantage strategies to gain an elevated position in the field. Usually competitive advantage is sought out of one or more functional advantages. Competitive advantages give a company an edge over its rivals and a capability to produce greater value for the firm and its shareholders. The more sustainable the competitive advantage, the more complex it is for competitors to offset the advantage.

There are two main types of competitive advantages: comparative advantage and differential advantage. Comparative advantage, or cost advantage, is a firm’s ability to produce a good or service at a lower cost than its competitors, which gives the firm the ability sell its goods or services at a lower price than its competitors or to generate a larger margin on sales. A differential advantage is created when a firm’s products or services differ from its competitors and are seen as better than a competitor’s products by customers. Today India can boast of comparatively younger, English speaking low cost labour as one of her competitive advantage. This factor has given boost to outsourcing business in India.

The sources of competitive advantage have their limited life. Therefore, businesses are engaged in a never ending search to find new angles of competitive advantages. It’s all about finding some way of differentiating products and services from the competitor’s offerings. The whole purpose of business strategy is to find new sources of competitive advantage. Wal-Mart’s success lies in their cost cutting. Wal-Mart’s most operational processes are carried out in China because of their labor costs are which are much lower than many countries in world.

Toyota is Japan’s biggest car company and the second largest in the world after General Motors.   The fundamental reason for Toyota’s success in the global marketplace is its competitive advantage which lies in its corporate philosophy, the set of rules and attitudes that govern the use of its resources. The Toyota philosophy is often called as the Toyota Production System. The system depends partly on human resources management policy that stimulates employee creativity and loyalty besides Toyota has also built a highly efficient network of suppliers and components manufacturers. Much of Toyota’s success in the world markets can be attributed directly to its competitive advantage of its policies in human resources management and supply-chain networks.

One of the competitive advantages Hindustan Unilever enjoys is its edge over competitors in procuring raw material at low cost.  The company in past faced slow volume sales in categories such as soaps, laundry and tea, where rivals managed to gain market share through aggressive price cuts. But, HUL managed the price correction soon after sourcing more suppliers who offered the raw material at more competitive prices.

Warren Buffet the most successful investor of all times has always given importance to businesses with durable competitive advantage. He always relies on an extensive research-and-analysis. Buffet says that the global economy is complex and volatile, the economy and the stock market do not move in sync with it. The market discount mechanism moves instantly to incorporate news into the share price and last but not the least the returns of long-term equities cannot be matched anywhere else.

By “competitive advantage” Buffet meant a unique product or service that a business either makes or provides. Even if the employees can walk away from the business but they cannot take the business’s “competitive advantage” with them. Some examples of businesses with competitive advantage Buffet considers – are business’s brand names, for instance, Bell, Pizza Hut, Kentucky Fried Chicken or Wal-Mart. He gives importance to a business’s regional monopoly. We have plenty of brand names in India which enjoy regional monopoly such as Ghadi Detergent, Sasa washing powder, Wagh Bakari Chai, Sapat Chai, and Wai Wai noodles. The regional brands can afford to lose their micro focus from their markets. They have such a grip on their markets that national or international products need to spend tremendous resources to fight their regional counterparts. Buffet believes that durable competitive advantage companies can pass on their saving to their shareholders, and their investors.

When we think of best deal we think of Wall mart. Owing to its size it has enormous bargaining power with suppliers and sells at heavily discounted prices. They are low cost buyer and seller- Here the margins are traded for volumes; the advantage is buying at the cheapest price and selling at lowest prices to induce customers to its stores all over the world.

According to Hamel and Pralhad, the process of developing core competencies starts with the strategic intent of being a leader in the market by leveraging the resources. This thought of being a leader in the market is called strategic intentand it points at identifying various opportunity gaps.