On Copywriting

Fighting New Competition

I floss my teeth.

Not because I enjoy it, but because I've had issues with getting cavities between my molars.

Originally, I used cheap floss. It kept shredding and leaving tiny strings stuck between my teeth.

So I switched to REACH Waxed Floss. After trying it, I concluded it was far better. It didn't shred. I could floss and get the job done. But I still wished for an easier way.

Then W.L. Gore & Associates released their innovative Glide dental floss. (Gore made their name in outdoor fabrics. Perhaps you've heard of Gore-Tex?)

The big thing with Glide is that it's fast and doesn't shred. The floss slips in and out of tightly spaced teeth without a hitch. Naturally, I tried it.

But something didn't seem quite right. It was almost like flossing had become too easy. I questioned whether it did as good a job as the traditional style of floss.

I switched back to REACH and have been using it since.

Still, it seemed to me that Glide had taken a fairly large bite out of the market. It had to have hurt the entrenched players. Now Glide owns the idea of "fast and easy" floss (which overcomes a major objection to flossing). Nobody else seems to have a positioning statement at all.

So it caught my attention when I bought my latest spool of REACH floss. On the top of their packaging it now says, "Removes up to 40% more plaque than Glide."

My earlier suspicions have been confirmed. Glide is too easy. And if you're going to floss, may as well use what's going to actually clean your teeth. (That's my belief.)

Now we have two different positioning statements. One is "fast." The other is "effective." One type of consumer will choose fast floss. Another will choose effective floss.

Anyway, it's an interesting case study. Something to consider when you face new competition. How do you set yourself apart? What is your positioning statement?

Comcastuck!

Positioning is a wonderful thing.

I remember working at Sonlight when we had a drawn-out discussion on how we should position the company. The owner had for years been defending himself against smaller competitors. But his reading had persuaded him to a new point of view: to go on the offensive and attack the market leader.

With this new perspective, I suggested an aggressive positioning statement: "Forget Boring Textbooks." Although it was much loved, it was never used. Everyone thought it was too aggressive, even though we were not targeting a single competitor, merely a segment of the market.

So imagine my shock and delight when I came across a Qwest ad in the Rocky Mountain News that said: "Don't get Comcastuck." The ad went on to describe three different ways you could get stuck by switching to Comcast. (Qwest has been hemmorhaging customers to Comcast for the last year or two.)

This is not the only "attack the market leader" ad I've seen in my paper. The Burt family of car dealerships has recently taken up the cause against the various "GO" dealerships, which are owned by AutoNation. Their headline: "Pass GO. Stop at Burt."

I assume Burt's ads have been successful. At least two others have copied him with similar attack ads targeting the GO chain of dealerships.

Here's the thing. Consumers are overwhelmed with marketing messages. You have to break through the clutter. And an aggressive, controversial ad that targets the market leader does just that.

Will some people be offended? Sure. Is it a cost worth paying to polarize the market and attract new customers? I'll let you be the judge of that.