BOOK REFLECTION

IDTB ASSIGNMENT
MARKETING WARFARE
The book Marketing Warfare by Al Ries and Jack Trout has talked about Marketing with a very
different viewpoint of warfare suggested by Clausewitz.

The true nature of marketing today is not serving the customer, it is being better than your
competitors.

Marketing is war where the enemy is the competition and the customer is the ground to won.

Things I have learned from this book-

Marketing people have a lot to learn from some of the greatest battles, because the war teach to
defensive and offensive at the right time and in the world the wars have so often that every time
they teach something new to the winner and loser, the squad has to come up with new techniques
and technology to win the war, same is with marketing to compete with your competitors you
need to updated with the latest products, technology, techniques, methods. Because to be
successful in marketing the greatest, finest and best manager did not write how to do the best and
the most successful marketing.

Companies which have blindly followed the marketing managers have gone into losses because
marketing is not game of single person it’s to be done with a team, and try to build the best team
for ourselves and not think of others because someone will have a better team than ours. So we
must focus on our team.

Let’s compare marketing with a cricket game. The cricket game is played by a team, the team
which scores more runs and restricts the opponent to less runs wins the game similarly in
marketing the marketing team of company with most sales wins the marketing game from its
opponents.

In the war one can only win by defeating the enemy, business is similar to war to sell your sell
your product you must defeat the enemy because war and business are never one sided, they
always have opponents to fight so one must learn to be defensive and offensive at the right.

There is a myth created that it is easy to get on the top than to stay there. But actually both are
difficult because it takes a lot of courage to get on top by defeating other opponents and it is
equally difficult to stay on the top by giving the best of you.
The principle of warfare is same as the principle of force like the law of sea. The big fish eats
the small fish similarly the big company beats the small company. We see many examples in
daily life like Amul is a classic example in the field dairy it has never let its competitor settle
down in their field because they provide every product at reasonable rate and also 80 percent of
the product price goes to the producer.

So its becomes very difficult to compete with such companies , Sometimes big companies take
hold of small companies by taking its charge by purchasing it .Like Amazon bought Souq and
added the company under Amazon similarly Airtel acquired many other telecom companies. Not
only small companies are purchased off. But also companies equally valuable merge with each
other to expand the business which also might give boost to economy, the merger between
Vodafone and Idea was a major deal between two telecom companies, and also the merger
between Reliance and Aircel.

The very simple logic that why big companies can to do so good is that big companies have big
budget , bigger advertising budget , a bigger research department, better technologies , goodwill ,
contacts , constant reliable staff which work for them efficiently and the most they have built
trust in people in these years so they progress at a greater speed . But it doesn’t mean that small
companies cannot survive because every big company had a small starting. It’s about getting
better than your competitors.

The principle of being defensive teaches that you need have a greater work force and it is helpful
for the big companies because these companies with a larger workforce have carried out large
operation so even if small companies try to surprise them by bringing in a new product they are
less surprised and the only reason is that they are more prepared.

In war conditions the battalion needs to be well organized, well prepared and these depends on
how well these battalion spend to upgrades its standard like weapons, training people, using the
latest technology , knowing the condition of war place, doing research . By these things battalion
becomes stronger and possibility to defeat the battalion increases similarly the big companies
they advertise their product and thus they can reach a large media thus become stronger.

In war one cannot attack at any time he wants, he needs to get prepared and also needs a team to
fight similarly in marketing everyday one cannot come up with something new he needs to think
about each and every step he takes and he needs a team to fight the marketing war.

One of the most important learning from this book is about strategy, that there is not only one
way to fight a marketing war, there are many strategies for it. Taking an example to explain
supposing in automobile companies, Maruti Suzuki gets 54 percent of the market, Hyundai gets
31 percent of the market, Toyota gets 12 percent of market, and Nissan gets 2 percent of the
market.
Then the strategies would be different for every company, Marketing game is more than
winning, Maruti Suzuki will try to increase its share in market as a part of victory. For Hyundai
increasing the share of market is a substantial victory. For Toyota a profitable survival would be
enough to declare a victory. And for Nissan survival is enough to count as victory. (Figures used
are random for example only) .Another example is about the Cola companies Coca Cola was is a
very old and prestigious company for soft drinks but it could not work on its strategies,
advantages and thus Pepsi-Cola developed the market and become a strong competitor for Coca
Cola. Similarly in McDonalds was the all time favorite for everyone in the burger market but
slowly companies like Wendy’s and Burger King made their ways into the burger market and
become strong competitors of McDonalds by using marketing warfare techniques correctly.

Nobody can control the marketing game from the biggest giants to the oldest companies because
marketing everyday changes and also requires people and it’s a continuous war because one
needs to win continuous to stay in the market as no one can win forever and every company can
fail on the battlefield which are not their own like if a company producing tea suddenly starts
producing wine without any proper steps like creating a different environment to produce, proper
place, arranging the tools and machines for the process, collecting the data, conducting surveys,
appointing proper staff thus the possibility of failing becomes very high so it is advisable that
one must take a calculated risk in market.

Thus it can be said that the warfare techniques are very much relevant in marketing because at
every point some innovations are required to compete with competitors, by competing with them
in such a way that our move does not become a strategy for them.

RAJ SHRIPAL SHAH

AU1711017
BBA
BATCH A