Category: Business Strategy

In 1977, British Rail decided to do something about declining passenger numbers. Their executives couldn’t find a clear reason why results were getting worse. So they blamed marketing and decided to change their advertising agency. And as it’s a huge company, all advertising agencies in the UK competed to get the British Rail account. One…

We’ve talked about the 3C’s that drive a brand’s positioning in our ​Profit-Led Branding Framework​: Company, Competition, and Customer. In this article​, we’ll look into the second C: Competition. Now let’s see how a rental company with seven cars became a global giant, how to find gaps in crowded markets, and how to discover your…

In the 1960s, commercial aviation was booming. And aircraft engine manufacturers wanted to take advantage of this new industry. They had expertise and large production capacity coming from the Second World War. Rolls-Royce was one of them. But they were small compared with American giants like General Electric. And how do you grow in this…

In 1982, two employees at Xerox —John Warnock and Charles Geschke— decided to quit and start their own business. They were excited about developments in tech. So they wanted to ride the wave. Their idea was simple. As more people used computers, the world needed better ways to work with digital files. So they created…

In the 80s, the Swiss watch industry was in an existential crisis. Japanese brands had flooded the market after quartz technology became accessible. Seiko, Casio, Citizen… It was like a revolution. Suddenly, Japanese brands could produce less expensive and more accurate watches. Put yourself in the shoes of the Swiss. You see mechanical watchmaking as…

In 2000, Marc Benioff decided to declare war. He founded Salesforce a year earlier and entered the competitive CRM market. And Siebel Systems was the market leader with a 45% market share. So Salesforce desperately needed to get known. Benioff worked with an agency to come up with a bold campaign. You know what was…