Brand wars: from traditional marketing toward social media marketing

Do brands have wars?

And if so, what kind of wars could be?

Brands war or clashes usually started between two or more competitors in one industry.

It usually happens in capitalistic competition, and it reflects a healthy competition that benefits both sides (producers and consumers).

How this war will affect you?!

The competition in any industry affects the consumers in a good way.

All companies are competing to make you buy their goods or service, aiming to increase their sales and make high profits.

Thus, you will find the market has plenty of products that you need, with reasonable prices and great quality.

War in traditional marketing

Besides the quality and the value each brand provides to customers, producers found that customers nowadays are buying brands instead of products.

For example, you will buy Adidas t-shirt not because you need a new t-shirt, but you WANT it from “Adidas“.

Or when you are hungry and want to eat anything quickly, it comes in your mind whether “Burger King” or “MacDonald’s“.

Thus, the marketing game of brands started to play on consumers’ mind, by showing them how they are better than other competitors and always try to be your first choice.

Let’s see how the war started in traditional marketing.

Pepsi and coca-cola

We can consider “Pepsi” and “coca-cola” on the first line if we talk about brand wars. For “coca-cola” everything was stable till” Pepsi” began in 1975.

“Pepsi” started “the Pepsi challenge“, introducing soft drink sweeter than the traditional coke, which result was that every person preferred Pepsi taste on a blind taste test.

That caused “coca-cola” to work on innovations and introduced the “new coke” formula in 1985.

This match was based on the taste of the product.

Allover years, “Pepsi” and “coca-cola” war has no end.

However, they can deal with it as smart as they can.

One example of the competition is this ad.

“Pepsi” made its can scary by wearing “Coca-Cola’s” logo.

Intelligence is how “Coca-Cola” responded.

They use the same photo but with different message!

picture source: brandsynario

Continuing the “Pepsi” and “coca cola’s” war, coca-cola launched a new campaign announcing the new size of its bottle.

The new ad referred that CocaCola’s bottle is larger than its competitor (Pepsi).

By using a normal bottle with cover colored blue, can be considered as a new way of mentioning “Pepsi”.

https://www.facebook.com/CocaColaEgypt/videos/380515582659600/

Burger King and MacDonald’s

In the fast-food industry, “Burger King” and “MacDonald’s” have a high level of competition.

“MacDonald’s” have two competitive advantages that burger king does not have: fast in preparing food and a huge number of branches even in each country they franchise.

Thus, “MacDonald” starts its war focusing on its advantage.

Well, we can consider it as a good start for a beat from “MacDonald’s”.

With a very quick and creative response, here is the “Burger King” reply!

Google Chrome and Microsoft

With the wide use of technology, most of us (if not all of us) use google chrome as the main browser to connect to the worldwide.

“Google” made an ad for google chrome to communicate a message that you can use anywhere, on any device and in an easy way.

However “Google” does not reflect Microsoft on its ad, “Microsoft” uses the smartest way to start the game!

It uses the same ad but small changes on it.

The same soundtrack, different words can be used to start a competitive war.

Apple and Samsung

Competition between “Apple” and “Samsung” has been raised in the last decade.

While “Apple’s” brand name focuses on high quality, Samsung focuses on how the usage of its product will be convenience.

Aggressively “Samsung” start the competition on the advertisement for “Galaxy s3″, by mentioning apple product “iPhone 5” on its printed ad, comparing the feature of its product to”iPhone 5″.

picture source: beyourgoogle

Like most brands, apple followed a strategy of using the same advertisement with minor changes in the ad message.

Adding the correct feature to Apple’s new product, with the deduction of Samsung product’s feature.

picture source: beyourgoogle

Besides, “Samsung” continues this war aggressively, by introducing a video with the feature that included on “Samsung” products and “iPhone” does not have.

Apple and blackberry

Most of us use to know and to use “Blackberry” smartphones in our teenage.

“Blackberry” and “Apple” considered as rivals, As they have the same target audience and focus on the same concept.

In the smartest way you can ever see, “Blackberry” uses a creative ad without mentioning “Apple” as a brand (unlike Samsung).

“Blackberry” mentioned a real apple that a real blackberry fruit shoots it.

And as a defense strategy, apple uses the same advertisement, but with the creative change.

They mentioned that as a simple fact, a small blackberry ca not beat a good real apple.

let’s watch the video.

Audi and rivals

As we all know, the car industry has a high level of competition, especially in marketing.

Each brand tries to be the first one in the customer’s mind.

Thus, advertising can be considered as the war weapon of the automotive industry.

“Audi”, as apart of the competition, launch a campaign.

The main message of it is that it is the king of the market.

It has all features and no one can beat it.

Toward social media, the use of trends in competitions

With the increased usage of social media, brands use it as a channel of appearance.

Creating business pages on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, snap chat and any other platforms discovered to reach their audience.

Also, through social media and the digital world, you can what your competitor does, and you can have a faster response ever.

Thus the war goes digital!

Todo and Cadbury

“Todo” is a cake product line for “Edita” Company.

“Todo” follows a sarcastic and fun content strategy in communicating their fans.

By using their character, it creates social media trends in Egypt.

At the beginning of 2018, “Cadbury Egypt” made a new campaign “free and joy” using a new lovely and cute aliens character.

Most of the “Cadbury’s” fans love this campaign.

As this campaign spread and got attention, todo wants to take this advantage.

By mentioning the campaign in a fun and creative way.

https://www.facebook.com/todohatozbot/photos/a.317098558351964/1667671033294703/?type=3

This post went very rapid on social media.

Fans of both brands started to like, comment, and share this post.

As the war began on social media, “Cadbury” replied on social media using the same strategy that “Todo” use.

What makes this beat as the most creative one ever is that both replied with memes from famous films that people love.

https://www.facebook.com/CadburyEgypt/photos/a.282519691763078/1918179118197119/?type=3&theater

This war did not end, literally did not end!

“Todo” did not stop replying to “Cadbury” and they use a smart idea.

Not only use a meme from a famous film but also mentioning the campaign by putting the aliens’ characters.

https://www.facebook.com/todohatozbot/photos/a.780279358700546/1670562896338850/?type=3&theater

After this war became a trend on facebook, all brands enter this beat.

Some want to get the aliens’ free courses, others want to treat them and so on.

Every brand tried to be on the social trend to get more attention and be on track.

What are brand wars from a brand’s point of view?

As a consumer, you can see all these ads and printed posts as funny and lovely responds.

You might think that brands want to catch your eyes and gain more likes, comments, and shares (as the competition now on social media).

However, as a brand owner’s point of view, he wants to make brand positioning among the competition.

Instead of making a normal advertisement that might not reach your audience, the brand focuses on its advantage and refers to its rivals.

Mentioning how others in the industry did not have those advantages (As most of the above examples shown)

And then the war started.

The most common thing between all wars is that the reply is very smart, rapid and simple.

As you can notice most of the replies used the same concept of the main campaign. They only changed the message.

How to win this Game?

First, you must know your competitive advantages.

Know what your brand does great and enhance it.

You have to define the purpose of your campaign and the strategy you will use.

Remember you have to be smart and creative about applying your strategy.

Second, know will what your competitors do well.

You have to know what your competitor great on and how you can differentiate yourself from them.

Keep your eye on them.

Always know what they do.

And ALWAYS have fast and smart respond if they start the game.

Finally, make what you can do seems bigger, bigger than your competitor can do.

Summary

From the traditional era to the digital world, as capitalistic competition continues, brand wars will be a traditional work.

Whether you are a consumer or work for any brand side and your work is part of the game.

Always you will enjoy the brand’s competitions and its wars.

Did you recognize a recent war campaign between any brands?

If yes, share it with us.