The Innovator vs. The Disrupter!

My blog assignment this week is for Consumer Behavior and it's an analysis on the Top Dog vs. The Underdog brands. The top dogs are usually the market leaders. They are your Coca Cola, Ford and GM, Apple (modern day Apple) Mars Candies, Annheuser - Busch, brands like that. You see their products prominently on shelf spaces in grocery stores, quick shops, and super centers.

The disrupters are the underdogs, they saw a product and tried to make it different or better in some way. Apple became a top dog but started as a disrupter with a new style of computer and a new operating system. Microsoft was, or perhaps still is, the market leader and therefore the top dog still in the personal computing/operating system game. However at one time they were also the disrupter! They started with DOS, made a graphics based interface and called it Windows and then that turned the world upside down!

Apple could not even come close to competing with Windows and Microsoft grew into one of the best top dogs of all time. Apple stayed a niche product at best until they turned the world upside down with a handheld device that disrupted everything in the iPhone. They became the dominant company they are today because of that and are clearly top dogs in their industry now.

There is a clear difference in marketing strategy used by the top dog and the underdog. The top dog strategy is very clearly put by saying, "This works, we are dependable, we are always here, we are always reliable, no reason to change." They know they have the shelf space, market share, and have developed their product or service to the point where they are at their optimal.

The underdog strategy is, "We are new! We are exciting! We innovate! We are the future and you should join us!" They are disrupting the status quo, they give the Pepsi Challenge, they shake up the market, and they put themselves in front of your eyes constantly for your attention.

The next question for my assignment is to provide three recommendations on how an underdog can surpass the top dog. I've given one, Apple focused on a market that Microsoft ignored, the cell phone, and became a very big top dog! Microsoft struggled to produce any cell phones worth a mention, the same thing happened to the Microsoft Zune, basically an iPod style device that just never took off.

However Microsoft does own one segment that Apple has never attempted, the home game console. The X Box is a monster product! They came to the market when Nintendo was slipping away quietly with a next generation product that was so innovative that it rescued the home gaming market from another bust like after Atari went bankrupt. Microsoft is no slouch by any means and still have top dog product lines but they fail as well from time to time.

Another recommendation for an underdog to become a top dog is to stay embrace technology. You know what the status quo is of your product, it's time to think of it in a new way. It's time to take the old Ford approach to Model T colors (you can have any color you want as long as it's black) and make something hot rod red metaphorically speaking. Innovators, underdogs, disrupters need to embrace new technology. Technology is constantly changing, to the point that change is the only constant. Find technology to innovate your product, make it faster, make it higher quality, make it cheaper and you'll find your inner top dog! Maybe it's a new flavor combination for a potato chip no one has tried before. Maybe it's the Ranch Dressing innovator upstart that's about to take on long time established and top dog Thousand Island for the title of best dressing in the world. Think about your product a bit differently, maybe you can revolutionize your underdog into a top dog!

 Innovate! The top dogs were innovators once! Be the innovative leader and you can become the top dog! Take the NBA for example, teams used to run set piece offenses in the 1970's, if you watch the game replays now you might die of boredom. Pat Reilly build a team that was stat heavy and innovated offense with "The Showtime Lakers" in the 80's and started to dominate the game with a free flowing offense that accounted for much more offense than other teams were able to replicate or produce! They were exciting to watch even for the casual fan.

That team was a disrupter and quickly became a top dog to the point where today's modern NBA offenses are free flowing, reads, pick and rolls, and isolation offenses produce over a hundred points on average!

Why do I believe consumers choose the top dog over the underdog? That's pretty easy, people are creatures of habit. The more they grow the more they want to plan ahead and avoid surprises. They don't want the car to break down on the side of the road so they buy brands that are reliable. Brands that always start when you turn the key on. That's why I probably drink Bud Light (when I can't afford Lagavulin that is, which as a working class college student, not often) I see Bud Light along side Natty Light, Coors Light, Miller Lite, Michelob Ultra, and I generally pick Bud Light. It's tasty, drinkable, common, affordable and there's no surprises. You know what you are getting and sometimes that's good enough for me.