MARKETING AFRICA MAL 18/17 mal 18:17 online | Page 8
‘‘ It makes sense to
let the market leader
move first; because
you can always adjust
your prices later to
consistently keep
that price gap and
price position. There
are consequences
of moving first.
The leader may not
follow. That means
your products may
suddenly be more
expensive than those
of the leader and
customers won’t buy,
can’t buy.’’
The market leader may move their
prices to take their usual number 1
position, but may reduce the price
gap. That means their product may
now become more attractive to
your target customers and you lose
sales and share.
You may be tempted to adjust the
prices to correct the price gap, but
that is not good for sales. Both
the trade and consumers don’t like
frequent and sudden price changes.
Following or copying has its good
and bad sides. Some people just
copy exams and they never get
caught, and they even pass with
flying colors. China has copied and
succeeded, Ole Sankan copies, and
06 MAL 18/17 ISSUE
he often succeeds. I nevertheless
copied and failed.
Let me tell you my personal
experience from college days. I did
not get ready for this Accounting
Continuous Assessment Exam,
commonly knowns as a CAT. In
the exam room therefore, I had to
sit next to an Accounting guru. The
exam started, and I also started.
I quickly went through the paper
once. I was absolutely clueless.
The guy next to me was seriously
calculating stuff and writing. I
decided to copy from him. I went
ahead and copied 2 answers. I
was feeling pretty good with the
progress. I even took a stretch
break.
I looked up, stretched, and
observed how the others were
going on. Soon after that, my lead
also took a break. But his was a bit
disturbing. He looked up, cursed a
bit, took his pen and cancelled his
2 answers that I had copied.
Have you ever felt like slapping
an innocent guy for misleading
you? I gave him that look of, ‘what
the heck are you doing?” He just
shrugged his shoulders and moved
on. Anyway, I decided to go with
what I had copied since I was so
‘empty’ I couldn’t recreate anything
else at that point.
consumers.
Distinctive features of a familiar
brand’s packaging are hijacked
in order to dupe shoppers into
buying something they believe
to be that brand, made by the
brand manufacturer or sharing the
reputation of that brand.
The designers of such packaging
tend to ensure that they do not
infringe intellectual property rights
such as trade mark and design
rights and a passing off action
is very difficult and expensive to
bring.
Be careful though because besides
legal consequences, the leader may
play skunk. When chased by an
enemy, a skunk unleashes ‘tear-
gas’ like farts, that put the enemy
into disarray. Just like the skunk,
a market leader can set you up for
failure.
There is this one time McGrath,
the large scale Narok wheat farmer,
started to plant wheat, just like
my guy in the exam room, he
stopped half way at a time when
Ole Sankan had already finished
planting his 5 acres.
The season failed and Ole Sankan
lost. In business, a follower may
go up in price first, but the price
leader holds. The follower loses.
When the results came, as you
would expect, I got the least marks
awarded just to recognize effort.
That was the first, and the last time
I copied. You could, unintentionally, also
get misled. This happens a lot to
Kenyans who go asking everyone
in the streets for business ideas.
There is this Peter guy I met.
Copying is also not new in
Marketing. Copying packaging
of familiar brands with strong
reputations has been around
for ages. According to a British
Brands Group Report, “Parasitic
(or copycat) packaging has been
used by competitors to boost
sales by confusing and misleading I had gone to his hotel for lunch
and I was tired. He wanted to
know what business I do as a side
hustle. I decided to create a story
just to see how long I can hold a
lie.
So, I told him I operate camel
rides in key weekend spots in