Brand Relevance: Making Competitors Irrelevant - always yours

32 BRAND RELEVANCE
innovation. Or there could be organizational limitations. Many
retailers attempted to duplicate Nordstrom ’ s customer service
but were unsuccessful because, although they could copy what
Nordstrom did, they could not duplicate what Nordstrom was as
an organization — its people, incentives, culture, and processes.
Competitors may also be unwilling to respond. They may
believe that the new business is simply too small to be worthwhile,
that it might cannibalize their existing business, or that
it could tarnish their brands. All these concerns inhibited Xerox
in the 1970s from entering the emerging low - end desktop copiers
that were being offered by Canon, even though Xerox had
access to one from its Japanese affi liate Fuji - Xerox. The result
was an erosion in the Xerox business from the bottom up as
Canon and others extended their product lines upward.
Perhaps the most important potential advantage of a fi rst
mover is to represent the category or subcategory and thus shape
if not defi ne it. The fi rst mover will be able to highlight and
frame the key associations. Others will then have to adapt to
the fi rst mover ’ s conceptualization. Further, once the fi rst mover
has taken control of the category or subcategory, it has the ability
to change its defi nition over time to refl ect its innovation
thereby creating a moving target.
The term fi rst mover refers to an entry that is able to get traction
for the new category or subcategory, an early market leader
that is seldom the pioneer of that category. The pioneer, the
very fi rst entree, is usually an insignifi cant player because it lacks
fi nancial resources to make an impact, it has an offering fl aw,
enabling technology is not there yet, or the market is not ready
for the new offering. Research on category after category demonstrates
that the pioneer is rarely the early market leader but
rather is swamped by a player that has resources and has created
a superior offering. Such pioneers as Dreft in laundry detergent,
Gablinger ’ s in light beer, Royal Crown Cola in diet colas, Star
in safety razors, Ampex in video recorders, Chux in disposable
diapers, and Harvard Graphics in presentation software did not