ANALYSIS OF COMPETITION 1. Competitive tendencies.—Before a manufac turer starts to advertise, he should consider carefully competition. Competition must always be met even by the manufacturer who fancies he is protected by a patent. The advertising of a patented article must fight two kinds, of competition: first, competition of the old article or method which the new invention is designed to supplant; second, competition of imita tors who are sure to appear on the scene.
When the Dayton Engineering Laboratories Company produced the self-starter for automobiles, its first competition was with the old cranking method. The second class of competition soon appeared, and within a year there were over fifty other organizations claiming original patents and manufacturing self starters.
Until recently competition was thought to be the mother of advertising. The man with few or no competitors said: "Why advertise when I get all the business, anyway?" This was in the days when advertising was used purely as a competitive weapon, before the educational power of publicity had begun to be appreciated. Now, many business houses that seemingly have monopoly of their respective fields, spend large sums in advertising, partly to increase the use of their goods or service, partly to create good-will for themselves and their products, and partly to forestall the advertising of competitors who may appear in any line. The best kind of advertis ing is that which is constructive and educational rather than that which is purely competitive.
2. Imitation of competitors undesirable.—Some advertisers do nothing but copy their competitors. This policy seems to be just as disastrous as the policy of not considering competition at all. It is difficult to obtain reliable information in regard to one's com petitors. Most of the so-called information is mere gossip. There is a vast between spending one's time gossiping about one's competitors and spending one's money to prepare careful estimates and to obtain reliable information about them.
Too many manufacturers are prone to sweep aside the question of competition with the egotistical asser tion, "We have no competitors."• The fact that a concern may make an article of inferior quality to yours, or at a different price, is no proof that it does not compete with you in the market.
3. Comparison of quality.—The man who adver tises should know exactly the advantages or disad vantages he has with respect to each of his competi tors. He should analyze the quality of his product
and the products of his competitors point by point and piece by piece.
A manufacturer of candies obtains all the different brands of his competitors, and assembles them in lit tle groups on a table without the boxes or other fea tures which might indicate their origin. He then has his tasters test the quality. Next, his chemists an alyze the ingredients. He studies the shape of each chocolate cream from the standpoint of appear ance. In each test the different products are graded and a relative value is given for each test. He also makes a test of the appearance of the package and the appearance of the labels, attempting to come to an unbiased decision. If these tests do not show his products to be superior in every particular, he sets his manufacturing department to work to obtain superi ority. He does not leave competition to guess work.
4. Making the product customer will perceive your article thru his or her senses. The more attractive it is to any of his senses, the easier will be your sale. With such conditions as food and toilet articles, which have an intimate relation to the body, the more senses to which they can be made to appeal, the greater will be the manufacturer's competitive ad vantages.
There are many bath powders on the market. The principal advantage to be obtained from a bath powder is its property of softening the water. The raw material from which bath powders are made is not particularly attractive to the sight. The manu facturer whose chemist has found a way of putting his bath powder up in white crystals or as a soft, white powder which is attractive both to sight and to touch, has an advantage over his competitors. The raw material is odorless. The manufacturer who has per fumed his finished product obtains a still greater ad vantage over competitors. The reaction of the crys tals in the water is ordinarily not visible to the naked eye. The manufacturer who has succeeded in making the perfumed crystals effervesce when they enter the water, has added another appeal to the Thru the study of the senses this manufacturer has so improved his product from the standpoint of its ac ceptance by the consumer that one can apparently feel, see, smell and bear the powder as it does its interesting work.