Rival brands: friendly competition or battle that neither can ever win?

I have to agree with the age old phrase "competition drives innovation". The worlds best-marketed brands all seem to have one strong rival with each brand constantly trying to out-market the other. It  is these brands which I find fascinating and it is even more interesting to consider whether brands in fact, benefit from these huge rivalries.

Directly targeting or responding to the competition is highly common in marketing efforts, I have seen it in my own industry, telecoms, with ads such as these:

3 hit out at Vodafone customers with this banned ad

Vodafone's ad promising a Fixed Price for your entire contract

However, there are far more famous and controversial rivalries:

1. McDonalds vs Burger King

As I mentioned, innovation is key in beating your rivals and due to the fact that McDonalds and Burger King's value propositions are fairly homogeneous, there is a lot of mimicking from both sides. Big Mac, Whopper... are there really many differences? Both brands have sued each other for copyright infringement on a number of occasions. 

Burger King actually made a peace offering for just one day in this story, which was swiftly rejected by McDonalds!  However, what a great bit of PR for BK anyway, making them look like the soft, underdog!

2. Pepsi vs Coca-Cola

Perhaps one of the most historic rivalries, dating back to the early 1900s, and the creativity behind the rival campaigns is fantastic.

Pepsi are definitely more aggressive in their competitive attitude through advertising, but unfortunately Coke have held on to the top spot. Coke has become a name to replace the cola industry as a whole- who goes in to a bar and says "Can I have a vodka and Pepsi?". Coca-cola tend to stick to their traditional roots in terms of branding whereas Pepsi go modernistic, proving that being true to your roots pays off. Coke markets happiness with their 'Share a coke' campaign or their new slogan 'Taste the feeling', whereas Pepsi go for a 'cool' vibe with collaborations with NFL and David Beckham.

3. Apple vs Samsung

Samsung are definitely the Pepsi of the mobile technology world. Their dig at Apple (and Apple customers) below, indicates their willingness to take on the rivalry first hand:

You are often asked; are you an Apple or a Samsung person and it's rare that people switch between the two. I am an Apple user but of course since working at Vodafone my eyes have been opened to the world of Android and how much Android devices can really do. However, if you compare Samsung and Apple's marketing spend vs market share, the true stats really become clear:
Samsung: £8.4bn of marketing spend 19.9% of smartphone market share 15% of total operating income of smartphone makers Apple: £1bn of marketing spend 14.6% of smartphone market share 92% of total operating income of smartphone makers
Whilst Samsung make phones to suit lots of markets, providing lower-range cheap smartphones as well as your S6 Edge's to a premium market, the numbers really do show that Apple's smaller range, however highly targeted to those who expect more from their phones, really does pay off. 

Hope you enjoyed this post, let me know your favourite brand rivalries, tweet me at @stefclarkx