Marketing and Flank Attack Strategy - Essay Example

To capture and expand their entire market share, the prevailing organizations must put, in place attack techniques, to protect their current business. Kotler & Keller (2012) demonstrates that due to varying marketing circumstances, long-term market leaders, have to redesign continuously and restructure their marketing strategies depending on market conditions and levels of their product life cycle. The best way to attack a category leader is to avoid a head-on assault and adopt a flanking movement; this is when the challenger attacks the point of weakness in the leader’s defense.

According to Kotler & Keller (2012), the flank attack strategy is appropriate and best suitable to a competitor who lacks depth in resources; the marketer has to recognize areas where the category leader shows weaknesses and fails to perform with a view of capitalizing on the gaps. A good example is the “Independent News & Media Company”, which exceedingly sells newspapers and magazine titles in thriving economic regions while overpowering the internet, its main competitor that boosts vast numbers of newspaper readers and advertisers.

Further, marketers can employ the front attack strategy in dealing with category leaders by discovering uncovered market demands. For instance, Ariat’s Cowboy Boots has faced challenges presented to its target market as a result of key category leaders such as Justin boots designing boots, which are not only comfortable but also used for sporting. Moreover, Groucutt, Leadley & Forsyth (2006) elucidate that, market leaders can identify unattended market needs that originate from market shifts by creating market openings in the category leaders. The authors cite an example of the Japanese car producers who employed the flanking movement strategy to introduce, in the USA and European marketplaces, to achieve huge success in the industry.

When marketers experience challenges from competitors’ momentous price cut tactics, increased advertising and promotional techniques, or the introduction of a new product in their target market, to attain success, market leaders can implement a flank attack strategy against category leaders to minimize the threats (Kotler & Keller, 2012). Marketers, through carefully exploring for loopholes and gaps in the leader’s amour, exploit the identified weaknesses to win. The flank movement strategy has been successful in the United States by Cadillac motors against Mercedes Benz, which strongly dominated the market with its superior model. The Cadillac Company responded to the situation by producing a different model called Seville, which Cadillac claimed to offer both an exciting comfort experience and presented additional features compared to the Mercedes model (Wilson & Gilligan, 2007).

Organizations seek to increase continuously their overall market share to increase profitability and ensure future survival. Market leaders should analyze critically their category leaders, and evaluate given objectives when choosing an appropriate attack strategy. A flank attack strategy is suitable when allocating uncovered market demands and when taking advantage of gaps exposed by category leaders.