Developing strategies to beat your competitors is an important activity for all marketers. However it can be obfuscated by staid analyses and CYA internal politics. This exercise provides an outlet for your team to utilize their knowledge of your industry and the competitive players to help you develop innovative strategies of attack. No, this isn’t some “team-building” paintball exercise. This activity is far more applicable to your immediate business challenges, but still very fun.
You do need a fairly large group for this. You’ll be breaking them up into 4 groups. Each group needs a minimum of 2 members.
One group will represent your company. Two of the other groups will represent your two biggest competitors. The final group will represent your target audience.
Allow each group a day to do some research on their respective group.
Your company: Review past marketing efforts
Competitors: Research the company, products, positioning, advertising, etc. – anything that gives them a better understanding of the company
Target Audience: If you’ve developed Persona Profiles for your target audience(s), have them study that. If not, you should really develop Persona Profiles. But that’s ok, at least make sure they understand your target and have them do a little research on your product category. Not a lot, just as much as a normal consumer.
Now, it’s time for the actual “war games.” Break the teams up in a conference room, so they can have a little room from each other.
The “your company” team goes first. Give them 5 minutes to think of a new advertising campaign. When they’re done, have them present it to the rest of the groups.
The “target audience” group will grade on a scale of 1-10 how much they feel the advertising campaign would get them to buy your product.
Now, it’s the “competitor” teams turn. Give them 10 minutes to come up with marketing tactics to combat the advertising campaign. During this time, “your company” has the opportunity to talk to the “target audience” team about why they scored what they scored.
When the “competitors” are ready, have them present their ideas.
Again the “target audience” will score their tactics overall.
In the next round “your company” and the “competitors will have a chance to come up with more marketing tactics for 10 minutes. Each team has the opportunity to talk to the “target audience” group.
At the end of the time, each group presents and is scored again.
Do this for about 3 rounds to gain more innovative ideas, which are likely to come towards the end.
The team with the most points at the end wins.
After the game is completed have an open discussion with the whole group about how the winning team won to discover new competitive strategies for your company.
This exercise allows your team to play out your competitive landscape to gain insights to help you in the “real war.”