Marketing strategies: 3 different competitive advantages

High competition in the vodka market: different flavors, ingredients, and origins

Each one wants to have the best brand awareness, market share, but also always attract new consumers, keep the old ones, and earn the most money they can.

To express a unique and specific difference, the different brands need to make the right choice for marketing strategy and communications link to their products and identity.

To create impact on consumer choices, every company try to define the best the consumer’s needs and expectations, so they can create a more precious link between the company and the customers: the competitive advantage

For it to be shown, the company can use different channels depend on the target, and the message they want to communicate.

The aim of our three brands: Grey Goose, Belvédère and Absolut, is the same; they want to create a strong marketing that stays in minds, that people like and talk about.

Grey Goose choice a specific positioning by presenting the products as the best quality vodka in the market. With this differentiation, Grey Goose avoids the equivalence between its brand and any other one. Its main characteristics is the French lifestyle with elegance and perfectionism, the innovative techniques and flavors with the real taste of vodka but without the old-fashion point of view.

By its communication, Grey Goose wants to stick in the consumer’s mind that it is a premium quality, so they use only channels like magazines, international airports or their own website, to keep to privilege and rarity aspects of the product. With black and white ads, very chic, in fancy places, during dinners or cocktail parties with just the color on the bottle, Grey Goose continue to increase its high quality and respectful image on consumers mind. Also they make sure that VIP places, like fancy hotels, has their new products by creating partnership, and their make private event in Grey Goose name for sporting or celebrities.

Belvedere is the direct competitor for Grey Goose, both are high quality vodka, with special flavors and targeted un higher population and type of buyers. Belvedere knows that it has to find a way to make the brand different from Grey Goose in people’s mind.

They propose vodka tasting to make people see that it is more than a simple vodka, that the taste make all the difference, and that their taste is the better. They insist on the real vodka spirit, since it is distillate in Poland.

But for the communication, Belvedere decides to strike big. For them, to increase the popularity of the brand we have to talk about it, even if it is not in a good way, Belvedere wants to be provocative and surprising. That’s why they create a new communication campaign with provocative message that will chock people, for example one about rape that had really bad follow up, but we talked about them.

Absolut is making an important difference by the big and impressive campaign it creates every time by attractive advertisements, promotions and narrowed products on women needs, but also by creating original added values to ads, like headphone in a bus station. Absolut knows how to create a buzz and how to stick in people’s mind with color, dynamism and young attitude. Indeed, Absolut decide to target everyday young people, not VIP or very chic people; the image of the brand is simpler and more accessible.

The company’s website is another way of communicating with the audience throughout the creation of web programs that enable the viewers to create their own mini movies.

Absolut also differentiate the brand by been associated to diverse causes: charitable events, or gay events. 

 

Laure

Sources:
http://www.absolutad.com/absolut_about/history/advertising/
http://www.adweek.com/adfreak/belvedere-vodka-apologizes-rapey-ad-facebook-139162
http://www.greygoose.com/en/us/advertising