Co-opetition Advertising

In India, the ad agencies fight shy of taking another competitive account of the product category they are advertising, say if they are handling a particular chocolate company’s account, they are shut out from handling an account of a rival chocolate company. At the most, they can set up separate business entities, which then can accept the rival’s account. Japanese advertising has adopted the concept of co-opetition which is co-operative competition. They handle several competitive accounts together. Adam and Barry’s book co-opetition in 1996 advocated this ideology that is directly from the game theory. It is accommodative co-existence in business. In recent years agencies have emulated this model. They avoided this under the pretext that the clients are uncomfortable. But why be uncomfortable? If CAs and lawyers can handle competitive business, why the ad agencies cannot? Ad agencies must gain experience in handling a product category by accepting competitive brands for promotion. Co-opetition is a global reality.

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