'Kuzushi' strategy - Lessons in de-positioning competitors from Shopify & TikTok
In most sports, power, size and strength are usually enough to win.
In jiu-jitsu, these advantages are often used against you.
Ever heard of 'kuzushi'?
It refers to the ability to throw an opponent off balance by using their own strengths (like weight and momentum) against them.
It's a sort of jiu-jitsu 'jedi mind trick' that relies on
'Kuzushi' can apply in business too. It makes sense to attack an achilles heel if you want to de-position a big competitor.
Occupying the mind
In marketing parlance, we refer to how a brand portrays itself in the market as 'positioning'.
It refers to how you want customers to think about your product/service/brand relative to competitors (i.e., the position you want your brand to occupy in the target market’s mind).
It's about how you differentiate your brand in the mind.
It uses over simplified messages to cut through the clutter.
It tries to focus a customer's attention on positive perceptions, whether they're totally truthful or not.
Some of the language around 'positioning' is a bit overwrought. 'Sharpian' marketing disciples might rubbish the related idea of brand led differentiation.
But a sharp positioning can give direction and focus to how a company acts and what it says. It can influence product development, affect wider business decisions and offer a leader a clear narrative which Wall Street loves.
By definition all positioning is 'competitive' to some degree. No brand exists in a vacuum.
But some brands also choose to go one step further. They engage in more active attempts to downplay or relegate a competitor.
Scott Galloway calls this 'laddering' - an attempt to de-position the competition by simply saying 'we're this and the other crew are the opposite'.
All the better if you have some tangible evidence.
It's sort of like a 'two birds with one stone' approach like the 'kuzushi' concept - observe your opponent, identify weakness and use it to push them down and propel yourself upwards.
The classic 'original gangster' move in this space was Avis making a big play out of being 'number two' in the car hire category which means they 'try harder' compared to Hertz.
Think about Burger King's attempts to dethrone McDonald's with all kinds of weird and wonderful stunts.
Or think Apple positioning itself as a brand that cares about privacy, unlike those nasty Facebook and Google dudes.
Sir Martin Sorrell has literally created a billion dollar valued agency group (S4 Capital) based on a clear 'de-positioning' his former employer WPP. His relentless messaging around 'digital first', 'faster, better, cheaper', 'speed' and 'single bottom line' are clear barbs against the massive, slow moving agency group he founded.
Obviously this doesn't work for every business.
For an incumbent market leader, it's risky business to publicly call out a competitor. Why punch down when you're on top? It can be seen as gratuitous and you might even risk relegating yourself in the mind of a consumer. Most of the time, you should probably stay on the moral high ground. Nobody likes a bully.
But for an insurgent challenger, it's a no brainer. Why not try to make a bit of noise, rattle some cages and get the public questioning the big guy? Everybody loves a little guy throwing rocks at a big 'un.
Two of the most interesting recent examples of 'laddering' in the last 12 months have come from two of the most exciting and fast growing tech brands in the world, TikTok and Shopify.
Let's examine what they've done.
Shopify - the good shop to Amazon's bad shop
A friendly Canadian company that's built to 'empower small businesses online'.
What's not to love about Shopify?
Well that's certainly the message they want investors, customers and buyers to internalise.
To create this feeling Shopify have been incredibly direct in going after Amazon and placing themselves firmly in corner of the 'little guy'.
Their positioning is to be everything Amazon isn't - pro small business and a platform instead of a competitor.
According to The Guardian, Shopify is the 'good shop to Amazon's bad shop'.
Shopify publicly seeks to facilitate, empower and offer a platform to business owners.
They've cleverly played into concerns around Amazon, namely that they're a giant behemoth monopolising e-commerce that uses data dropped by the small brands who sell on their platform to develop new 'knock off' private label products.
On social, they've hilariously taken aim at Amazon on a few occasions:
Shopify also uses video content and advertising to re-enforce this position, haloing small business owners and developing guides and tools that help small e-commerce businesses grow.
But crucially, Shopify also walks the walk in how it acts.
Apart from Shopify’s payment transaction fee (which is circa 2.4%), Shop doesn't charge brands commission to rent space on the platform. By comparison, Amazon charges fees of between 7% and 45%.
For developers on the Shopify platform, the company recently announced that there will be no fees charged on the first $1m they make through the Shopify app store.
While Jeff Bezos once famously said that 'your margin is my opportunity', Shopify's mantra is the opposite:
This messaging runs throughout all corporate communications and CEO Tobi Lutke came out with a brilliant line that encapsulates the positioning:
'Amazon is trying to build an empire. Shopify is trying to arm the rebels.'
A great example of 'kuzushi'.
TikTok's attempt to deposition 'traditional' advertising
Unlike Shopify, TikTok isn't trying to dethrone a specific company.
Rather it's trying to dethrone a dominant media mix and an approach to advertising spending that has existed for two decades.
TikTok is taking aim at traditional advertising (particularly TV) and trying to take a massive chunk of the multi billion dollar global market.
Having seen huge user growth (reportedly reaching 3 billion downloads) during the pandemic, TikTok came out with the subtle but provocative like 'Don't make ads, make TikToks', in an attempt to catch the eye of marketers and media buyers looking for a new way to reach people.
Implicitly, TikTok is saying that the old way of doing things is null and void and there's a totally new, exciting and different way to advertise that's an evolution on what's gone before.
Whether that's true or not (I would say it's definitely not, but that's irrelevant to the point), it's a smart, competitive consistent message that helps set them apart.
Like we said above, it serves to differentiate the brand using over simplified messages that focus the customer's (in this case ad spenders) attention on positive perceptions, whether they're totally truthful or not.
Here's a great example of what I mean. This could almost be a case study video for how to subtly de-position of a competitor.
TikTok have used two of TV's biggest stars in Ant & Dec in a piece of video that clearly says 'our platform is the next evolution of entertainment (and therefore advertising)'.
This works both for both broadening reach of the app to new audiences, but also as a 'signalling' device to potential advertisers.
It basically says 'get onto our platform or you'll be left behind in the previous era'.
Smart stuff and if you look closely, it's another example of 'kuzushi'.
Achilles Heel
So what's the big takeaway if you're a marketer thinking about how you position yourself in a category?
It might be worth thinking about taking aim at your competitor's achilles heel and going hard on an opposing message.
What's something that people care about that you can say you're good at while spikily downplaying a competitor's credibility in this area?
There's nothing new or innovative about this strategic approach. It's as old as Sun Tzu.
But it's a tried and tested approach to claw your way up the competitive ladder.
Shane O'Leary
Marketing Consultant
3yElijah Swart