Expertise Marketplace - Professional Service Firm Marketing Blog

Where are the clients in Competitive Intelligence?

Last night, I saw a 30-second TV ad called "Business: Inspiration" on Visa's new "Life takes Visa" campaign. Maybe my brain has been cramped these past few days, but I reacted as negatively to this pitch as I did to seeing yesterday the marcom materials for Jeffrey Gitomer's new book.  (And I'm a Visa card holder, too.) 

The spot features several scenes of business people in a meeting; each scene features what appears to be professional services people wondering what another firm would do, supposedly about solving a particular business challenge.  Each spot strongly implies that competitors are being discussed.   

Gag.  My reaction is strongly negative to almost everything about this ad.

• The title of the spot is awful.  There's nothing inspirational about what's going on in these scenes.  Each meeting's attendees look bewildered, and the visual props imply that these business people are only playing catch up.  I've never seen any business professional become inspired by being a copycat. 
• What is Visa's point?  We are supposed to think that "Life takes Visa." After watching the people in the ad ask "What would the other guys do," are we supposed to think that they will rush out and use their Visa cards to beat the other firms at the same game?   It just doesn't make sense. 
• The whole notion of asking "what would the other guys do" implies an orientation toward competitive intelligence.  Yeah, competitive intelligence is a great idea, but certainly not under the circumstances this ad portrays:  last minute, scrambling, clueless.  If I were their competitive intelligence consultant, I'd put a halt to the meeting immediately and try to set them on a more strategic journey about researching competitors.

This whole issue brings me to a larger point about competitive intelligence.  Why, oh why, would any professional service firm undertake competitive intelligence efforts and not include the clients?  So many firms display almost morbid interest in their competitors; it seems they have forgotten where the most valuable intelligence really lies, and that is with clients! "Really," I'd say to anyone interested in undertaking competitive intelligence, "when would any such effort not include client perceptions about the competitors' emerging capabilities and how those competencies match up with the clients' evolving needs?" 

Drinking the Competitive Intelligence Kool-Aid®

Today's Boston Globe features an article "Law Firms Learn How to Compete" that is sure to cause a roar amongst local and national law firms alike: it's the sound of copycats revving up their competitive engines.

On one hand, I'm thrilled to see a journalist writing things like "Rivalry forces attorneys to act like a business," and "At last, law firms are studying their market."  Yippee, and kudos to staff writer Sacha Pfeiffer for putting a focus on this very important issue.  This could have been an article for architects, management consultants, executive search firms - well, pick your sector. They're all waking up to the power of competitive intelligence. 

On the other hand, I'm concerned.  While professional service firms are beginning to understand that there is "competition" out there, I fear that there could be too much focus on rivals.  Competitive intelligence is great, but it's not enough to drink the competitive intelligence Kool Aid® without studying the rest of the market -- the clients!