Know-How Exchange : Student Questions

It's not clear what you are trying to accomplish. Is this a homework assignment? We have done several projects for major clients that involved Blue Ocean Strategy, but never have we been asked to find someone using Red Ocean Strategy.

See: https://www.dialoguemarketinggroup.com/pages/CorpEnv/CE-blueocean.html

Please email me by clicking on my name for information off-forum.

We have a problem here. The Red Ocean Strategy - the world of fixed market places where everything is cutthroat - isn't actually a strategy. It is a fearful reaction to the world outside their office door.

The Blue Ocean Strategy is a different concept. However, there are no foundations for it. Which is where it gets dangerous for inside-the-box-thinkers. Thinking outside the box is a lot harder than most people imagine. As Mr. Goodman says on his linked to page, most people either find themselves at the edges of their box, or inside another. Outside the box thinking is so radical that most Westerners haven't a clue what it is about. Most westerners wouldn't know it even if they saw it. How do I know? Because I teach it.

You can find out more on my website.

From Wikipedia "Blue oceans, in contrast, denote all the industries not in existence today – the unknown market space, untainted by competition." - the problem here is that there is no evidence for things that do not exist. Determining something by its absence is like asking the lookouts on the Titanic to find an iceberg when there was literally nothing to see whatsoever. All they could see was the stars above. Even the horizon was absent. A while later they realized that two stars had vanished. Then four.

Why?

Determining something by exclusion is not for the unready. You can make a good number of costly mistakes before giving up in despair.

My point in saying all this is that Blue Ocean strategy is trying to rationalize something that isn't rational. It might be sensible, it is not rational. How do you deal with something that is irrational? You need a manner of thinking that is in itself irrational. That is to say, unbounded by the limits of reason. Reason is of necessity limited. That means it is boxed. If you get the analogy.

Something can be irrational whilst still retaining form. Statistics are as good an example as any of the rational mind trying to tie down the irrational. Wherever you find statistics or irrational numbers (!) you find life. It is unpredictable, you can still say that whilst a carrot is alive, it is definitely a carrot. No two carrots in the entirety of creation will ever be identical.

That nothing in the universe is identical does not stop people trying to isolate and stultify this abundance by trying to rationalize it all. That blind watchmaker isn't blind and he isn't a watchmaker. Some people just think he is because he was winding his clock when they got to see him.

ON TOPIC: if you are to break out of any tight situation, logic will not help you. Mr. Goodman's "strategy that moves the lever by an order of magnitude" will always - that is always - include some aspect that is emotional. Feelings here are central. The feelings of your clients most of all. They might not agree with you if they are Westerners, I grew up in Asia and have a different viewpoint. Their decisions will still be emotional ones. They might not agree with you, that is irrelevant. Understand what motivates their decision making and you tap the source.

Because this is the realm where Blue Oceans and Red Oceans become the reality of the marketplace you - and your competitors - serve. Emotions are the key.

Next question, please. Moriarty xx

1) regarding - "I need company who using red ocean strategy ..". It seems that most all of the Fortune 1000 companies play in red oceans. Cell phones, and particularly "smart phones" manufacturers, are in red oceans. Apple and Samsung together dominate the smart phone market today. Owning the number one or two position in highly competitive markets is a good thing. Just not great for start ups or new laterals.

2) Blue ocean strategies are not a new concept. Again Apple launched the iPod as a blue ocean strategy, of sorts. There were very few MP3 player competitors in what could be described as a small revenue "red pond" until Apple revolutionized this market with the iPod and iTunes. Technology breakthroughs frequently drive blue ocean strategies.

The "nightime cold medicine" market segment didn't exists until "NyQuil, The Nighttime Cold Medicine" was launched. Ries and Trout described this new virgin segment as a new ladder of competitors, and because no other brands were on the nighttime ladder, it was a blue ladder.

3) Is the Model T Ford assembly line story a blue ocean story?

Words, metaphors and stories change, and they should change as time and new thinking moves marketing forward, but the basics are still the basics in marketing.