<\/p>\n
You might win. Then what?<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n ” We need to be more competitive on price<\/em> <\/span>“, is a common refrain heard in brand and board rooms. Most people in the room nod, effectively paving the way for what I call long<\/em><\/span> polite brand suicide<\/em><\/span>.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Discounting Is Not A Strategy. It Is An Apology<\/em><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n Very few will admit that they are running this race-where the prize is margin destruction, commoditization, and the haunting sound of customers who only show up when you’re desperate enough to go lower.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Look at what happened to Kodak.<\/em><\/span> Not the camera story \u2014 the other one. In the 1980s, they quietly crushed their film margins trying to out price Fuji<\/em> <\/span>on retail shelves. They won the price war. They lost the brand. When digital arrived, there was nothing left to defend. No premium, no loyalty, no fortress. Just a company that had trained its customers to see it as cheap.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Or consider Spirit Airlines<\/em><\/span> in the USA. \u2014 the poster child of the race to the absolute bottom. Zero frills. Zero loyalty. Operationally brilliant. Strategically catastrophic. Passengers didn’t love Spirit. They used Spirit the way you use a gas station bathroom \u2014 reluctantly, never returning unless completely desperate. In 2024, they filed for bankruptcy. The bottom had a floor. They found it.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Truth Be Told<\/span><\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n When you compete on price, you hand your competitors a weapon. Every time you drop yours, you tell the market your value isn’t real \u2014 it was just a number you made up and now you’re taking it back.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Meanwhile, Liquid Death<\/em> <\/span><\/a>\u2014 canned water, aggressively priced at\u00a0premium<\/em><\/span>\u00a0\u2014 turned H\u2082O into a $700M brand by refusing to race anyone anywhere except up. They didn’t have a better product. They had a better story, better attitude, better audacity. They made water feel like rebellion<\/em><\/span>.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n That’s the game worth playing.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n The Market Will Always Find Someone Willing To Go Lower Than You<\/em><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n Your job is to make price irrelevant. <\/em>The brands that outlast market chaos aren’t the cheapest. They’re the most\u00a0believed in. They’ve built something competitors can’t photocopy: meaning, mythology, a reason to exist beyond the transaction. Harley-Davidson<\/em><\/span> doesn’t sell motorcycles. It sells the last legally acceptable form of rebellion for middle-aged accountants. Try undercutting that.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n So what do you do instead of racing? You build altitude. You make your brand the one people seek out, aspire to, defend in conversations they didn’t start. You stop chasing the bottom and start owning a summit nobody else is climbing<\/em><\/span>.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n The Most Dangerous Trophy In Business? The First Place At The Bottom<\/em><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n Welcome to the slowest suicide in business: winning the race to the bottom. No spreadsheet will tell you:<\/p>\n <\/p>\n When price becomes your story, you become forgettable. When you become forgettable, you become replaceable.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n And replaceable things don\u2019t get chosen. <\/p>\n The Seduction of Cheap<\/strong><\/em><\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n Cheap feels like a shortcut. <\/p>\n Until the day you realise you\u2019ve trained your customer to never love you\u2026 only tolerate<\/em><\/span> you.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Airlines did it. Then had to invent \u201cpriority boarding\u201d just to sell dignity back to people.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Streaming platforms did it. Then bundled, unbundled, rebundled like confused DJs remixing their own funeral.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Every time you drop your price, you\u2019re not just shaving margin. <\/p>\n The Physics of the Bottom<\/em><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n At the bottom, three laws apply:<\/p>\n <\/p>\n So yes, you\u00a0can<\/em><\/span> win the race. You just inherit a finish line where no one claps.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n We\u2019ve All Guzzled The Gospel<\/span><\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n <\/p>\n “Compete on cost! Undercut the competition!”<\/em><\/span> It’s the siren’s song of desperate boardrooms and spreadsheet jockeys. But here’s the gut-punch wisdom:\u00a0The problem with racing to the bottom is that you might win.<\/strong><\/em><\/span>\u00a0And victory? It’s a trapdoor to commoditized hell\u2014where margins evaporate, loyalty’s a myth, and you’re just another faceless widget in the bargain bin.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Ever seen airlines turn cabin into a cattle class? Ryanair<\/em><\/span> strips seats to skeletons, charges for air. Passengers cheer the “deal,” then rage at the regret. Offbeat benchmark: Compare that to Singapore Airlines’<\/em> <\/span>suites\u2014pricey, yes, but they own the sky because they race to the\u00a0top<\/em><\/span>\u00a0of desire. Or take Zomato vs. the roadside dabba: One feeds hunger; the other feeds souls with stories, quirks, and that viral biryani flex.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Have you considered this? Why do 90% of “budget” brands vanish in 5 years? Because cheap erodes soul<\/em><\/span>. Wisdom weighs in: True brands build moats of meaning\u2014wit that winks, wisdom that whispers, weight that anchors.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n The SOHB(State Of The Heart Branding) Story<\/a><\/span> Reframe: Don\u2019t Compete Down. Design Up<\/em><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n If your strategy can be undercut overnight, it\u2019s not a strategy. It\u2019s a placeholder. Really, I mean it.<\/p>\n Here\u2019s what can be the sharper playbook:<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Examine The Brands That Refused the Slide<\/em><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n The most enduring brands don\u2019t fight on price. They charge for:<\/p>\n They don\u2019t sell cheaper. They sell\u00a0clearer<\/em><\/span>.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n And clarity commands a premium<\/em><\/span>.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n And For All The 25 to 70% Off Brigade 14 Months In A Year<\/em><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n The bottom is crowded. The top is quiet. And weirdly, it\u2019s cheaper to get there than you think\u2014just not in the way spreadsheets measure.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n PS:<\/strong><\/em><\/span> On a completely different note,\u00a0I am taking the liberty to share here that\u00a0<\/em>my other blog SOHB(State Of The Heart Branding) Story<\/a><\/em><\/strong><\/span>\u00a0<\/em><\/strong><\/span>is now a Podcast as well.\u00a0<\/em>You can access it on these links below:<\/p>\n You might win. Then what? ” We need to be more competitive on price “, is a common refrain heard in brand and board rooms. Most people in the room nod, effectively paving the way for what I call long polite brand suicide. Discounting Is Not A Strategy. It Is An Apology … Continue reading “The Problem With Racing to the Bottom?”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2558","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sureshdinakaran.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2558","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sureshdinakaran.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sureshdinakaran.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sureshdinakaran.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sureshdinakaran.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2558"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.sureshdinakaran.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2558\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2560,"href":"https:\/\/www.sureshdinakaran.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2558\/revisions\/2560"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sureshdinakaran.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2558"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sureshdinakaran.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2558"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sureshdinakaran.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2558"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nThey get\u00a0swapped<\/em><\/span>.<\/p>\n
\nFast traction. Quick wins. Volume spikes that look like victory.<\/p>\n
\nYou are shaving meaning<\/em><\/span>.<\/p>\n\n
\n
\nMake your value visible. Demonstrable. Unignorable.<\/li>\n
\nUtility gets you trials. Meaning gets you tribes.<\/li>\n
\nOwn something competitors can\u2019t copy at speed: a ritual, a worldview, a signature experience.<\/li>\n
\nDon\u2019t be cheaper toothpaste. Be oral wellness. Don\u2019t be budget stay. Be mindful escape.<\/li>\n
\nEvery discount you give, ask: what long-term perception did we just borrow against?<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
\nThey fight on\u00a0perception<\/em><\/span>.<\/p>\n\n
\n