80/20 rule of marketing success – Find a gap
One of the 80/20 rules of marketing success is to find a gap in the market place. As someone very rightly said, there is no saturated market. A market is saturated only till someone finds a gap. For instance, everybody thought that the toothpaste market is saturated till Anchor was launched as a vegetarian toothpaste.
When I teach a marketing class and discuss the subject of positioning, I still say that the toothpaste market is not saturated. For instance, I suggest to my students that one of the biggest gap which represents nearly 50% of the population still exists, that is, toothpaste for women. We have hair oil, cremes, shampoo, hair dyes etc for women so why not a toothpaste?
So your marketing success will depend on whether you have found a gap in the market place. If you have, then the probability of your success increases. Otherwise, the probability of your failure is pretty high.
Some of the recent interesting examples of “gap inthe market” products/services that I have come across and which are bound to succeed are as follows:
(a) Revathi Roy’s cab service “for the women, by the women” in Mumbai. I feel that this concept can be rolled out in practically every metropolitan city in India. The only thing that can derail this is paucity of funding or implementation.
(b) “Meow” radio station – “for the women, by the women.” Another execellent concept. While I was in US, there were thousands of radio stations but I don’t remember hearing about one for the women. I think it will a success there also. I do not have any doubt about the success of this radio station so long as they do dilute its positioning.
In fact, if you would like to know why a new product has failed or succeeded, all you have to determine is whether it had found a gap or not. Maybe later, I will relate this concept to the failure of “Sawal Dus Crore Ka” TV game show which I had predicted in one of my classes that it will fail within 3 months and it did.
By the way, I will love it if someone comes out with a toothpaste for women (just pass on the royalty to me). I hope HLL, Colgate, Dabur and others are listening to me.
If you guys out there have good example of products/services which have found a solid “gap in the market,” do share with all of us. Or if you know of a gap that exists in any of the market / industry, do let us know.
Avinash Narula
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