Love Thy Competitor

“Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery,” Charles Caleb Colton famously wrote in 1820.

That’s probably not what Samsung had in mind when it hired Tim Cook to promote the Galaxy Z Fold 8.

Not THAT Tim Cook, but close. 

So why would Samsung do something like that?

The story goes back a few months, when Samsung released a foldable phone. It was a bold product, and for a while, it was the first of its kind. Until recently, when Apple launched its own foldable phone: the iPhone Duo. 

Naturally, when two rivals enter the same niche at the same time, the rivalry intensifies. As goes the Western movie cliché: “This town ain’t big enough for the both of us.”

Tom Peters (Seth Godin’s great hero, plus an old friend of Gapingvoid from the early blogging days) raves about how a good competitor is a company’s best friend because it’s damn hard to raise one’s game without one.

As every tennis player knows, it’s much more fun to play someone who’s better than you.

No one understands your craft quite like someone trying to beat you at it. But just because they are trying to best you, that doesn’t make them your enemy. 

Professor X and Magneto played chess against each other because they enjoyed a healthy challenge from a worthy opponent. 

Of course they both wanted to win, but more than that, they wanted a good game. A game that tested their wits. A game that forced them to think of new tactics. 

There’s a beautiful kind of respect there. 

Without an honorable challenger, it’s all too easy to get comfortable, to get away with mediocrity. 

A good ad from an industry giant doesn’t just raise the bar for themselves; they raise it for every company they are competing with. 

So next time your competitor does something awesome, are you going to get bitter or get better?