CB = Safe Food; But Best Dressed Chicken a di Favourite!

I’m trying to understand why Caribbean Broilers has these billboards claiming that “CB = safe food.” What are the doing? Suggesting that Best Dressed Chicken, the market leader by a country mile, is unsafe? Will that campaign attract more customers to CB?

Marketers, I’m sure, need no reminder that there are 5 challenger strategies: Frontal attack, Flanking attack, Encirclement attack, Bypass attack and Guerrilla attack (Blythe and Megicks 2010). Launching a frontal attack on the market leader is a risky strategy for it strikes at the competitor’s strengths. On the other hand the flanking attack hits at the market leader’s weaknesses, but in both cases, the one with larger resources usually wins.

So, is CB hitting at a perceived weakness and suggesting that Best Dressed chicken is not safe? And if so, is that a credible point of difference in the Jamaican context? Helloooo CB! How many of us will believe that?

Keller (2002) reminds that top criteria for choosing brand elements for building brand equity are that they must be memorable, meaningful and likeable. Safety in this context is dull, unlikely to be persuasive, fun, or to build rich verbal visual imagery. Wheel and come again CB. Attacking the market leader? No problem. But your only viable option is a carefully considered guerrilla attack: for consumers keep on hearing that, “Best Dressed Chicken a di favourite, mi nuh want yuh forget.” Perhaps a better strategy for CB is to be a close market follower, either as an imitator or adapter. Adapters, by the way, can become industry leaders, and are really only one step short of being challengers. But without the benefit of the numbers, who knows?

And this marketer can’t help wondering how the numbers will evaluate CB’s safe food campaign for, “Best Dressed Chicken a di favourite…” What’s your guess?

Herman D. Alvaranga (876-527-3001) solves the toughest marketing and sales problems.