“Ctrl + C” & “Ctrl + V” are the two commands which are managing more careers than we can ever imagine. This is the easiest trick in the book and the most used one.
People with low creativity and zero originality who are in search of a shortcut to success find it better to copy someone else’s success formula and present it to the world. In very few of the cases this turns out to be a winning lottery ticket, for others it shares the fortune of larger lottery buyers. It brings disappointment.
We will try to understand about few ways in which copying is done for a brand or its product line & if it is worth the effort?
Adapter – This company will dissect the market leader’s product and services associated, will adopt its most of the features and improve upon few others. They might market their offering in a different market but with sustained efforts evolve into the future challenger of the market leader.
Ex: Market leader Apple’s product were copied, and few features were improved upon by Samsung. They have been into fierce legal battles in almost every major market of Apple.
Another controversial adaption of a novel into movie was “Three idiots” from “Five point someone” by Chetan Bhagat. It generated a lot of verbal slurs between the producers and the author.
This kind of adaption in the name of creative freedom is a regular feature in film making industry. They shamelessly copy even the comedy and action sequences and get it cross promoted too. A case in point is Allu Arjun tweeting the video link of song in movie “Radhe” which is a literal “Ctrl C & Ctrl V” job of his work. Given below is poster of a movie with same theme in 3 languages with different cast.
Imitator – They copy few of the things from the leader but differentiates on packaging, advertising, pricing, or location. The leader remains unaffected if the imitator is not going all out and eating into its market share.
Ex: Market leader and imitator of cornflakes brand are easy to spot here. Observe the similarity in milk splash and color combination on the both the packets.
You probably knew the one brand which doctors were recommending to gargle during the 2nd wave of CORONA in case you develop any symptoms. Another brand decided to cash out the frenzy and launched its own gargle. Let me know in the comment box which one is imitator here (Hint: The sequence given below might be jumbled up, better to check out which one was available in your home before the 2nd wave).