During our initial question and answer session, they initially claimed they had no competition. When we pressed them, however, they did admit that Petco at the local mall was a competitor, but they insisted they weren't like them. They explained that Petco was all about large selection and low prices while they weren't. They also had a great selection and reasonable prices but thought they were different because of their quality customer service.
We see this problem often, where a local advertiser wants to look different than the major competitor in the market, often asking to look the opposite to the major chain store with which they compete.
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| Because Petco had set the standard in the market for what a good pet supply company ad looked like, to ensure readers didn't think that the local store was inferior, be it more expensive, less selection or simply unprofessional, we incorporated similar design elements present in the Petco ads. |
Of course, Petco has years of experience in print advertising and surely has conducted countless surveys regarding why people buy from one place rather than another. Luckily, on Petco's Web site they displayed their online circulars, which we gave to our designers to emulate. The transformation was dramatic.
