This is an interesting example of how not to mention competitors in your marketing.
April Dunford made a post last week where she talks about Slack’s response when Microsoft announced they were launching Teams.
Slack took out a full-page ad in the Wall Street Journal (you can read the copy here) that essentially legitimizes Teams as a competitor.
To quote April:
“The product hasn’t even launched yet, but right out of the gate they’re saying, oh, we’ve got a competitor and we’re calling them a competitor.”
Even though Microsoft is a massive company, in this case their Teams product could be viewed as a small challenger.
And to April’s point “Small companies can target the leader all day with little downside. The leader in the market, however, has to be very careful not to legitimize a competitor before customers do.”