Anti-gravity in action
An alternative to the traditional gravity approach, is the opposite, as in anti-gravity. Here you raise prices and the volume will increase as well. The formula is pretty simple: You increase the price whilst you include a quality feature. The incremental price has to be higher than the cost of the added quality feature.
As a market / category leader, the role is to add value and profit by developing the business (ref. Masse de Marge Model). Most often you can challenge the given benchmark, by setting your own. A player working like this does not look at increasing their share, but rather to develop the complete category. There are endless ways in how to achieve this, but the better you know your clients’ needs, the better you can obtain the approach, and strengthen your stand.
Anti-Gravity is hence a phenomenon of creating a place or object that is free from the force of gravity or normality.
It is often used to refer to devices that look as if they reverse gravity even though they operate through other means. It is elementary, but sales is normally a consequence of price. This relationship has the form of a given 'gravity', which is perfectly negative correlated. Anti-Gravity has the abnormal outcome by increased sales when price is lifted; as it is a perfectly positive correlation.
The only ‘interaction’ between a Category Captain and a Copy Cat is at the gravity point, between price and sales. There is however a significant difference at the touch point. For the Copy Cat, the touch point is a Max of Min, whereas the touch point for Category Captain is a Min of Max. The consequence for the follower is that he/she is not able to exceed the minimum of value creation compared to the leader. The leader will on the other hand, always deliver better value for the retailer than the follower. A ‘Perfect Substitute’ analysis will uncover this.
The case here, first happened in India. The retailer sold chicken biryani and 300 ml of beverage for Rs 59. We created a modular solution ending up with ‘a meal in a hand’. This facilitated the shopper to carry the food, whilst browsing the phone. This was done due to that fact that ‘one hand food solutions’ were the meals growing the most. In addition it was almost hitting the bull’s eye of meeting the center of PEQN.
Before situation:
A: A cup of beverage
B: A plate of chicken biryani
C: Priced at Rs 59,-
After situation (What we did):
A: A meal in a hand solution (beverage + food)
B: The OPEX was Rs 15 higher tan before
C: Priced at Rs 95,- (+ Rs 36)
D: Extra charge + Rs 21,- (RS 36 - Rs 15 = Rs 21)
Results:
Shoppers loved the playful & modular ‘meal in a hand solution’.
By the numbers:
Sales: +100%
GP Margin per unit: +35%
End note
After some time the retailer called and said: ‘I am a bit ashamed; we have doubled the sales, and nobody is complaining about the price’. We told him that ‘happy days were here’ as the GP was 35% higher than before, and that the off-take had doubled. This is what modular business building technique is all about. When being a bit creative with modules + utilizing the strength of trends; you see the anti-gravity take place.
Anti-Gravity mindset
Anti-Gravity does not look at market ‘as is’ but rather how it is possible to develop it further. A few different mindsets can be seen in this table.
Are shoppers rationale?
This is the 100-million Dollar question. Shoppers are less rational when it comes to pamper themselves (like buying a meal on the go); hence the price elasticity is less than when purchasing a meal for the whole family combined.
Collectable items
To facilitate re-purchase, we developed four different food-containers, and three different playful beverage cups.
