Good enemies

From 50 and Kanye to Barbenheimer sometimes competition is win-win

50 Cent was scheduled to release his album Curtis on September 11 2007

Kanye West was scheduled to release his album Graduation on September 17 2007

But it didn’t go that way

Kanye moved his album release forward one week

It was an brilliant rivalry pitting opposites against each other

The pink polo vs the bullet proof vest

50 upped the ante saying he would retire if he was outsold

Kanye claimed that his album was the pinnacle of music

They went head-to-head on an iconic Rolling Stone front cover

Which they then recreated live on BET

The two really lent into the rivalry and dominated the discourse for weeks

Driving hip hop hype to previously unreached mainstream fame

Many believe this was the moment hip hop truly became the dominant music culture

In the end 50 Cent sold 691K albums in the first week

Beaten by Kanye who sold 957K

But really they both won big

Using each other to catapult their albums to far greater fame

Barbie and Oppenheimer was just the most recent example of the power of an enemy

A natural point of comparison that posed audiences a question

Which side are you on

By both and decide

Or fan the flames of the hype by deciding first

According to comScore Barbie’s first week sales in the US were $162m

Whilst Oppenheimer’s were $80m

But without the phenomenon that was Barbenheimer neither would have reached those heights

Going directly up against competitors often feels risky

I once worked on a retail brand who’s biggest competitor opened a new store near theirs

We proposed some light hearted ads to remind the public of our superiority

Our clients loved the work but didn’t want to draw attention to the rivalry

As their sales continued to slide we kept showing them work but couldn’t convince them

But as 50 and Kanye proved, in marketing competition is often a win-win