Nice little story about how the fledgling Keurig, the coffee pod manufacturer took advantage of having larger competitors at the start of their product lifecycle. It's also a good illustration of the complementary nature of the promotion mix and how they can influence the different stages of the hierarchy of effects.
“Unlike Keurig, which had a shoestring marketing budget, these deep-pocketed competitors had more than $100 million to spend on advertising their new products. But Keurig was able to turn the competition to its advantage. “We piggybacked on all the marketing investments our competitors made developing [awareness of the idea] and doing TV ads,” says Nick Lazaris, who led Keurig between 1997 and 2008. Keurig let the competition spend freely on airtime, then sent reps into stores to do live demonstrations.”