Politics shows that every side needs an opponent to define itself. Brands grow the same way, but the smartest ones choose which fights to be seen in.
Every Indian election runs two campaigns at once. One is about the candidate. The other is about the opponent.
Watch any campaign closely and you will see parties spend almost as much energy defining the other side as defining themselves. A ruling party needs an opposition to remind voters what the alternative looks like. An opposition needs a ruling party to have something to stand against. Neither would admit it, but each is the other's most useful marketing asset.
I am not interested here in who is right. That is for voters to decide. I am interested in the mechanics, because brands play exactly the same game. The best ones just play it with far more restraint than politics does.
Every strong brand has a rival it chose
Coke and Pepsi. Apple and Microsoft. Closer home, Zomato and Swiggy in food delivery; Blinkit, Zepto and Instamart in quick commerce.
Rivalry makes a category easy to understand. When customers see two names competing hard over something, they learn what is worth competing for. Speed. Price. Taste. Trust. Your rival does half your explaining for you.
Earlier this year, on Raj Shamani's podcast, Deepinder Goyal called Swiggy a tough competitor and described Zepto's marketing as "quirky and nice". Then he added: "They learned it from us." In the same breath he called Zepto's founder Aadit Palicha smart, articulate and earnest, as reported by Storyboard18.
That one line positioned Zomato as the originator better than most campaigns could. Look at what he did not do. He did not attack. He complimented, claimed the lineage, and moved on.
Being seen is not the same as being loud
Politics is often read as a volume game. Sometimes the numbers support that. In the run-up to this year's assembly elections in West Bengal, Tamil Nadu, Kerala and Assam, Business Today reviewed Google's Ads Transparency Centre and Meta's Ad Library. It found the BJP ran around 50,000 ads worth more than Rs 40 crore across the four states between January and April. The TMC's own Meta spend in Bengal was about Rs 1.8 crore.
But the same data shows the smaller spender was not silent. It chose different channels. Abhishek Banerjee's official page and three supporting pages together spent more than Rs 3.5 crore, and parties across states leaned on supporter pages and ground networks that never appear in a party's official ad count. The Association for Democratic Reforms points out there is still no standard way to report this spending, so the real totals are likely higher.
The lesson for brands: visibility is not one number. You can be outspent and still be present, as long as you are present where your audience actually is.
Silence is a strategy too
Political campaigns respond to everything because they work towards a fixed date. On counting day, the game ends.
Brands do not get a counting day. The vote happens every day, at every shelf, every app and every search. That changes the maths. A brand that answers every rival jab spends its credibility on noise. A brand that picks its moments builds credibility with every appearance.
Amul is the clearest Indian example. For decades its topicals have featured Prime Ministers, election results, cricket wins and box-office hits. Yet, as exchange4media noted recently, Amul has largely stayed on the right side of public opinion. Its personalities are part of the story, not the story itself, and its humour is rarely cruel.
Amul is in every conversation and in no fight. That is the standard to aim for.
When rivalry turns into a fight
In May 2025, Zepto's Aadit Palicha publicly alleged that the CFO of an unnamed rival was approaching Zepto's investors with "wild allegations", circulating false numbers through journalists and using bots on social media.
I will not judge who was right. What is worth noticing is what the story became. For a few days, quick commerce was not about ten-minute delivery or fresh produce. It was about a boardroom feud. Customers do not pick sides in a feud between executives. They only remember the noise.
That is politics' worst habit leaking into business: the belief that if you are not hitting back, you are losing.
Three questions before you respond to a rival
Before your brand takes on a competitor in public, ask:
- Does this fight define our category in our favour?
- Will our customer care about the outcome?
- Can we win it with a fact rather than a jab?
If the answer to any of these is no, staying quiet is not weakness. It is positioning.
What brands should do
- Name the category you want to lead, then let a rival make that category visible.
- Compete on one thing customers can feel, such as speed, price, taste or service, not on everything.
- Compliment in public, compete in private. Generosity reads as confidence.
- Plan the moments you will show up for, and keep an equally clear list of the ones you will sit out.
- Keep comparative claims factual and verifiable. The ASCI code permits fair comparison, not denigration.
- Never let the rivalry become the story. The customer should always be the story.
The vote that never ends
In politics, the saying goes, you have to be seen whether you are right or wrong. In business, being seen is only the start. What matters is being seen choosing your battles.
Pick a rival. Let them sharpen you. Then spend your energy on the customer, not the fight.
If you are working out where your brand should show up and where it should sit out, see how we have done it for brands across India. Our work is on this site.