The rival on the shelf above

A small tomato paste maker in Damanhour can lose a whole year to one of two stories about the big brand on the shelf above it.

In the first story, the big brand knows everything. It has the research, the shopper studies, the people who have spent decades on the colour of a label. Whatever it does must be right, so the small maker copies the red of the tin, the size of the sachet and the price, and waits to be rewarded for following the clever ones.

In the second story, the big brand is asleep. It is slow and bloated, out of touch with the mother buying for the household at the market on a Thursday. The small maker laughs at its adverts, ignores its moves and assumes the shelf will fall into its lap the moment shoppers notice.

Both stories are comfortable. The first lets you stop thinking, because someone smarter has done it for you. The second lets you stop worrying, because nobody is really competing.

Neither one is accurate. The people behind the big brand are about as clever as anyone else and about as tired, working with half the facts and the same deadlines as everybody. They get some things right for good reasons and some things right by accident. They miss things too, mostly the same things everyone misses.

Seeing a rival as ordinary is harder than seeing them as a giant or a fool. It means studying what they do without worshipping it, and doubting it without sneering. It means the shelf is still a contest, and that how it ends is still partly up to you.