In thinking about competition we tend to be retrospectively oriented. We often have past or previous models of competition and competitive situations

What do such changes mean for the firm? They imply a need to create differential advantage on other than a price basis. 3 They support the creation of preferences through aggressive, integrated marketing programs; by adjusting the goods and service mix, the communications mix, and the distribution mix of the firm to bring them into line with consumer wants and needs and so assure a market niche and satisfactory profit position. They stress the pivotal role of innovation in the management of corporate resources.These changes also indicate that in reality management's attempt to create advantage does not stem from a drive to develop a monopoly, as critics have suggested. Rather, it is rooted in the desire to compete successfully. In using marketing strategies to create differential advantage, management is concerned with competitors and their activities and not the establishment of a monopoly. For each innovation they expect counter-innovations. Management expects that differential advantage will eventually be eroded by counter-moves of competitors.Gaining consumer acceptance of new products or services, especially radically new ones, is a difficult challenge confronting marketing managers in creating differential advantage. It requires: 1. that consumers be so motivated that they will acquire new patterns of thought, new habits, even new skills, that are necessary for the acceptance and use of the new product in a favorable manner.
2. that the assistance in developing the attitudes and skills will be furnished by the members of the marketing system including manufacturers, wholesalers, retailers, and advertising and other facilitating agencies.
3. that in some cases attempts be made to alter cues in the consumers' environment which elicit the types of consumer behavior that are unfavorable to the product.
4. that consumers' reward systems must be understood so that changes are encouraged by rewarding the consumer for adopting new patterns.

Companies today are competing for much different types of markets than they have in the past. They are no longer competing to provide ample food, shelter, and clothing. Ours is an economy of plenty which has, in great measure, met the demands of basic physical needs. As a result, competition, market expansion, and the creation of differential advantage, to a large extent, become vertical in nature rather than horizontal. New markets must be found in terms of types of food, types of clothing, types of shelter, and types of recreation. An opportunity exists, therefore, for upgrading the tastes, the desires, and acts of consumers. Marketing through programmed innovation on a vertical plane can become a significant cultural, and civilizing force.

It has been suggested that the next competitive frontier facing business is an inner one. It is the market of the mind and the personal development of consumers. Competition and innovation may be geared to filling the needs of this inner frontier. One of the roles of marketing in the future may be that of encouraging increasing expenditures, of both dollars and time, to develop consumers intellectually, socially, and morally. Hence, during a period of increasing leisure, and abundance, competition, through marketing, may well become a significant cultural stimulus. It may provide the impetus for the improvement of consumer tastes. It may afford an increase in consumer cognizance and appreciation of aesthetic values. Competition, then, may be pursued on a cultural plane. If this occurs, marketing, innovation, and competition may become driving forces for the cultural development of society.