# Case: the situation row > Rewrite a draft that benchmarks the wrong rival: define Klasna's market by customers' alternatives, use public facts with dates, and write the plan's first row. - Course: [Marketing Strategy: Who to Win and How](https://productovi.com/courses/marketing-strategy.md) - Module: What does marketing decide, and against what? - Lesson 4/32, ~32 min - Source: https://productovi.com/courses/marketing-strategy/the-situation-row-case ## Uliana's draft **Alex Tutor:** Back at Klasna. Uliana's draft of the plan's first row, the situation, goes to Leo on Friday, and she's asked you to look at it first. **Uliana:** I wrote it before your lessons, so be honest. Here it is. > **Situation row, Uliana's draft** > > Our main competitor is the large online school. They advertise all year, rank first in search for "exam tutor" and parents trust their brand. To win in 2027 we must match their spring ad spend and offer a bigger discount than theirs. **Sofia:** There's a lot to fix. **Alex Tutor:** Let's list it before rewriting anything. Read it against the sign-up answers and the rules from this module. > **Exercise:** What's wrong with Uliana's draft? Select all that apply. ## Start from the families **Alex Tutor:** Start from what families told us, not from what the team watches. Here are the sign-up answers again. > **"What else did you consider?" 160 accounts** > > | Answer | Accounts | > |---|---| > | Free videos with an AI chatbot | 43 | > | Waiting until spring, or doing nothing | 28 | > | A school teacher's paid after-class lessons | 26 | > | A private tutor | 18 | > | A local tutoring center | 15 | > | A large online school | 15 | > | Nothing named | 15 | **Uliana:** Put that way, almost half of them were weighing us against something that costs nothing. **Sofia:** And no ad budget, however big, outbids something that costs nothing. **Alex Tutor:** Check "almost half" before it goes to Leo. Numbers in the plan should be exact. > **Exercise:** What share of the 160 accounts named a **free** alternative: free videos with an AI chatbot, or waiting / doing nothing? In %, to two decimals. ## What the row must say **Alex Tutor:** A good situation row has four parts: the market as customers see it, the main alternatives with numbers, what each does well and where it falls short, and what we don't know yet. **Alex Tutor:** Four parts, then. Can you tell which line of a row is doing which job? > **Exercise:** Match each line from a situation row with the part of the row it fills. **Uliana:** And the facts about the rivals themselves? **Alex Tutor:** Only from public pages, each with a date. Write what they promise in their own words, not what we imagine they spend or what parents supposedly feel. **Alex Tutor:** Here's how that rule looks on the rival's own line. Which version passes? > **Exercise:** Which line about the large online school belongs in the situation row? **Sofia:** So the first line names the families and their alternatives, not a school. > **Exercise:** Which first line of the situation row is best? ## Leo has a question **Leo:** So we just ignore the big school? They're the ones on every search page. **Alex Tutor:** No. They get one line: what they promise, as published, and what to watch, like a new offer or a price change. They just don't set the plan. **Leo:** And the discount Uliana wanted? **Alex Tutor:** A discount answers a price question. Families comparing us with free videos or with waiting aren't asking about price first. That's a choice for later rows, not this one. **Alex Tutor:** So where does Uliana's discount go, if not here? > **Exercise:** Uliana's draft ends with "offer a bigger discount than theirs". What should happen to that idea in the rewrite? > **Exercise:** Because only 15 of 160 families named the large online school, the situation row should leave it out entirely. ## What we don't know **Uliana:** My draft never said what we don't know. Does that really belong on a one-page plan? **Alex Tutor:** Yes. One line of unknowns stops a guess from turning into a fact by the time it reaches Leo. And each unknown gets an honest way to find out. **Sofia:** Like the 15 who named nothing. **Alex Tutor:** That's one. Find a second, and say how you'd learn the answer without crossing the line from the last lesson. > **Exercise:** Write the "what we don't know yet" line of the situation row: two unknowns and, for each, an honest way to find out. ## Your turn: the situation row **Uliana:** I also did a quick public scan on 1 October. Use it, and rewrite the row properly. **Alex Tutor:** Keep it to one page's worth: a short row for the plan, with the reasoning in a few lines under it. **Sofia:** Families and their alternatives first, the rival in proportion, facts with dates, unknowns at the end. **Alex Tutor:** And no fronts, attacks or rivals to crush. Plain words: whom we serve and what they'd do instead. > **Exercise:** Rewrite the situation row of Klasna's one-page marketing plan. > **Key ideas** > > - The situation row starts from customers' alternatives, with numbers, not from the rival the team watches most. > - Keep a named rival in proportion: its published promise, a dated clue or two, what to watch. > - State strengths and gaps of each alternative as hypotheses to check with customers. > - Write down what you don't know, and how you'll find out honestly. > - Leave tactics such as discounts and ad budgets to later rows of the plan. **Alex Tutor:** That's the first row of the plan. Next module: who Klasna's customers really are, starting with a dashboard that describes nobody. - Previous lesson: [Reading competitors from public sources](https://productovi.com/courses/marketing-strategy/reading-competitors-from-public-sources.md) - Next lesson: [The average family doesn't exist](https://productovi.com/courses/marketing-strategy/the-average-family-doesnt-exist.md) --- Productovi Learning. Free, no sign-up needed to read.