When it comes to warding off the competition, self-preservation lessons start with dolphins.

They sleep with one eye open. Odd, but true.

It may not be the dreamiest way to go through the night but it helps to ensure you’ll be there at the beginning of another day.

It’s a reminder for you and everyone on your team to approach commercial life with vigilance.

No professional would do anything but, right?

Still, there’s something you may have overlooked.

One way your competition is willing you to fail is by hiring the best ad agency they can find.

We’re talking about the kind of agency that puts a premium on originality with work that infuses you with emotion.

An agency whose solutions have surprise value.

It’s an agency that has a good neurosis when it comes to going beyond the usual category approaches.  An agency that can change consumer thinking to your advantage.

This is an agency whose messaging can become part of the cultural fabric, maybe even getting a mention in the nightly news.

Like Got Milk? and The Crazy Ones.

It’s an agency whose creative director comes to work riding a camel … no, just kidding about that.

But it’s reflective of an individual who’s a past master in alleviating boredom, someone who is imaginative, restless, searching and  the first to reject drabness.

It’s someone who can take an imaginative possession of your product category.

An agency with all this is bound to give you a shot at the competition before they can take a shot at you..

More to competing, this is the age of Big Data … as you well know, technology makes a marked difference.

But it will always be ideas that separate you from the rest.

Of course, the best agencies lead the way because they have the best ides.

They put more preparation into a better result for you by hiring the best people.

BBDO, NY is an example.

Have you seen their Guinness spot? The one where disabled guys play wheelchair basketball? http://bit.ly/1ANqSWc

It’s a spirited, fight-for-the-ball tussle with wheelchairs being knocked down on their sides. No quarter is given.

At the end you have a twist.

Everyone gets out of his chair. Except for one.

He’s the guy who is actually disabled.

The depth of the story then sinks in – friends will do anything for their wheelchair-bound friend to show he’s an equal.

In the end they all have beers together as the Guinness message comes across:

The choices we make reveal the true

nature of our character.

This spot is exactly like other beer commercials when it comes to the ‘friendship strategy’.

You’ve seen it 100 times before.

Still, here you have  storytelling that’s vastly different.

It’s the opposite of bogus emotion and the faux camaraderie in other beer spots.

It walks away from inauthentic staging.

A spot like this may encourage you reassess the advantage of hiring the best ad agency you can find.

It could make you a bit like the ‘one-eye-open’ dolphin when it comes to your competition.

That way you can wink knowingly in the satisfaction of your own security.

Share with us. In these get-real times how are you and your agency coping with the competition? How are you planning for success in the marketplace? Scroll all the way down and leave your comment in the box provided. Thanks, Steve Ulin