📖 AI Marketing Playbook: The Enemy Ad Experiment

Goal: Identify your true competitive advantage by reverse-engineering competitor messaging.
Time: 10 minutes.
Difficulty: ⭐⭐ (Mentally challenging, technically simple).
Outcome: One defensible differentiator you can own.

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Most marketers think they know what makes them different. Then they ship ads that sound identical to everyone else.

The problem? You're too close to your product. You've convinced yourself that your features matter more than they do.

The solution? Step into your competitor's shoes. Write their dream ad. Make it persuasive, honest, and conversion-focused. Then notice what you can't authentically claim for them. That constraint is where your strategy lives.

Step 1: Pick your top competitor (the one stealing deals from you)

Step 2: Open Claude and run this prompt:

I'm writing an ad for [Competitor Name], a [category] product.

Their key features: [list 3-4]. Their pricing: [price point]. Their main customer: [who they serve].

Write a 100-word ad that positions them as the obvious choice. Make it compelling, benefit-focused, and conversion-ready. Don't hold back, sell them hard.

What to expect: Claude will craft a strong, persuasive ad highlighting their genuine strengths.

Step 3: Read the ad. Circle every claim that feels true and ownable for them.

Step 4: Now ask yourself: "Which of these claims would feel dishonest if I made them about my product?"

Step 5: Run this follow-up prompt:

Now write the same ad, but for [Your Product Name]. Keep the same structure and tone. Use our actual strengths: [your features/benefits].

What you'll discover: The language that feels forced or generic for your product reveals where you're trying to compete on their terms instead of your own.

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This experiment works because constraint reveals truth. When you're forced to sell something you don't own, your brain naturally identifies what's authentic vs. borrowed positioning.

Claude amplifies this by removing your brand bias; it treats both products objectively, which exposes gaps in your messaging. If Claude's version of "your ad" sounds weaker than "their ad," you're not leaning into your actual advantage.

The magic isn't in the tool; it's in the friction you feel when trying to claim territory that isn't yours.

Universal Takeaway: Your differentiator isn't what you do better; it's what you can say that your competitor can't claim without lying.

Stop optimizing for "better." Start owning the one truth only you can defend.

Try these variations to sharpen your positioning:

The Reveal Where You’re “Me Too” Marketing

Write two competitor ads: one honest, one exaggerated. Which claims feel stolen from us?

The Messaging Differentiation Test

Rewrite our homepage headline in the voice of [Competitor]. Does it still sound like us?

The Positioning Leverage Point Finder

Create a comparison table: us vs. them. Which row makes them look bad without lying?

The Weak Point Exposer

If [Competitor] hired you to reposition against us, what would you attack?

Challenge Within the Challenge

Run this experiment for your product from a customer's perspective who chose your competitor instead.

I'm a buyer who picked [Competitor] over [Your Product]. Write the internal memo I'd send my team explaining why we didn't go with [Your Product]. Be brutally honest about the concerns.

This inverts the game again; now you see your product through the lens of rejection. What objections does Claude surface?

Those are the friction points your marketing needs to preemptively address.

Differentiation isn't found in feature matrices or comparison charts. It lives in the claims your competitors can't make without stretching the truth.

This experiment forces strategic honesty: What's yours to own? What are you borrowing? And what should you stop fighting over entirely?

The edge isn't in being better at everything. It's in being the only one who can say one specific thing.

Now go write an ad that only you could run.

Questions? Just write a comment below. I read all the comments and respond to them.