How to beat big

Jujutsu is the martial art based on using your opponent's force against himself rather than using your force to defeat him.

If you're a small business competing with large multinationals, it's something you might want to study.

Whether intentional or not, that's what the Bank of Ann Arbor used to help grow it's assets by over $230 million in the past two years.

Banking is a tough market. State and national regulations make it hard to differentiate yourself at the product level. So big banks try to use their superior resources to overwhelm smaller, local and regional options, drowning them out with massive multi-media campaigns.

Bank of Ann Arbor and their agency Perich + Partners came up with a campaign that focused on the one thing that BoA, Wells Fargo and the other behemoth's can't claim: local knowledge, turning their strengths – national presence and huge resources – against them.

If you're a small fish in a big pond, find the one thing your competitors can't be or do and own it.

It sure beats trying to compete on price.