In 1995, the three smaller competitors were stimulated by a potential advertiser, Haggar, to collaborate in a virtual team rather than compete.

Obviously, the incentive would need to be strong! Under normal circumstances, Men's Health would compete with Rolling Stone and Esquire for the same advertising budgets. In this case, however, the agency representing "Haggar" a men's clothing manufacturer, approached the three competitors with a proposal. It was offering to buy its new advertising campaign jointly from the three competitors or from a combination of titles within Time Inc., which included Sports Illustrated.

The campaign was large with multi-page spreads in all three magazines over a two year period, including a special publication for Hagar customers that would also be distributed as supplements to in-flight magazines and in health clubs.

The proposal required a rapid decision to start collaboration within a week, and three weeks later they had won!

Using what we now consider largely traditional mechanisms of telephone conferencing, faxes, and normal meetings, the three competitors spurred by a common goal managed to achieve a high degree of co-operation.

In this period the internal groups had established the strategy, developed the marketing approach, laid out the final campaign and had been selected by Haggar in preference to their dominant competitor.

This co-operation was hailed by the industry as an example of new business approaches, both for the innovative suggestion of the customer, and the response of the three competitors.

Such shifts in attitudes are increasingly necessary for the smaller competitors in many industries, with ad hoc collaboration levelling the playing field where global giants appear increasingly invulnerable.