High-tech, luxury goods, and pharmaceutical companies in the Value Game take a value-based approach to pricing. The quality of their offering means they face less competition, while the offering’s broad appeal leaves customers with little buying power. That gives them the leeway to shape demand by aligning their prices with customer value and defending that value with obsessive marketing.

Your path to growth depends on:

• Deciding how much value to share with your customers: This is the essence of pricing strategy. Will you use your leeway to penetrate the market or earn higher margins?
• Establishing a pricing model that scales with value: A razor‐and‐blades model, for example, can help to encourage repeated follow‐on purchases. In some cases, pricing per outcome or performance can also make sense.
• Mitigating potential value erosion: Investments in innovation and branding ensure continuous improvement and protect the value proposition.

That last point indicates how Value Game players can lose their edge. That happens when they let competitors catch up (less innovation), when they lose control of their narrative (less marketing) or when they let their prices get misaligned with value.