Any marketing activity falls somewhere on a continuum between tactical and strategic.
Most are trying to generate activity and profit today, as well as investing in your brand for the long term.
Getting the balance wrong is delivering your brand to the slaughterhouse.
The competitive world we live in now puts increasing pressure on tactical activity, at the expense of strategic. No marketing budget is infinite, therefore choices are made, every day between the tactical and strategic.
As the pressure has increased over the 45 years I have been doing this, I observe the move towards tactical, reflected in almost every product category I can think of. Once you get addicted to the tactical, it is like crack cocaine, very hard to break away.
You learn that throwing money at the problem solves it, for now, so when it comes around again, you repeat the action. It worked last time, and the long term is somebody else’s problem.
As a young marketer in FMCG, the ‘Friday afternoon call’ was a constant threat. A buyer from one of the supermarket gorillas who needed to put some cash into their co-op advertising pool for the week would phone. They would open the conversation by saying the sales manager was out, and he had a problem only I could solve by committing to a promotion of some sort that involved a Co-Op advertising payment. To decline, it was made clear, threatened the distribution of the brand concerned in his chain, and he was sure the Sales manager would not thank me for that. By the way, it was 4.45 pm, and the ‘opportunity’ closed in 5 minutes, so he needed an immediate answer.
The ultimate in tactical activity.
There was not an outcome of any value to the business I worked for from accepting this blackmail, just a downside to be avoided. We might have delivered a few extra pallets of product, but the net price we could invoice was often below anything that was sensible. Also, it consumed resources that had been earmarked for activity that would build brand equity for the long term.
Meadow Lea margarine in the late 70’s had four times the market share of its nearest competitor, in a booming and crowded margarine market. This share was based not just on a very good product, coupled with aggressive and smart sales management, but on consistent, and brilliant brand building activity over a sustained period. A decade later, after the business had been acquired by people who did not understand the dynamics of a brand, Meadow Lea had crawled back to the pack. The total size of the market had also shrunk.
The reason was the move from strategic investment in the brand to tactical activity to keep retail buyers happy.
Digital has injected steroids into this tactical explosion.
Marketers, so called only because that is what is on the door of their office, take the easy way out, and go tactical at the expense of strategic.
Don’t get me wrong, tactical impact is very important, but in isolation from the considerations of the strategic, it is brand suicide. There must be a balance between the activity necessary for today, and the activity now necessary to ensure the long term health of the brand, and in turn, its ability to deliver commercial sustainability.
Want the immediate hit? Spend all your resources on tactical activity.
Want to live a long and profitable life? Make sure you leave some for later.
