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March 17, 2005

Horse vs. Cart (bone before dog?)

Pets_com_Sock_Puppet.jpg

Susan Getgood picks up an old saw of ours about strategy vs. tactics:

"so-so creative will still do all right if the fundamental strategy is sound. But the slickest promo campaign cannot save a crappy strategy. And you should always strive for excellence in both."

I sometimes hate to admit it, but as a former "marcom" guy at Microsoft, I found this statement to be totally true. Compared to many of our competitors we very seldom did more inspired creative. But because the core strategy, understanding of our market/segmentation, positioning and play was correct, we won with "so-so" creative.

Remember the Pets.com Dog sock puppet? Very cool creative, and memorable too. Where is he now?

That said, let's not knock marcom too hard. A lot of times it's the marcom folks who force a true strategic rethink, because they are trying to translate all the technical or business logic of others into a compelling communication that regular people can understand.

As Bruce DeBoer notes it's a balance between strategy and execution. Brains and the guts to follow through.

It's a balance, can't do one without the other:

"Strategy without tactics is the slowest route to victory. Tactics without strategy is the noise before defeat."
- Sun Tzu (Chinese General, circa 500 BC)

Posted by johnza at March 17, 2005 04:02 AM

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» Ries and Moore: Both right, both wrong from hypocritical
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Comments

Good post. I've been pondering this issue as I have been listing tasks to do.

In the end, I am tempted to disaggree with Bruce, though. I think BOTH have to be done well. Alright, reality is that we can only dream perfection, so maybe balance is the right choice.

Posted by: b2blog [TypeKey Profile Page] at March 17, 2005 09:49 AM

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