Marketing As An Art Of War

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Spandan

Marketing as an Art of War

Malini Pande

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The true nature of marketing today is beyond serving the customer; it is outwitting, outflanking, and

outfighting your competitors. In short marketing is a war where the enemy is the competition and the

customer is ground to be won. Marketing battles are not fought in physical places but in the minds of the

prospective consumer. The mind is the tricky terrain both difficult to understand and difficult to win over. A

marketing war is a totally intellectual war with a battleground that no one has ever seen. It can only be

imagined in the mind and that is why marketing warfare is one of the most difficult disciplines to learn.

Even though the language of marketing has been borrowed from the military, we talk and act like

generals, but do not plan like generals. This paper attempts to deal with the application of the principles of

military strategy to our marketing operations and thus increase the chances of success in this era of fierce

competition.

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INTRODUCTION

"The Economic Times" or "The Hindu Business

Line" carries more blood thirsty language than is

found in any of the general newspapers. "We'll

murder them", "Its kill or be killed", "This is a life

or death struggle", these quotes form a part of

the conversation of business leaders discussing

their marketing campaigns. The language of

business is becoming littered with similes of

war and military analogies.

Articles dealing with competitive strategy are on

the rise and business people frequently use

military talk to describe their situations. There

are " price wars" ,"border clashes" and

"skirmishes" along the major computer

manufacturers; "an escalating arms race" among

cigarette manufacturers, "market invasion" and

"guerilla warfare" in the coffee market. A

company's advertising is its "propaganda arm",

its salesmen are its "shock troops" and its

marketing research is its "intelligence". There is

talk about "confrontation", "brinkmanship",

"super weapons" ,"reprisals" and " psychological

warfare". It's very evident that marketing is

entering a new era, where the name of the game

has become "taking business away from

somebody else". As companies figure out

different ways to increase sales, they are turning

towards employing more and more warfare

strategies in general.

THE MEANING OF WAR: IS THE OBJECTIVE

OF WAR THE SAME AS OBJECTIVE OF

COMPETITION?

Different military theorists have different theories

regarding the objective of war. Clausewitz, the

nineteenth century's greatest military theorist

saw war as a necessary means to pursue

national self interest. It was a means to vanquish

the enemy by achieving unconditional surrender.

On the other hand the twentieth century's

greatest military theorist Captain Basil H. Liddell

Hart set the contemporary position "The object

in war is a better state of peace, even if only

from your point of view." Modern competitors

rarely adopt the Clausewitzian objective of "total

annihilation of the enemy". Liddell Hart's

doctrine that "the object of war is a better state

of peace" may be more appropriate guiding line

of business. When a company undertakes

warlike maneuvers towards another firm, for

example when Kodak attacks Polaroid, the

objective is not to annihilate the other but to

attain a better state of peace. When Kodak

introduced its own version of the instant camera,

it may have aimed to achieve the dominant

share, but Polaroid fought back and managed to

contain Kodak's share at about 25%, and now

both of them seem to accept the compromise

share. This however does not mean to say that

Kodak might not launch an attack in the future to

regain the 50% share.

PERSPECTIVE

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