Defensive marketing warfare strategies

In marketing and strategic management, marketing warfare strategies are a type of marketing

strategy that uses military metaphor to craft a businesses strategy. See marketing warfare strategies for
background and an overview. Defensive marketing warfare strategies are a type of marketing warfare
strategy designed to protect a company's market share, profitability, product positioning, or mind share.

There are five fundamental principles involved:

1. Always counter an attack with equal or greater force.

2. Defend every important market.
3. Be forever vigilant in scanning for potential attackers. Assess the strength of the competitor.
Consider the amount of support that the attacker might muster from allies.
4. The best defense is to attack yourself. Attack your weak spots and rebuild yourself anew.
5. Defensive strategies should be the exclusive domain of the market leader

The main types of defensive marketing warfare strategies are:

 Position defense - This involves the defense of a fortified position. This tends to be a weak
defense because you become a “sitting duck”. It can lead to a siege situation in which time is on the
side of the attacker, that is, as time goes by the defender gets weaker, while the attacker gets
stronger. In a business context, this involves setting up fortifications such as barriers to market entry
around a product, brand, product line, market, or market segment. This could include
increasing brand equity, customer satisfaction, customer loyalty, or repeat purchase rate. It could also
include exclusive distribution contracts, patent protection, market monopoly, or government protected
monopoly status. It is best used in homogeneous markets where the defender has dominant market
position and potential attackers have very limited resources.
 Mobile defense - This involves constantly shifting resources and developing new strategies and
tactics. A mobile defense is intended to create a moving target that is hard to successfully attack,
while simultaneously, equipping the defender with a flexible response mechanism should an attack
occur. In business this would entail introducing new products, introducing replacement products,
modifying existing products, changing market segments, changing target
markets, repositioning products, or changing promotional focus. This defense requires a very flexible
organization with strong marketing, entrepreneurial, product development, and marketing
research skills.
 Flank position - This involves the re-deployment of your resources to deter a flanking attack.
You protect against potential loss of market share in a segment, by strengthening your competitive
 position in this segment with new products and other tactics. (see flanking marketing warfare
strategies)
 Counter offensive - This involves countering an attack with an offense of your own. If you are
attacked, retaliate with an attack on the aggressor’s weakest point.

Offensive marketing warfare strategies

In marketing and strategic management, marketing warfare strategies are a type of marketing

strategy that uses military metaphor to craft a businesses strategy. See marketing warfare strategies for
background and an overview. Offensive marketing warfare strategies are a type of marketing warfare
strategy designed to obtain an objective, usually market share, from a target competitor. In addition
to market share, an offensive strategy could be designed to obtain key customers, high margin market
segments, or high loyalty market segments.

There are four fundamental principles involved:

1. Assess the strength of the target competitor. Consider the amount of support that the target might
muster from allies. Choose only one target at a time.
2. Find a weakness in the target’s position. Attack at this point. Consider how long it will take for the
target to realign their resources so as to reinforce this weak spot.
3. Launch the attack on as narrow a front as possible. Whereas a defender must defend all their
borders, an attacker has the advantage of being able to concentrate their forces at one place.
4. Launch the attack quickly. The element of surprise is worth more than a thousand tanks.

The main types of offensive marketing warfare strategies are:

 Frontal Attack - This is a direct head-on assault. It usually involves marshaling all your resources
including a substantial financial commitment. All parts of your company must be geared up for the
assault from marketing to production. It usually involves intensive advertising assaults and often
entails developing a new product that is able to attack the target competitors’ line where it is strong. It
often involves an attempt to “liberate” a sizable portion of the target’s customer base. In actuality,
frontal attacks are rare. There are two reasons for this. Firstly, they are expensive. Many valuable
resources will be used and lost in the assault. Secondly, frontal attacks are often unsuccessful. If
defenders are able to re-deploy their resources in time, the attacker’s strategic advantage is lost. You
will be confronting strength rather than weakness. Also, there are many examples (in both business
and warfare) of a dedicated defender being able to hold-off a larger attacker. The strategy is suitable
when
 the market is relatively homogeneous
  brand equity is low
 customer loyalty is low
 products are poorly differentiated
 the target competitor has relatively limited resources
 the attacker has relatively strong resources
 Envelopment Strategy (also called encirclement strategy) - This is a much broader but subtle
offensive strategy. It involves encircling the target competitor. This can be done in two ways. You
could introduce a range of products that are similar to the target product. Each product will liberate
some market share from the target competitor’s product, leaving it weakened, demoralized, and in a
state of siege. If it is done stealthily, a full scale confrontation can be avoided. Alternatively, the
encirclement can be based on market niches rather than products. The attacker expands the market
niches that surround and encroach on the target competitor’s market. This encroachment liberates
market share from the target. The envelopment strategy is suitable when:
 the market is loosely segmented
 some segments are relatively free of well endowed competitors
 the attacker has strong product development resources
 the attacker has enough resources to operate in multiple segments simultaneously
 the attacker has a decentralized organizational structure
 Leapfrog strategy -This strategy involves bypassing the enemy’s forces altogether. In the
business arena, this involves either developing new technologies, or creating new business models.
This is a revolutionary strategy that re-writes the rules of the game. The introduction of compact disc
technology bypassed the established magnetic tape based defenders. The attackers won the war
without a single costly battle. This strategy is very effective when it can be realized.

Guerrilla Warfare Strategy

In marketing and strategic management, marketing warfare strategies are a type of marketing

strategy that uses military strategy to form a marketing and advertising campaign. Advertising guerrilla
techniques, undoubtedly successful in practical applications, are still new and fresh and not as explicitly
explored academically as other marketing methods, a more tacit approach is used in the gathering of
competitor information to use tactics to undermine a competitor’s legitimacy and increase the exposure
and sales of the offensive organization. Jay Conrad Levinson wrote 'Guerrilla Marketing' on aggressive
marketing tactics in 1984. The 6th century BC, 13 chapter book Sun Tzu’s 'Art of War' which may have
been used by Napoleon, remains relevant and has been accredited with being valuable to both army
generals and strategic business directors alike over 25 centuries later. See marketing warfare
strategies for further background and an overview.

Aggressive marketing techniques are used more covertly by large organisations to improve advertising
impact and reduce the likelihood of competitors’ retaliation. Sponsoring the Indian cricket team failed for
Nike, as Reebok managed to put branded stickers on their bats, at far less cost but for a much greater
return. Third party market research companies are often used to gather corporate information and
guerrilla advertising agencies are contracted to market products in aggressive media, and companies are
used to improve the impact of an aggressive marketing strategy and target consumers directly while not
directly being responsible for the aggressive marketing execution.

Flanking marketing warfare strategies

In marketing and strategic management, marketing warfare strategies are a type of marketing

strategy that uses military metaphor to craft a businesses strategy. See marketing warfare strategies for
background and an overview. Flanking marketing warfare strategies are a type of marketing warfare
strategy designed to minimize confrontational losses.

The fundamental principles involved are:

1. Avoid areas of likely confrontation. A flanking move always occurs in an uncontested area.
2. Make your move quickly and stealthfully. The element of surprise is worth more than a thousand
tanks.
3. Make moves that the target will not find threatening enough to respond decisively to.

Flanking strategies can be either offensive or defensive:

 Flanking Attack (offensive) - This is designed to pressure the flank of the enemy line so the flank
turns inward. You make gains while the enemy line is in chaos. In doing so, you avoid a head-on
confrontation with the main force. The disadvantage with a flanking attack is that it can draw
resources away from your center defense, making you vulnerable to a head-on attack. In business
terms, a flanking attack involves competing in a market segment that the target does not consider
mission critical. The target competitor will not be as concerned about your activities if they occur in
market niches that it considers peripheral. It usually involves subtle advertising campaigns and other
discrete promotional measures, like personal selling and public relations. It often
entailscustomizing a product for that particular niche. Rather than finding uncontested market niches,
the attacker could also look for uncontested geographical areas. The strategy is suitable when:
 the market is segmented
  there are some segments that are not well served by the existing competitors
 the target competitor has relatively strong resources and is well able to withstand a head-
on attack
 the attacker has moderately strong resources, enough to successfully defend several
niches
 Flanking Position (defensive) - This involves the re-deployment of your resources to deter a
flanking attack. You strengthen your flank if you think it is vulnerable. The disadvantage of this
defense is that it can distract you from your primary objective and siphon resources away from where
they are needed most. In business terms, this involves the introduction of new products, product
lines, orbrands, the defensive re-positioning of existing products, or additional promotional activity in a
market niche. It requires market segmentation and/or product differentiation. You protect against
potential loss of market share in a segment by strengthening your competitive position there.