What Marketers Can Learn from the Cold War
Millions of football and advertising fans watched Anheuser-Busch take a swipe at MillerCoors in last weekend’s Super Bowl, ridiculing Coors’ use of corn syrup in their formula. I’m sure the Anheuser-Busch campaign was the result of exhaustive research to find the Achilles’ heel of its nemesis. The tactic is as old as the art of marketing itself. Does it work?
Having had the benefit of competing as a CMO during the airfare wars, cookie wars, cola wars, and burger wars, I can say with certainty that it depends.
I’ve watched United Airlines try to beat back the upstart Southwest Airlines, 7UP try to fend off Sprite, Gatorade protect its turf from Powerade, Burger King poke McDonald’s in the eye, and Arby’s try to expose Subway’s presliced meats.
I’ll leave the debate over the strategic wisdom of any of these rivalries in terms of their impact on consumer behavior to another day. Instead, I’d simply like to point out the surprisingly positive power of declaring an enemy.
In this case, Bud Light’s attack generated a commensurate response among 1,400 employees and their leadership at Coors.
“Bud Light came after our flagship brands on the world’s biggest stage and they’re quickly learning that was a big mistake,” wrote CEO Gavin Hattersley in an internal memo an employee shared with me. “Our distributors are fired up, our fans are fired up, and most importantly, our people are fired up. The energy and enthusiasm across our business is infectious. We’ve committed to moving faster and taking smart risks and I can’t think of a better example of how we’re doing that than going on the offense against Bud Light.”
So who drew the most energy from Bud Light’s attack?
The most transcendent example of the power of an enemy came during the end of the Cold War between the Western World and the former U.S.S.R. Of course, most Americans celebrated the fall of the Berlin Wall and the break up of the Soviet Union. Why wouldn’t we? But did it result in any unintended consequence?
In 1988, Georgi Arbatov, Soviet expert on the U.S., had a message for his audience of Western democracies: “We are going to do a terrible thing to you. We are going to deprive you of an enemy.”
What he meant was that having a common enemy allows a nation or company to channel energy, resources and passion toward a common goal. Without that, a company’s focus turns inward. Internal conflicts are created. People can lose their sense of purpose. Teams bog down, unable to do anything new or innovative because everybody has a different idea of what should be done — a different enemy, if you will.
I’m not suggesting that you create an enemy out of whole cloth to galvanize your team. But if you’re in business, there’s always another organization that would be delighted to take your customers away from you by offering better products, better service or more value.
Setting your rival up as an opponent or evil empire can become a rallying point, a source of inspiration that compels and propels excellence.
Sometimes the power of a rival can electrify an entire organization. When Coke finally blinked by changing its 100-year-old legendary secret formula — mainly due to the fact that Pepsi’s sweeter product was consistently beating original Coke in blind taste tests — then-PepsiCo CEO Roger Enrico gave the entire Pepsi organization the next day off. In that case, Coke’s own customer base felt betrayed and the soft drink giant had to drop the entire strategy.
Your market orientation may not reveal a clear, singular, preeminent competitor; but your enemies can also be apathy, disorganization or lack of focus. Anything that would work against achieving your vision and mission can be considered the enemy. Your team needs purpose to thrive. Purpose is the single most important factor in developing a high-performing team.
“Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it’s the only thing that ever has,” cultural anthropologist Margaret Mead said. Whomever she had in mind when she made this eloquent statement had a significant nemesis for sure.
Who or what is your enemy? What are the things that are worth fighting for? Who or what is in your way? The alignment and engagement of your entire organization might depend on answering this question.
