Carcassonne Strategy

I heard this story from a CEO giving a talk at HBS. It’s amazing.

So Carcassonne is a city in France. At some point in its history, it gets attacked by the Moors, who have the castle walls of the city surrounded. A standoff ensues and the Moors decide to simply wait for the Franks to run out of food and supplies.

Towards the end of the standoff, both armies are hurting and running out of food. One day, the villagers of Carcassonne run to their Princess telling her that they only have one pig and one barrel of grain remaining in the entire city. The Princess’ advisors immediately tell her that they must surrender.

Instead, the Princess tells the villagers to feed the last pig all of the last barrel of grain. Perplexed, the villagers obey the Princess’ orders. The pig eats all the grain, becoming overly fed and bloated.

The princess then has her army catapult the pig over the castle wall. It splatters right in the middle of the Moors camp.

The Moors stand there, astounded by what has just happened.

“If they are shooting well-fed pigs at us, they must have an over abundance of food.”

They immediately retreated.

The Takeaway: Don’t necessarily be afraid to spend lavishly on marketing and sales, even if you don’t necessarily have the capacity. If your competitors are in a weak place, they will go running.