Lessons from Desert Storm
Warfare has much to teach astute marketing managers.
Have you ever noticed how many business and marketing books feature warfare analogies? Why are there so many business books based on Sun Tzu’s The Art of War? Ries and Trout’s Marketing Warfare draws its principles from the writings of Von Clausewitz. In what sense is marketing like warfare?
The similarities are many, actually. Here are three.
- Both marketing and war require strategy.
- Both require knowing what you’re up against.
- Both require strategic awareness and execution.
Strategic awareness means paying attention as the plan unfolds because plans developed in an ivory tower don’t always work out as anticipated when they encounter the unpredictability of reality. This is why many NFL football games look like they will be a rout by the end of the first half, because one team’s game plan was amiss. At halftime, good teams adjust and, as the saying goes, it’s suddenly a whole new ballgame.
Similarly, Napoleon was extremely thorough in his planning, but always recognized chance as a variable and believed every plan should be flexible enough to exploit the unpredictable.
In the early 90s I wrote an article based on the Persian Gulf War titled “Lessons from Desert Storm.”…
