• by Michael Kubin , August 1, 2001

Stay with this; it may not start that way, but it really is a media column. Trust me.

In John Keegan's fascinating A History of Warfare, he describes the conditions necessary to have a war. One would think, as I initially did, that all it takes is two armed teams with sufficient hatred for one another. But reality is considerably more interesting, and complex:

Terrain: It turns out that in order to have a really good war you need topography and climate that exist within fairly narrow boundaries. Mountains and deserts don't qualify, and neither do jungles, tundra, or arctic zones. Interestingly, all but a very few sea battles took place within a short distance from land, meaning that practically all the oceans are off limits for warfare. In fact, a world map marking the site of every recorded battle shows the dots to be bunched together to a remarkable degree.

Weapons: Wars require instruments that protect, and hold an edge. You can't wage war with rocks and clubs; even copper, the first metal that early man found, was useless because it was too soft. The addition of tin-turning copper into bronze-was a step forward, but it was the widespread use of iron that allowed for shields that protected and swords that sliced.

Economics: Armies are expensive. In order to wage war, a people must have the wealth to equip and feed their army, while at the same time being able to afford the protracted absence of a large number of productive men.

A goal: Wars are fought with prizes in mind, something to win. That usually comes in the form of 'compact wealth'; i.e., something the winning army can transport back home. Thousands of years ago these prizes were generally gold, grains, or women. Early wars weren't fought for land since most people were farmers, already had their own land, and wouldn't have been able to farm any new land they acquired.

In Trout and Ries's seminal Marketing Warfare the authors draw heavily from Clausewitz's On War, making the analogy between military conflict and the war marketers face every day in selling their goods and services. Melding some of Keegan's observations with those of Trout and Ries and applying them to the recent entry of the Web as a contestant in marketing warfare yields some interesting results:

Terrain: The American marketing arena is a hostile playground with longstanding and deeply entrenched relationships among marketers, agencies, and media. A newcomer like the Web would need to work long and hard to gain a foothold. We're only five years into this; clearly more time is needed.

Weapons: Trout and Ries compare the major media to the branches of the military. Television is the air force, providing broad air cover. Similarly, radio, magazines, and newspapers play the roles of infantry, guerrillas, and tanks. The question is: what role does Web advertising play? Is it a broad-based strategic branding medium, or a narrowly-focus tactical direct response medium? The answer is unclear. And it is that lack of clarity that needs to be eliminated before the Web can take a serious presence in marketers' war plans.

Economics: Media are very hungry mouths to feed. The sputtering economy and evaporating ad media dollars have sucked sustenance from the incumbents. Even magazines with long and proud histories have been forced into acquisition or failure in the current harsh environment. Websites, financed principally through non-renewable investment dollars, quickly starved in sickeningly large numbers as their lifelines were cut off. The best that can be said is that those that are still standing will be stronger for it, and are far more likely to survive-and thrive.

Something to win: The lack of ad dollars took away the raison d'etre for many ad-supported websites. And as Keegan postulated, without a goal there can be no goal.

So we all wait for the ad dollars to return, which inevitably they will.

- Michael Kubin is co-CEO of Evaliant, formerly Leading Web Advertisers, one of the web's leading sources for online ad data. He may be reached at mkubin@evaliant.net.