• by Robert Wheatley , September 23, 2024

Sound strategy is the province of brand and category leaders who influence culture and transform lives -- bending the market in their direction while doing it. This is all too rare.

In more than a few CPG or retail categories, we encounter brands and businesses that are marginally differentiated from competitors and year-to-year only add a tweak here or there to a marketing platform that follows a well-worn, uninspiring path.

Sound strategy not on the menu

All fine, except, sound strategy rarely if ever sits underneath an extension of the status quo. What masquerades as strategy is all too often a middle ground tactical endeavor that will inevitably achieve base hits rather than an inspiring leap towards a desirable ‘grand slam’ business performance.

The mysterious predictor of marketing outcomes is served up in the goals set for the coming year. Not all goals are created equal. Meaning, quite often we see brands settling on tactical goals. On the flip side are more challenging goals (which we can design) that demand and provoke sound strategy.

So, what’s the difference?

A tactical goal:

• You’re aiming to increase sales by x%
• You aren’t substantially altering the pathway or conversation
• You may increase spending, adjust the media mix, modify the story
• Importantly, you know what to do next -- and so does your competition

A strategic goal:

• You want to transform the category and change consumer behavior
• You don’t immediately know how to get there or what comes next
• You must change direction, behaviors, tools and do something different

Tactical goals can’t put you on a path to deploying sound strategy. If the goal is narrowly defined, strategy simply isn’t required and won’t manifest. This is the territory occupied by nonstrategic brands and businesses. When ambitions are (much) bigger, you’ll need a unique and imaginative plan to tackle it -- thus, a strategy.

Sound strategy is instantly recognizable because:

1. It doesn’t pose questions, it answers them.
2. It immediately causes you to stretch beyond the comfort zone.
3. It will work to build tangible differentiation and separation from everyone else on the shelf.
4. If there’s a tinge of discomfort because you’re taking a risk, then you know you’re onto something.
5. It enables you to say: Our brand is the only X that does Y.

Feed the cow or slay the dragon?

The world is changing more rapidly these days:

• Businesses de-stabilize
• New categories emerge
• Consumer interests rapidly shift
• Culture moves in new directions
• What was fashionable quickly becomes passe
• New technologies disrupt

In reality, the pursuit of tactical goal and absence of sound strategy is a riskier path than the move to cast for a much more ambitious prize.

Why?

Because change is the runaway train, and the status quo just isn’t as stable as it may appear.

Slaying the business dragon is ultimately more satisfying than simply feeding another bale of familiar programming hay to the current category cow.

Key questions to ask on this journey

Where do we have a point of view as a brand, and how do we bring that POV to life?

How can we look past competitors and push the edges of differentiation toward forming a new category we own?

How can we better inspire our customers and improve their lives?

What are we on the planet to accomplish, beyond making and selling products/services?