Welcome to Marketing Chronicles. A newsletter where marketers come for expert industry commentary at the intersection of strategy and creativity — every Wednesday sent before daybreak. If you like what you see, join us for free.

In this edition:

• Column: Strategic Thinkers Are Playing A Different Game

• Inspiration: Magnum’s “Find Your Summer”

• Timeless Wisdom: Nietzsche’s Take On Struggle

Column: Strategic Thinkers Are Playing A Different Game

If I earned a dollar for every time someone started talking about their marketing by listing out the tactics they have ran in the past, I’d be a rich man today.

Social media, ads, logos, innovations, and so on. All very valid tactics but far too often put to work BEFORE strategy has been fleshed out.

The reason I find this to be such a big problem is because tactics should be informed BY your strategy, and NOT the other way around.

While it can be tempting to jump straight into the tangibles of marketing, resisting this urge will save you thousands, if not millions, of dollars over the course of your brand’s existence, while driving more effectiveness and efficiency in everything you end up choosing to do.

The Origins of Strategy

The term “strategy” first appeared in military texts. These army generals from ancient empires used to first get a literal lay of the land to understand its weak and strong points.

This assessment was of the utmost importance for both offensive missions and for defending themselves from attacks. By understanding their environment and its natural points of advantage, military generals could more effectively position their troops across the land to improve their chances of success.

Even if they were outnumbered, well thought-out strategies enabled them to significantly increase their chances to defeat even the strongest of enemies.

Only once this assessment and plan had been devised, would generals begin mobilizing troops into the field of battle. This second part is what became to be known as tactics.

In other words then, strategy is where we play and how we win in the field of battle. Whereas tactics are how we then deliver on the strategy and execute for success.

When the Allies stormed the beaches of Normandy to fight the Nazis, the strategic thought that went into that mission is something that continues to be studied to this day.

It took the Allies several years of strategizing before kicking intensive planning into gear 18 months prior to D-Day (June 6, 1944):

• The initial planning for a cross-Channel invasion began as early as 1942. This included high-level strategic discussions and coordination among the Allied leaders.

• Intensive detailed planning began in earnest in early 1943 after the Casablanca Conference in January. At this conference, Allied leaders agreed that a cross-Channel invasion was a priority.

• From mid-1943 onwards, extensive training and rehearsals were conducted. This included amphibious landing practices, paratrooper drops, and combined arms exercises to ensure coordination between the army, navy, and air force.

• Significant time was spent on the logistical buildup, including the production of specialized equipment, stockpiling supplies, and assembling troops in the United Kingdom.

• In the months leading up to the invasion, final preparations were made, including refining plans, conducting deception operations (like Operation Bodyguard), and ensuring all elements were ready for execution.

And what followed was arguably the best brief ever written in the history of strategic thinking. In his brief, General Montgomery only needed one page to ensure his troops executed the plan that was devised throughout all those years leading up to it. And note the underlined word at the bottom right of the page.

Can you imagine what would have happened had the Allies stormed the beaches of Normandy without all this strategic thinking in place?

An Exercise of Making Sacrifices

A strategy, in order to be effective, must be attainable.

While it’s fashionable these days to be an optimist, when you’re devising your strategy that’s not the time to act in such a way.

Great plans are acutely aware of five key questions:

1. What choices have been made?

2. What have you had to sacrifice?

3. Can it be simply communicated?

4. Do the numbers add up?

5. Have you brought others along?

But you might say: “Well, Pedro, if we don’t aim for the stars we will never end up outdoing ourselves”.

Correct. Your long-term objectives can aim for the stars, and your 1-3 year plans can also push the envelope, but if you are not honest with yourself about the most likely scenario you will quickly dig yourself into a hole.

Let’s pretend you write a brand strategy in which you aim to increase consideration from 10% to 90% within 12 months. Easy to write it on paper, and when shown at boardrooms people might even pat you on the back and applaud your ambition.

But experienced planners can sniff the BS from miles away.

If your budget isn’t large enough to reach your entire market at a high frequency for a long period of time through high-attention media channels, this objective is just hopes and dreams.

… You’ll hope that your content will go viral.

… You’ll hope that celebrities will use your product.

…You’ll hope that your supply chain can manage the exponential demand.

But hope is not a strategy.

A good strategy is patient, calculated, and consistent. It is honest with one’s own position in the market relative to its competitors, fully grasps the size of the market to be fought for, is attuned to customers’ wants, needs, and pain points, and most importantly it uses all of this data to inform one’s desired future positioning in the market.

Only then will a strategist be able to say with confidence what’s truly attainable with the budget they are given. And if objectives and/or size of the target audience change, so do budgets.

Therefore, at its very core, strategy is about conquering the art of staying consistent and relevant in a moving environment.

Strategy First, Tactics Second

Such decisions cannot be made lightly.

The job of a strategist is a heavy one. It requires courage, self-discipline, and a bit of luck. There’s only so much we can control — and while one could argue that this portion is the minority of it, it still represents a major competitive advantage since all your competitors are also at the mercy of Lady Serendipity.

Now, once you have a good picture of the market, its various segments, which target audiences are worth overinvesting in, what position you want to convey to the broader market and to the various target consumers you may choose to go after, and laid out clear, measurable and attainable objectives… can you begin thinking of the tactics to execute your strategy.

This work must not be taken lightly. Otherwise there will be no Hail Mary you can think of that will save the day.

Do this yearly. Do this patiently. Do this thoughtfully.

Only then will you get a chance to win on the field of battle.

Inspiration: Magnum’s “Find Your Summer”

To my fellow Canadians who have to withstand endless months of winter, this campaign will strike a chord.

Imagine you were an ice cream brand trying to sell your product during the winter months. How would you go about it? What insight would you build your marketing comms around?

Magnum seems to have cracked the code.

This campaign is so elegant (which is exactly the position Magnum wants to play in) and sensitive at the same time. Little moments here and there. Small instants of joy in otherwise treacherous cold days… when the Sun’s warmth hits your skin.

And if you’ve been reading my past columns, you’ll also notice the exemplar usage of their distinctive brand assets, particularly the sound of taking a bite at the chocolate hard-shelled exterior of the ice cream.

Tasteful and captivating.

Timeless Wisdom: Nietzsche’s Take On Struggle

This new segment is all about bringing forth thoughts, ideas, passages, and other meanderings of timeless wisdom. These will typically derive from philosophy, classic literature and art.

While the intention with this segment is not necessarily to apply it to our work, I have found as a strategist that philosophy and classic literature hold more insight into the inner workings of human nature than any other source of information out there today. Use it at your own discretion.

This week, while browsing X, I stumbled upon this great passage from Nietzsche that is worth as a reminder to all of us:

“The most intelligent men, like the strongest, find their happiness where others would find only disaster: in the labyrinth, in being hard with themselves and with others, in effort; their delight is in self-mastery; in them asceticism becomes second nature, a necessity, an instinct. They regard a difficult task as a privilege; it is to them a recreation to play with burdens that would crush all others.” — Friedrich Nietzsche

More of PPA:

• 🤝 Connect with Pedro on LinkedIn and/or X

• 🍻 Come by the WJ office for a brew

• 💌 In case you missed it:

  • What Is Your Product Hired To Do?

  • Getting To The Insight

  • Pick Your Distribution Channels Wisely

PPA 

Pedro Porto Alegre is a seasoned marketing professional with in-depth experience building brand and communications strategies for top-tier B2C and B2B organizations across Canada. His repertoire extends from crafting and executing integrated multi-media brand marketing campaigns to the commercialization of performance-driven innovations for multimillion-dollar and nascent brands alike.