All strategies are not equal.
Was talking with Mark recently who shared a quote from a former professor of his that I really like: “Strategy is the art of finding the unfair physical advantage.” While lots of other quotes talk about strategy as an abstract or invisible thing I love the fact that this acknowledges that strategy is tangible, real and can be touched. By extension, it follows that strategy depends upon physical assets and characteristics such as size, strength, arsenal, etc.
This is why strategy is not transferrable from one company to the the next, I’ll post a presentation about that shortly. However, the less obvious implication is that strategy is also not transferrable from one kind of marketing to the next. The clearest example of this for me is the difference between communications strategy and (for lack of a better term) modern brand strategy that is concerned with defining how brands behave.
Comms strategy is concerned with simplicity and focus. Complex strategies are extremely hard to communicate well, especially in cluttered media and so strategy for comms is largely an art of editing, filtering and sharpening. The goal is to put all your weight behind a single thrust. Here the physical metaphor is helpful because it shows that communications strategy is about precise targeting and strength.
On the other hand, modern brand strategy is about the smart use of all your assets, as a result, modern brand strategy tends to be complex and layered. Modern brand strategy can also have complex goals: the creation of a partnership or two-sided market with a former competitor, the reshaping of a category, and so on. These things can’t be achieved through simplicity and focus, they require balance, speed and creativity.