Marketing Warfare

Author - Prashant Raikwar

Since the markets are dynamic, actions and reactions of rivals must be taken into consideration, as well as the requirements of the customers as well while formulating a business strategy.

Marketing warfare strategies utilize military representations to understand the elements of business rivalry.

So regardless of how you approach developing your own business, you’ll be constantly impacted by the competition in the markets. There are four possible strategies for fighting marketing warfare:

Defensive Marketing is utilized by the brand or the business leaders to protect their market standing in the marketplace. This type of strategy is best suitable for leaders who want themselves to stay at the top, blocking competitor's moves. A perfect example that I can quote here is Starbucks. They weren’t the first coffee chain who were providing free Wi-Fi but they promoted this so that they could target and get the attention of a larger audience in the markets.

Offensive Marketing is challenging the competitors in the markets with the best products, offers, and promotions. This type of strategy is used by companies like McDonald’s Vs Burger King or Pepsi Vs Coke. It means attacking the weakness of the competitors using a direct strategy.

Flanking Marketing allows a company to enter into the markets. Typically, a business aims to capture a market segment that is not well served by existing rivalry. This type of strategy is for new players moving into a not contested area. It involves an indirect approach to create market space. A perfect example which we can think of is the Absolut Vs Smirnoff where Absolut went into the Vodka making space and prices that the company quoted were 50% more than their rivals which attacked the competition in the premium vodka space.

Guerrilla Marketing as we all know focuses more on creativity than the costing. This type of marketing strategy communicates an unconventional communication which leaves a high impact impression. This strategy is perfect for small players in the markets.

So, these military strategies are good at creating a strong market presence of the business and leaving the competitors in the dilemma of marketing competition.