Strategy is winning before you start. If you enter a fair fight, you’ve already failed strategically. Michael Porter said it clearly: “The essence of strategy is choosing what NOT to do.” Strategy means creating unfair advantages, choosing your battlefield, and being different, not just better.
Three questions expose whether you have strategy or just tactics: Where will we play? How will we win? What will we NOT do? The test: If your competitor can do exactly what you’re doing, that’s not strategy. That’s keeping up.
Six Strategic Patterns That Actually Work
Flanking: Attack Where They’re Weak..
Dollar Shave Club didn’t fight Gillette on TV ads or retail shelves. They made a $ 4,500 YouTube video, used humor instead of athlete endorsements, sold subscriptions online.
Trade-off: gave up prestige positioning and retail distribution entirely.
Result: 12,000 orders in 48 hours, sold to Unilever for $ 1 billion in 2016. They attacked where Gillette was weak—price, accessibility, tone.
Watch the original video | Read the case study
New Territory: Create Category You Own.
Red Bull stopped competing on “our drink gives you energy.” They funded Felix Baumgartner to jump from the edge of space, live-streamed it on YouTube, created actual entertainment instead of drink advertising.
Trade-off: spent 100M+ earned media. Created new category as media company producing extreme content.
Watch the space jump | Read the analysis
Concentration: Overwhelming Force at One Point.
Old Spice was “grandfather’s deodorant.” They targeted WOMEN (who buy 60% of men’s body wash), not men. ONE video format. ONE week of ALL resources: 186 personalized response videos.
Trade-off: ignored men entirely, abandoned traditional masculine advertising, bet everything on viral moment.
Result: 60M+ views, sales increased 125% in one year, became #1 body wash for men in U.S.
Watch the original | See response videos
Redirection: Use Their Strength Against Them.
Burger King has fewer locations than McDonald’s. Instead of fighting that weakness, they weaponized it. Their app promotion: “Get Whopper for 1 cent… ONLY within 600 feet of McDonald’s.”
Forced customers to go to McDonald’s, open BK app, then leave for BK. Made McDonald’s locations trigger thinking about Burger King.
Trade-off: complicated user journey, required going to competitor first.
Result: BK app jumped from 686th to #1 downloaded, 1.5 million downloads in 9 days, 37:1 ROI.
Watch the campaign | Read the breakdown
Vertical Integration: Own the Entire Journey.
Glossier faced beauty giants with billions in ads and retail presence. They started with blog “Into The Gloss” (owned audience before selling anything), asked readers what products they wanted, created products from community feedback, sold directly through website only.
Customer journey they control: blog reader becomes community member becomes product co-creator becomes customer becomes advocate becomes content creator recruits new readers.
Trade-off: no retail presence, slower initial growth, had to build audience from zero.
Result: 1.2 billion by 2019.
Visit Glossier | Read the Harvard case
Trojan Horse: Make Customers Do the Marketing.
Music streaming is commoditized. Spotify created personalized year-end summaries (Wrapped), made them shareable social graphics, released before holidays, made it feel like personal achievement.
Users don’t feel like advertisers—they feel like they’re sharing about themselves. But every share is a Spotify ad with personal endorsement. Each share recruits friends who want their own Wrapped.
Trade-off: only works once a year, requires significant data infrastructure.
Result: 156M+ users engaged with Wrapped 2023, dominated social media entire week in December, billions of impressions, all organic.
See Wrapped | Read the analysis
How to Apply This
Before every campaign, ask: Which strategic pattern are we using? What’s our unfair advantage? first-mover, network effects, content moat, technology, community? If you don’t have one, you’re not being strategic.
What are we choosing NOT to do? No trade-offs means no strategy. Must sacrifice 100 good options for 1 great one.
Can competitors easily copy this? If yes, not strategic. If no, potentially strategic.
Does this compound over time? Tactics deplete. Strategy compounds.
For service businesses: Flanking through transparency, most competitors hide pricing, you expose it completely. New Territory through education authority, own the space connecting your service to larger life impact. Concentration through platform dominance, choose ONE platform, overwhelming presence. Redirection through membership models, create membership that eliminates industry friction. Integration through full-service journey, own every step from consultation to maintenance. Trojan Horse through user content, free quiz with shareable results.
The Strategic Test
Is this a position or promotion? Promotion is “20% off” (temporary). Position is “transparent pricing clinic” (lasting).
Can competitors copy easily? Yes means not strategic. No means strategic, defensible.
Does it compound? What are we NOT doing? If you haven’t eliminated options, you haven’t chosen strategy.
Is it defensible through first-mover advantage, network effects, or content moat? If none, competitors will copy in 60 days.
Tactics are what you do. Strategy is WHY you do it THERE, THAT WAY, and not somewhere else. Everyone has tactics. Few have strategy.
We don’t market. We mark.
WordReward
Tags: strategy marketing positioning business internal client WordReward
Related: WordReward Strategic “Reset” • Remote Operations Without Losing Control • Structural Decisions vs Motivational Ones • Building Unfair Advantages • Why Most Marketing Isn’t Strategic • Trade-offs and Strategic Choices
