Alex Churchill

If a strategy is decided upon, and a tactic is developed subsequently that is perfect for the product, but not on strategy, should the tactic be shelved or should the strategy be reconsidered? In the agency world, there is no contest, strategy beats tactic like a red headed stepchild every time out.

But under an adaptive marketing model (thanks to Jon Lax for getting me on that train), that really shouldn’t be the case. If by adaptive marketing we mean communications that help consumers and continuously evolve based on consumer feedback, then it is entirely possible that the second a consumer gets ahold of a single tactic formulated on a given strategy and requests that it be changed in some fundamental way, the strategy under which that tactic was formulated is now invalid – and counter to the adaptive marketing model. It means that marketers who ascribe to the adaptive marketing model have to re-think how they view “strategy” and “tactics” and the law of nature that dictates the former drive the latter.

For my part at Standard English Limited, I see it boiling down to this: sometimes, a killer tactic can formulate strategy rather than the other way around. It is essential that once the strategy is re-aligned to that tactic that all other work stay with that strategy, until the next killer tactic comes along. After all, if agility is the key selling feature of an adaptive marketing organization, shouldn’t the strategists have to be as fleet of foot as the creative teams?