There is nothing like a Guerilla Marketing campaign to take branding to a new level. To stand out in a saturated media environment, Yahoo! once used people with sandwich-boards on busy sidewalks. But even for a Guerilla there are some things you just don’t do. For instance no one at the marketing division of Yahoo! would have wanted the company mentioned in the same sentence as pornography, but when the company dipped its toes in creating a division of the portal that handled ‘adult content’, the newspaper headlines were more powerful than its oh-so-cool advertising headlines.

This is an age when consumers are more powerful than corporations (ask the World Trade Organization!). Within 36 hours, some hundred thousand emails from angry visitors told Yahoo what it seemed to have forgotten. That it had a brand that was owned by its users, not its corporate office!

Don’t mess with Strategy
Which brings me to my pet topic, the misconception of the word ‘strategic’. It’s one of those weapons we marketers use when stuck for an answer, or when we want to make a simple idea sound profound. But the problem is not just semantic, as much as the confusion over strategies and tactics. A quick glance at the dictionary will put this matter to rest, but for the record, the word strategy derives from war, and it often means "the science and art of military command exercised to meet the enemy, or to achieve a planned goal". It is always a long-term goal. As Michael Porter, the Harvard professor who popularized strategic thinking in the eighties explains, strategy is all about making choices. You cannot be all things to all people.

Tactics, on the other hand have short-term objectives, and companies often demand advertisements for these purposes. Seasonal campaigns tend to be tactical, and in recessionary times, companies that are hard-pressed to move goods use such tactics. Often it’s the tactics that get companies in trouble. They mess with the strategy.

Peace, Love and Big Trouble
To be fair, the campaign for IBM was extremely creative. It was launching IBM’s push into the Linux operating system, which also means it was de-marketing its relationship with the Windows-based systems. Is it strategic, or is it tactical? While you ponder on that question, consider this. The campaign was titled "Peace, Love and Linux." Does the return to the peace metaphor of the sixties ring a bell? Remember how Apple Computer in the eighties staged a similar coup by casting itself as an anti-establishment figure protesting Big Brother, IBM?

It is still early days to see what IBM’s real motive is in moving towards the Linux operating system. If it is a move to reposition Big Blue as the company for those sick and tired of Microsoft, then, the graffiti might be considered ‘strategic’. But if it was simply piggybacking on the Linux image (Linux, available as freeware, was created by the rebellious programming community), then it was a good tactic. If only it was not sprayed on public property!

Graffiti in the US is always bad news. In the eighties, Dodge experimented with a campaign for its Neon model of cars, and had to withdraw the ads –and they only looked like graffiti. Sure, O&M originally intended to use chalk and biodegradable paint, but who remembers these details? City guardians and newspapers have a wider impact than all the guerillas for hire. Chicago fined IBM with a mere fifty dollars for each of the 100 ‘ads’. But five thousand bucks cannot buy the silence of millions of people who will now remember the company as an irresponsible corporate citizen.

Corporate Woes
Ad agencies cannot pretend not to be aware of the broader context of strategy. It’s a bad time for corporate America. The voices of dissent have grown more organized to protest against the injustices of the once much-loved brands. Under withering attack are Nike, Shell, Wal-Mart, Firestone, Coca-Cola, and of course, everyone’s favourite punching bag, Microsoft. Pharmaceutical companies did not expect consumers to impact world opinion, when the companies sued South Africa trying to stop them importing cheap anti-AIDS drugs. The supporters created enough buzz to get the WHO and the European Union to support their cause, and 39 powerful drug companies dropped their lawsuit. Then at Quebec this April, the tens of thousands of organized protesters at the 34-nation FTAA 'Summit of the Americas’ sent a strong message to Western leaders and corporations: Consider people, not profits! The message to multi-national corporations is clear: Listen to your constituents. Their PR (public rebellion) may be louder than yours. Their tactics might drown your strategy.

Which brings us back to the architects of strategy. Tomorrow’s ad agencies will need to be more involved with the planning and implementing of marketing strategy, before they even start considering running ads. This is what I would call 'visioneering'. We all agree that the ad cannot work in isolation. But we get a little blurry when we set our strategic goals, and our tactical ones. Guerilla marketers –and soon everyone wants to be one—need to return to drawing board and do it ASAP: As Strategic As Possible.