Offensive and Defensive Strategies in Marketing

I love strategy in all types of things.  Probably why I am drawn to a career of advertising there is so much strategy underling behind all those ads and silly beer commercials.  I also do enjoy playing some Texas’s Hold’em poker occasionally.  There is a ton of strategy in that game, you could be the smartest and best player, and still end up losing.  So no matter how great the strategy there is still some luck in the game.  Texas hold’em is pretty much is one of the closest metaphors I can come up with for life.  One movie I highly enjoy is the movie “Rounders” with Matt Damon.  In this movie he is a law student who is heavily driven towards this passion of his (poker), and you see how it affects his relationships with everyone around him, for good or bad.  There is one quote in the movie where he is telling his girlfriend that, “Throw in your cards the moment you know they can’t win…fold the hand.” Later on in the movie you find out that she can’t handle his gambling ways and dumps him and she says (although I can’t find the quote) something along the line back, “that she knew she couldn’t win and had to decide when to fold.”  Which got me thinking about several things about strategies.  These thoughts triggered this moment of why I was doing this (seeking this career choice of advertising) on a whole different level.

The thing about texas hold’em is you are never out of a hand until you are put “all in” by another player or all bets are done and the cards are turned over.  I love to play poker with an ability to make sure that when I am playing a hand, my opponent make every move I want them to.  I want it to be that I have you make decisions you don’t want to, or caught off guard by.  I know in my head many times that my opponent has the better hand and is going to win unless I can make them fold.  There are many strategies I can use.  I can be confident and very aggressive which is more of a direct offensive approach, or I can pretend I am weak and then come over the top of you with a raise (trap) making sure they feel less confident about their hand even if it may be better, another type of move that is very strategic and offensive.  With that said I will begin to discuss how texas hold’em and strategy plays into advertising.

I have played many sports and games in my life and always have had an offensive attitude.  It is truly remarkable how when it comes to competition in any form that there are really only two types of people.  There is defense or offense.  Do you try to manage “the game” to prevent the most amount of damage done, or do you lower your head and go in attacking.  Do you play it safe, or are you going fast and dangerous.  Regardless, you can take risks on both sides of offense and defense.  But do you initially think we should go out and plan a way to make the most amount damage to the other side, or to score or that we should think of a way to prevent the other team from scoring?  I think I am drawn to an advertising side of my career choice, because I have such an offensive mentality in really everything I do.  Advertisers are people who go out and leave everything on the line to go out and “score.”  I find this career to appeal to my competitive needs, also when it comes to offensive strategy there is more you can try and get away with.  Being a big football fan, it is easy to know that especially in this era of the NFL teams that have offenses that throw everything and new stuff at you (the kitchen sink) are finding more success or better watch-able football as I like to call it, I also am heavily bias to an offensive personality.  This is good for me but I am an Arizona Cardinals fan and they have great offensive to watch.  Thinking about it again though a defense is raised/trained mentally to be more disciplined.  Go out and do “your” job and the other members will do theirs in coming up with a defensive scheme to minimize losses.  Although I am fully aware of the quote, “the best offense is a good defense” I do believe that is true but the same thing can be said the other way around.  I am not saying one way is better than another but it really is how the world is set up.  The third option is to have no care what so ever and we all see how that benefits many people, who have no ambitions.

With my ambitions I want to be on the creative side of advertising.  One of the few careers in the world besides a quarterback for a football I can think of as being highly offensive.  In art you have to be ambitious, you really can’t prevent your losses in the art world.  You have to dig deep believe in yourself and throw everything on the line.  With that said, I don’t know if I can do that.  I don’t really want to be a starving artist.  This is where the strategic approach comes in (on the advertising side).  I have rules and guidelines, but at the same time I don’t.  What I chose to do is really almost up to my disposal, how will I meet these goals the company has set out.  What approach do I take?  With other parts of advertising there is a heavy defensive influence.  The research part is defensive.  How do we study our opponent (the consumer) so we know what they are going to do, and have a safe plan to minimize losses in case there are some in this game (ad campaign)?  I find it truly amazing these struggles of strategies that people face.  You see it in advertising the companies that seem the most offensive and memorable are the ones that took big risks.  Everyone in the USA pretty much only knows both Geico and Aflac because they chose bizarre spokes people that were crazy talking animals.  Yet there are also companies that take a defensive approach to advertising like banks for example.  Although the insurance agency market really is no laughing matter.  These companies knew people had lots of concerns and taking big risks in investing with them.  Allstate took a more defensive approach I believe.  They make sure you understand the seriousness of a moment in your life when you might need to rely on an insurance agency.  But I personally believe that more people have an easier time remembering the funny little British gecko that Geico has.  So I can really see myself and having a future in this career choice for this simple example of offensive and defense during and ad campaign.  Who was the person that felt the best way to tackle such a heavy risk purchase item like insurance and come up with a humorous spokes person that became likable and memorable as the Geico gecko.  Personally I think this way offensive strategy was genius to the ultimate level, if you don’t feel so please feel free to respond.  Well I did enjoy writing this and I feel that I will have many other postings about this strategic battle that goes on everyday in the work place, time to get some sleep.