The battle goes on....

Jack Trout and Al Ries (now gone their separate ways), authors of Positioning: The Battle for Your Mind, also wrote a book called Marketing Warfare, based on the classic text On War by the 18th-century Prussian general Karl von Clausewitz.

In the chapter on strategy, Clausewitz writes: "The effects of genius show not so much in novel forms of action as in the ultimate success of the whole."

Now that sounds obvious. But all too often — in war as in marketing — it's not. Yes, high-tech weapons have changed the way we make war. But sophisticated weapons are no more than precision tools. In the hands of a fool — or at the hands of a foolish strategy — they can only destroy.

Some of our own obsession with technological gimmickry today is also grabbing at straws, instead of thinking through a problem. True, online marketing has changed the way we do business. But even the most sophisticated techniques are tools not ideas.

Clausewitz talks of focusing on the "smooth harmony" of the total campaign, instead of minor details of execution: "The student who cannot discover this harmony in actions that lead up to a final success may be tempted to look for genius in places where it does not and cannot exist."

The highest level of strategy he says, is a matter of intellect, not materials. "At that level, there is little or no difference between strategy, policy and statesmanship.... Where execution is dominant.... intellectual factors are reduced to a minimum." We might say the same thing about where "creativity" is dominant, instead of strategy.

Then Clausewitz says something we should all frame and hang up right next to Murphy's Law:
"Everything in strategy is very simple, but that does not mean that everything is very easy."

That brings home the contrast between execution and strategy. But where do tactics fit in? As Trout and Ries point out, strategy that comes from the ivory tower — instead of the tactical realities of the battlefield — is bound to fail. Napoleon and Patton were great strategists because they knew the realities of the battlefield firsthand. As Patton put it "One does not plan and then try to make the circumstances fit those plans. One tries to make the plans fit the circumstances."

That's precisely the point. Strategy and tactics are two parts of greater whole. They are both "matters of the intellect." On the other hand, even the most stunning execution can only be as successful as the idea behind it.

So what's your own "Big Idea"? What's the strategy behind your use of a blog, or a three-dimensional pop-up, or streaming video?

Just remember, any creative technique should only be used to gain a tactical advantage: to attract and bold attention long enough to make a conquest.

Otherwise you're fighting a losing battle.