The First Stream of Thought--‘Great Companies’ are Good, Proven Practices are Even Better
The bubbleboy marketers and the discredited analyst e-aristocracy flip-flopped between ‘new rules’ and ‘no rules’ and made a habit of touting the company du jour, not identifying proven practices of dominant market leaders. Asymmetric marketers do not focus on ‘American Idol-izing’ the ‘great companies’ because any company in the Sandstorm Economy can suffer a rapid loss of reputation equity (like Enron or Andersen). Maybe the loss of reputation equity is related to SEC issues, or maybe an accounting re-statement of revenue in bubble years. The focus on great companies just obscures the challenge of a-marketers, which is to assemble a set of marketing weapons and marketing ‘boots on the ground’ that achieve full spectrum market dominance.

In my practice, I like to focus on discrete best practices not best companies. Personally, I’ve detoxed from tasty analyst coolaid, strong e-aristocracy voodoo, and impenetrable corporate rock star elitism of the magazine cover variety. For example, I find it useful in the extreme to actually study the proven practices of the much-maligned Microsoft in achieving category dominance. Throughout it’s history Microsoft has always applied the principle of overcoming absolute inferiority with relative superiority across the full spectrum of marketing activities. WordPerfect, Novell, Lotus, Netscape---they all had overwhelming segment dominance in their respective categories when Microsoft went after them in order to expand its no-fly-zone.

I also study the proven practices of Microsoft competitors who wander into their no-fly-zone and activate various ‘counter-measures’. In fact, many of the proven practices that form a foundation for a-marketing are based on the principle of overcoming one’ own absolute weakness with relative strength in each and every engagement. ‘To win first, then battle’ says the inscrutable Sun Tzu. Sorry, I couldn’t help myself.

Asymmetric Marketing: Proven Practices Are Like the Extreme Programming of Marketing
There is an increasingly popular movement in software development called extreme programming or agile programming. It is a return to ‘tactical programming’ which according to Computerworld focuses on individual contribution and programmer interaction as opposed to processes and tools. (There goes the army of one thing again.) Extreme programming favors creating working software over comprehensive and well documented code. It includes customer collaboration and is highly respondent to change vs. following a long range plan. It works on delivering products in short time frames from 14 to 90 days under rapidly changing requirements. A-marketers are like extreme programmers. Killer strategy and no huddle offense.

When over the course of its evolution, Microsoft expanded its ‘no-fly-zone’ from PC operating systems to desktop applications to network servers to browsers to e-business infrastructure that’s asymmetric marketing. When eBay leverages ‘network capital’ in the form of its self-organizing user community of millions to define new categories for expansion on the fly, that’s asymmetric marketing. When Salesforce.com, in the middle of an IT downturn, gets thousands upon thousands of small, medium and large companies to build their CRM applications on its native web application, that’s asymmetric marketing.

When WebMethods, an independent leader in the emerging web services and application integration space leverages the e-government and homeland security transformation, knocking down the stovepipes of federal data and creating a pre-emptive knowledgebase for pre-emptive anti-terrorist defense, that’s a-marketing. When companies like Google and Overture re-invent web advertising in the post-bubble world, concentrating on killer search applications and a pay-per-introduction model, that’s a-marketing. When managed security monitoring startups like Counterpane grow quarter over quarter by actually guaranteeing their customers ‘certainty of defense’ against hostile cyberattacks and cyberterrorism, that’s a-marketing.

When IBM back-to-back acquires both Rational Software and PwC Consulting to aggressively grow its leadership in complex systems integration across multiple vendor platforms, that’s asymmetric marketing. And when Amazon.com partners with brick and mortar retailers to become one of the fastest growing commerce services and hosted software providers, that’s a-marketing too. These proven practices, and many, many others form the first stream of thought providing the theoretical foundation of a-marketing. Am I saying that these are ‘great companies’ that will never screw up and are role models in each and every area. No. I’m simply saying that asymmetric marketing truth, to paraphrase Special Agent Fox Mulder of the X-files, is ‘out there’. Study it and win. Ignore it and lose.

The Second Stream of Thought--Asymmetric War Theory
Remember Bill Gates Meets Don Rumsfeld. Asymmetric marketing draws strongly on concepts of asymmetric war theory. Asymmetry is the defining concept that forms the foundation of military strategy in the new uncertainty. Asymmetric War Theory is The Rumsfeld way, or the Paul Wolfowitz way, the flexible, IT-driven application of the original Powell Doctrine of ‘overwhelming force’. Now it’s overwhelming technology and overwhelming operational processes.

Asymmetry theory is as old as conflict itself. The simple principle is to use ‘differences’ (strengths, vulnerabilities) to gain strategic or tactical advantage. On September 11, the day that changed everything, the Al Qaeda terrorists capitalized on the vulnerability of the US as an open society, turning airplanes into weapons. They used stealth, death and economic destruction deploying only 19 ‘combatants’. Psychologically, they leveraged the shock and awe of the horrific scenes at the Twin Towers, the Pentagon and the crash in Pennsylvania. Asymmetric warfare pure and simple.

When the US responded, it also did so from the standpoint of asymmetric warfare. The American military strategists have come a long way from VietNam. Targeting the base area in Afghanistan, linking up with ‘ecosystem partners’, i.e. the anti-Taliban Northern Alliance, using small numbers of special ops warriors, air superiority and more, they ‘vanquished’. Shutting down terror funding networks, and creating a ‘vulnerability reduction organization’, the Dept of Homeland Security, the American government brought the war home, and will continue to wage it at home.

We saw similar asymmetric warfare practiced in Operation Iraqi Freedom. The ‘no fly zone’, the ‘rolling start’ to maintain initiative and capture the oil fields (it was Sun Tzu that said ‘feed off the enemy’), information-rich precision munitions, and psychological warfare against a dictator---all were manifestations of the Rumsfeld way.

Military experts describe asymmetry as follows: “In the realm of military affairs and national security, asymmetry is acting, organizing and thinking differently than opponents in order to maximize one’s own advantages, exploit an opponent’s weaknesses, attain the initiative, or gain greater freedom of action. It can be political-strategic, military-strategic, operational, or a combination of these. It can entail different methods, technologies, values, organizations, time perspectives, or some combination of these. It can be short-term or long-term. It can be deliberate or by default. It can be discrete or pursued in conjunction with symmetric approaches. It can have both psychological and physical dimensions.”

These forms of asymmetry described below are totally applicable to modern high technology marketers and can be readily adapted to marketing campaigns.

Method: What operating principles are you using in your marketing campaigns? Are you mixing the unorthodox (asymmetric) with the orthodox (symmetric)? The 10 Operational Principles of Asymmetric Marketing that will be expanded upon in future essays constitute one marketing method that can prove to be effective in the Sandstorm Economy. Technology: What role does it play? We saw the information rich battlefield live on the Fox News network. Hey. We see the information-rich a-marketing battlefield live in the tech industry today. In the midst of the uncertainty, some asymmetric marketers have instinctively developed powerful, almost non-duplicatable, offerings that leverage natural internet asymmetry and 2nd inning internet effects. eBay, Google, Salesforce.com, Counterpane, Amazon.com, WebMethods and others mentioned earlier. The technology produces a ‘network capital’ infusion into their products that keeps them ahead of the game. Will/Values: This is extremely important for a-marketers. Why is the culture at Microsoft so powerful. How about unabashedly dominant, visionary ‘tribal leadership’ that has seen and won many campaigns. At the same time, Microsoft openly acknowledges its mistakes and vulnerabilities in order to get their whole set of ‘boots on the ground’ motivated. What was Bill Gates famous ‘Internet Tidal Wave’ memo if not an admission of mistakes and a corrective path forward. How many other companies admit their tactical missteps in public? What attitude do a-marketers take to customers? Are they stuck in customer co-dependence and never profitable, or do they practice ‘command and control’ relative to their customers that allows them to lock them in, migrate them forward, gain pricing power, and upsell. Clearly ethics is a big issue in the wake of the corporate accountability scandals. And a-marketers adhere to both the letter and the spirit of the law. But they also practice a culture of stealth, and while they want to provide maximum ‘transparency’ for owners and shareholders, they want maximum deception for competitors. Organization: My vote is for tribal, special ops, barbarian, decentralized, i.e. network-centric warfare. Organizational flexibility and the activation of the whole company will be the best way to win in the Sandstorm Economy.

The Third Stream of Thought: Modern Complexity Theory
I’ve been working with complexity theory in my consulting practice for some time. I fell into it in 1996 mainly to understand the internet from the standpoint of complex adaptive ‘living systems’ concepts and to harness winning marketing strategies that are based the ‘law of increasing returns’. Complexity theory has been developed and enriched by the scientists of the Santa Fe Institute, e.g. leading thinkers like Stuart Kauffman and Brian Arthur. The relevant principles of complexity theory as applied to e-business and 2nd inning internet effects are what I call ‘dotcomplexity’ and are incorporated into my 10 Operational Principles of Asymmetric Marketing. Complexity theory has provided me with a conceptual model to identify and explain momentum-based business best practices, my version of an extreme programming ‘component model’ for marketing people. Complexity theory is particularly applicable in the uncertainty of the Sandstorm Economy.

I am convinced by the companies that I see everyday in my consulting practice that the more of these dotcomplexity principles are manifest, the more momentum will be in evidence and the more rugged and dominant your e-business or technology company will become.

To borrow a phrase from a supreme court justice “Momentum is like pornography, I know it when I see it”. In chaotic ‘living systems’ like the new uncertainty, momentum on the marketing battlefield is how you know you are on track. Revenue momentum, earnings momentum, new product momentum.

Management and marketing team behaviors that develop momentum are the key to self-sufficiency and the best way to avoid falling into the cycle of capital dependence, losses and desperation of the bubbleboy marketers. Here’s why complexity-based continuous momentum is so important.

Momentum is a property of living systems, and a way to identify healthy tech companies. For healthy companies, like healthy bodies, you should think of momentum as evidence of an autonomic system that maintains growth and life. We don’t have to act or think to make our hearts beat. It’s part of who we are. Asymmetric marketers seek to design marketing programs that are autonomic in nature. Sun Tzu says it very, very well. "Therefore good warriors seek effectiveness in battle from the force of momentum, not from individual people." Translation. Quit beating the crap out of every under-performing sales person and get some complexity theory into your marketing programs. Momentum manifests itself as both forward and reverse, positive and negative, either an upward and outward life cycle or downward and inward death spiral. Many of the bubbleboy marketers ended up in a death spiral from which they were unable to escape. Others are still attempting to become ‘start-overs’ and break out of the death spiral. Asymmetric marketing can help. Momentum can be slow or accelerated. The pace of momentum for a given company is often based on the momentum of the overall category in which it competes, not just the execution of particular management teams. Hence, category definition and positioning are key to developing momentum. A rising tide lifts all boats. An avalanche buries everything in its path. Continuous momentum often results in category leadership, and is a tangible, measurable manifestation of the ‘law of increasing returns’ described by Professor Brian Arthur of the Santa Fe Institute. The Law of Increasing Returns explains how leaders in various technology market segments tend to continue to lead, while followers tend to fall further behind. The Law of Increasing Returns is ‘path dependent’, and the ‘path’ in the tech industry, is all about successful marketing.

From the standpoint of the theory and tactics of asymmetric marketing, particularly from the basic tenets of complexity theory and complex adaptive systems, the e-bubble, tech wreck and overall Sandstorm Economy can be seen as positive phenomena if asymmetric marketers leverage them to gain full spectrum market dominance. When Dell Computer starts a PC price war in the middle of a major IT spending downturn, that’s asymmetric marketing, that’s taking the downturn as a positive event, the time to go on the offensive.

Copyright 2001-2003, Joseph E. Bentzel. All Rights Reserved.