Filled with illustrated examples of where the authors were right and where they were wrong.

Prologue. Why republish a book that's 20 years old? Especially if that book is still in print. (The last time we checked, the original edition of Marketing Warfare was No. 9,706 at Amazon.com).

First of all, the book is still in print after 20 years. Most business books aren't. That fact alone makes Marketing Warfare worth a second look. Furthermore in our consulting assignments, we find that many companies are overlooking the essential strategies that they should follow.

Marketing Warfare is a book about strategy. Many of our other books are heavily loaded with tactical advice. Too often, we hear of marketing disasters along the lines of "You said this was a good idea in one of your books, but it didn't work." Take the launch of a second brand, a tactic we have frequently recommended. Many firms have tried second brands with little success. When we hear of such cases, we often say, "Wait a minute. You're a small company. You should be practicing guerrilla warfare. You shouldn't be acting like a leader and launching additional brands."

On the other hand, big companies often miss the opportunities provided by second brands. They want to keep the focus on the core brand, a strategy best pursued by a flanker or a guerrilla.

Then there are No. 2 companies that often try to emulate the leaders on the mistaken assumption that "they must know what works." No. 2 companies should launch programs that are exactly the opposite of what works for a leader, a point many marketing managers miss. The first step in developing any marketing program is to ask yourself, "What type of war are we fighting?"

One of the heroes of this book is Karl von Clausewitz whose own book, On War, was first published 172 years ago. The book is still in print and is still studied at the military academies of the world. We'd be pleased if Marketing Warfare lasted only a small fraction as long.


Epilogue. When we wrote this book twenty years ago, we would never have imagined that so many of America's big brands would end up in so much trouble. Icons like AT&T. General Motors, Kodak and their likes are supposed to be built to last.

Why, with all their armies, have they fared so poorly? Of course, you can say that they pursued bad strategy. But why? Many of the big brands in trouble were surrounded by consultants who took their money but apparently offered no real help with the enemies threatening to overwhelm them.

One would think that the last line of defense against bad decisions would be the board of directors. Here you have a dozen or so wise people with decades of experience ready to keep the CEO and his or her senior officers on the straight and narrow. Right?

Wrong. It would appear that too many directors are on too many boards and have little time with problems that demand full attention. Or they are friends of top management, not critics or advisors.

But if consultants and boards are of little help, at least they don't cause too much damage. Occasionally, they even produce some good thinking. But to us, the biggest culprit is Wall Street. They are nothing but trouble as they often create an environment that encourages bad, sometimes irrevocable things to happen. In a way, they set up a greenhouse for trouble, and like a greenhouse, What they're all about is encouraging things to "grow."

The well-known economist Milton Friedman put it perfectly when he said, "We don't have a desperate need to grow. We have a desperate desire to grow." That desire for growth is at the heart of what can go wrong for many companies. Growth is the by-product of doing things right. But in itself, it is not a worthy goal. In fact, growth is the culprit behind impossible goals and bad decisions.

In Marketing Warfare, it's not what you want to do, it's what the enemy (your competition) will let you do. It's not about the price of your stock. It's about how many customers you are winning versus your competitors.