Customer Reviews

The Marketing Playbook: Five Battle-Tested Plays for Capturing and Keeping the Lead in Any Market

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For those directly (or even indirectly) involved in their organization's marketing initiatives, what Zagula and Tong offer in this volume can be very helpful. They introduce and then rigorously examine what they call "five battle-tested plays for capturing and keeping the lead in any market." Use of "any" is an exaggeration because, of course, it is imperative to market whatever one offers only where potential is greatest for sufficiently profitable sales. Zagula and Tong duly note that "no matter what the play, if you're running it on the wrong field or with the wrong resources, it just won't work." In marketing as in thoroughbred racing, "there are courses for horses." Also, different situations require different "plays." Here are the five which Zagula and Tong offer for consideration:

The Drag Race: "In some circumstances, your best bet calls for singling out one competitor and putting the pedal to the metal racing against them to win."

Comment: Endorsed by Henry V, the Russian forces at Balaclava, and Crazy Horse and his Oglala Sioux warriors...but not by the French forces at Agincourt, Lord Cardigan and the Light Brigade, and the Seventh Cavalry under Lt. Col. George Armstrong Custer's command at the Little Big Horn.

The Platform Play: Once dominant, develop strategic alliances and strengthen position because "you never know from where a new challenger is likely to emerge."

Comment: Obviously, the strategy and tactics are almost wholly defensive. This allows time to consolidate, train, refresh, obtain and evaluate competitive intelligence, and in all other appropriate ways anticipate threats to dominance.

The Stealth Play: As you gather resources and complete preparations, whittle away at the incumbent's weak points. However, never forget that "big, dumb, slow companies can still squish you."

Comment: An excellent strategy for organizations with severely limited resources. Margins for error are razor-thin. The "big, dumb, slow companies" can afford to carpet bomb. Be a sniper. Carefully read Sun Tzu's The Art of War, especially the chapter on Estimates. Also Jason Jennings' Think Big, Act Small.

The The Best-of-Both Play: Rather than focus on compromises ("trade-offs") at both the high and low ends of the given market, gain dominance over the entire category "by collapsing these two ends. If you appeal to the most important needs of each segment of the market, you can win them all."

Comment: Huge "if" because, when attempting to appeal to all market segments, you could lose in competition for dominance in any one of them.

High-Low Play: Try to close out the competition by splitting the given category and thereby owning both. "This is the hardest play to manage, but if it's done right, you'll achieve high volumes and high margins at the same time."

Comment: An even greater "if."

Any summary such as this fails to establish for any one "play" the extensive context within which Zagula and Tong carefully explain the relative advantages and disadvantages of each. Hence the importance of the "Take-Aways" section which they provide at the end of the chapter which they devote to each of the five. Hence the importance, also, of Chapter 7 in which they discuss how to "shift gears" from one to another, Part II in which they help their reader to analyze the the "terrain" of her or his own competitive marketplace (i.e. mapping both perils and opportunities), and Part III in which they explain HOW to initiate and then sustain an appropriate play "as a killer campaign."

Of special interest and value to me is what Zagula and Tong have to say about "The Campaign Brief." It is thoroughly explained in Chapter 13. Here is a brief excerpt:

"First, your campaign brief will be a single document you'll follow for the campaign, so you'll need to cover pretty much everything.....You find the key points, the essence, of all the analysis, strategy, and guidance you've come up with so far -- and cram it all onto a single page. That's right, onto one single page....On the one page, you're going to put three core paragraphs that lay out the whole rationale for your strategy, each paragraph no longer than three sentences" which assert case, story, and positioning" followed by two paragraphs which specify key support followed by objectives, goals, and metrics. Zagula and Tong urge their reader to be able to complete the Three We's: We believe..., We will..., and We are....

No brief commentary such as this can possibly do full justice to the abundance of information and the wealth of insights as well as recommendations which Zagula and Tong's book provides. Suffice to say that it provides a cohesive, comprehensive, and cost-effective program which, for obvious reasons, must then be modified to accommodate the specific needs, interests, and resources of each reader's own organization.

The authors, using their Microsoft experience, offer five strategies for marketing products and services.

Their book sees marketing as a team sport that requires five plays to create a winning campaign.

The five plays:
1. The Drag Race - Pick a single competitor to which to compare yourself. Then put everything into beating it.
2. The Platform Play - Ignore the competition. Focus on being a platform from which the entire industry can succeed. Make it easy and profitable to do business for others to partner and do business with you.
3. The Stealth Play - Focus on a specific niche where you can build your strength unnoticed. Peacefully co-exist with market leaders. Remember to stay out of the way of big competitors who can squish the life out of you.
4. The Best-of-Both Play - Dominate a category by collapsing both high- and low-end product into a single offer. This strategy allows customers to have it both ways.
5. The High-Low Play - The opposite of point #4. With this play to squeeze the competition by dominating both the high and low end.

To succeed, say the authors, who spent years as marketing executives at Microsoft launching successful brands and marketing popular product lines, you must do your homework. That means looking at the history, seeing the industry as it is today, and looking for levers to create dynamic openings.

The authors have written a readable book. Its conversational tone makes it a useful resource for marketers at both large and small companies.

This is a great book that looks at marketing from a practical real world point of view.For the people complaining about the book go buy a kotler book or something.These guys were real excutives doing real marketing in a real company.

While the metaphorical sports set-up is appealing, this "playbook" about marketing relies very little on the substance of sports and even less on the more powerful forces behind marketing. Instead, John Zagula and Richard Tong have written a clever grouping of five different marketing strategies, explained with sports metaphors. Real-life strategic examples and assessments of related risks and rewards accompany each play. Using some repetition to emphasize their lessons, the authors explain which market conditions call for using each of the five strategies. They demonstrate how forces in the market make some plays more feasible, although some of the illustrative stories seem a bit forced into fitting the marketing move under discussion and some examples lack sufficient detail to let the reader align the plays with precise goals and market conditions. However, the stories and strategies all have that insider flavor, right from the coach. We believe marketers who are still learning the ropes will want this strategic playbook.

In business schools they always teach you the tools of marketing (tactics)... such as pricing, promotion, advertising, positioning... But they do not teach the reasoning behind using these tools... This book gives you 5 different marketing strategies for creating a profitable business... As Sun Tzu said " Strategy without tactics is the slowest route to victory. Tactics without strategy is the noise before defeat." This book gives you the strategic vision of marketing... If you are looking for tactics go and buy a Philip Kotler book...

Nobody gave the position of Microsoft to these guys free... You may not like the products of Microsoft but this does not change the reality of their business success... As business people if we can digest the success of others easily... then we do not need to label marketing a very hard discipline... indeed it is not... and the writers are rigth... there are only 5 big plays available in the big picture but it is our wisdom to make combinations out of these plays for creating significant value for all of our stakeholders...

One more reminder: This book is for people who are making strategic decisions... Not the people who are waiting practical recipes to sell some items... Please think about the difference between marketing and sales before buying/reading this book...

John Zagula and Richard Tong are the authors of the book "The Marketing Playbook".

Both authors were previously employees for Microsoft. John spent eight years at Microsoft,

where he developed and launched the Microsoft office brand and marketed the desktop and

server application product lines. Richard Tong spent ten years at Microsoft, where as vice

president of marketing and business development for Microsoft windows, office, and

BackOffice he led the pushes behind many of Microsoft most successful businesses. Both

authors are also venture capitalists with Ignition Partners and live in Seattle, Washington.

In The Marketing Playbook the authors gives the readers a step-by-step guide to

understanding and applying the five plays that helped make Microsoft a huge success in each

market. The five plays are Drag Race, Platform, Stealth, Best-of-Both, and High-Low. In this

book these five plays are intended to be simple but powerful methods that any company can use

in order to map out and put into action an effective marketing campaign, regardless of size,

product, or resources.

One of the great things about this book is that it is not an actual playbook for any market.

Instead, this is a book written with the intent to help the reader write and use him or her own

playbook. This format gives the reader an opportunity to apply these five methods to their market

once he or she has finished the book. In addition, this book is an essential guide to assist the

reader in creating a playbook that will help him or her win, define, establish, and defend their

position in their market. In conclusion, if anyone is interested in getting assistance on creating a

winning strategy in their market, "The Marketing Playbook" is a great tool to start week.

A lot of books on marketing strategy are either written by or for consultants - sometimes interesting and insightful, but terribly academic and impractical -- or very practical, but frankly dumbed-down and of little enduring value to real industry practitioners. The Marketing Playbook let's you avoid this Hobson's choice - and you'd better buy a copy before your competition does! This is marketing, not as fodder for consultants, but as fuel for sales.

High tech marketing - hell, any marketing - frequently hovers in the clouds, about 40,000 ft. above real customers. At best, it's a costly effort, run by pretty smart people, whose effectiveness is difficult to gauge. In The Marketing Playbook, Zegula and Tong have build a solid staircase between marketing strategy and real customer-driven results: Strategy that is tangible, actionable, and measurable. Should produce real results, for a change.

I've had the benefit of seeing John's strategies in action first hand. When we first started Intelligent Results, John personally worked with us to establish our market strategy and tune it as our technology vision and understanding of our target market developed. Having his unique approach to marketing summarized in an accessible, humorous and pragmatic book is a huge benefit to any startup. I highly recommend it for anyone who's considering a new business, or who's attempting to bring new products to market.

Too many entrepreneurs think they can gut their way through marketing, which often causes their companies to languish on the grapevine of mediocrity. Tong & Zagula are seasoned marketing veterans; they have lived and succeeded using these time-and-market-tested lessons. This should be required reading in MBA programs, and for any company executive that cares about his/her customers.

1. It is better than other marketing books because it is simpler and fun to read.
2. It gives you a great platform to evaluate your own approach.
3. Read it yourself, I can't tell you everything.
4. I can pick and choose chapters or plays to accomplish my goals.
5. The Marketing playbook appeals to an entrepreneur as well as the sophisticated venture capitalist.