When you aim broad, you land wide
Marketers are quick to talk about Byron Sharp's principles, but often miss the crucial step: of aiming first: Making strategic choices. The result is 'random acts of marketing' and wasted ad spend, which doesn't reinforce any particular advantage for the brand.
The reality is that Sharp's tactics to drive growth work better after following on the seemingly contradictory disciplines of Roger Martin (Playing to Win), which depend on NOT trying to please everyone.
Strategic Clarity is the Foundation for Scale
The most successful brands, even those with the broadest target markets, use strategic clarity, focus and sacrifice to make their scaling efforts dramatically more effective.
Take Tesco's journey from 15% to 31% market share. As former CEO Dave Lewis explained, they first made crystal clear customer-centric strategic choices: champion customers, focus on "every little helps," and build an operating model that served people rather than just ran shops. These choices were foundational to address the slide the company had been experiencing. It was galvanising and operationally organising for the team, flowing out from the company through to every customer touchpoint.
In this way, Tesco were brutally strategic in their turnaround. They could answer Martin's core questions:
What choices are you actually making?
Where are you choosing NOT to play?
What would have to be true for this to work?
Former Tesco CEO Dave Lewis
They didn't follow the category norms or a desire to appeal to everyone. Instead, they were guided by what had made Tesco different and successful throughout its history. So, when they achieved massive scale (90% UK penetration) and Lewis declared their 'turnaround complete,' no one doubted that their foundational strategic focus and differentiated approach amplified through the marketing underpinned that share growth.
Sharp's Principles Work Hardest when they Amplify the Strategy
Broad reach, mental availability and the other principles will always be more effective when applied to brands that have done their strategic homework, giving them a compelling and differentiated proposition which they can land with precision.
When McDonald’s executes broad-reach marketing, they're not guessing. They know exactly what occasions each product owns, what emotional territory belongs to them, and how their assets work across touchpoints. Their broad marketing is strategically precise.
Successful Brand Building Follows a Sequence
Step 1: Strategic Foundation (Martin's domain)
Make explicit choices about where to play and how to win
Develop genuine differentiation based on unique capabilities
Step 2: Proof and Refinement
Test strategic choices in market
Build operational excellence to deliver consistently
Step 3: Strategic Scaling (Sharp's domain)
Expand reach while maintaining strategic clarity
Scale the distinctive assets that emerged from strategic choices
Too Many Brands Skip to Step 3 (it Backfires)
“You can’t talk your way out of things you’ve behaved your way into.”
When your marketing is too focused on the execution and not tied to the foundational strategy of the business the 'drift' sets in. You see the edges softening around propositions, products, pricing and experience. Inevitably that is also when your mass marketing inevitably becomes less effective. As Dave Lewis (the former Tesco CEO referenced above) said: "You can't talk your way out of things you've behaved your way into".
Taking the harder path makes things easier downstream
Step 1 is the foundational work to find the evidence (and support) you need to make those choices, and which the scaling in step 3 relies on.
Challenging market analysis: Finding and facing into data that challenges assumptions or sheds new light on the problem.
Cross-functional alignment: Getting sales, operations, and leadership aligned and committed to the choices you are proposing.
Saying no: Making hard decisions about where you won't compete
This discipline pays off. It connects the marketing strategy to the business strategy, and ensures stakeholders company wide are clear about and standing behind the choices you are making. The compounding effect is wonderful. You no longer hear "That's marketing's job". Instead you can feel the energy lift with the combined strength of the organisation behind it.
With that Sequence your Brand will Grow
Sharp shows us how successful brands scale, but Martin shows us how to build the strategic foundations that makes scaling work. It means that the most powerful marketing isn't a campaign. It's the expression of a clear, coherent business strategy. That's the work we do. If you're tired of wasting money on marketing that doesn't stick, let's talk about the choices you're really making.
Start with strategy. Scale with precision.