Unrestricted Marketing Warfare - Media Convergence at Work

That is the old way.

I found the new way while browsing the Internet. The report (“Unrestricted Warfare”) is from China and written by Colonel Qiao Liang and Colonel Wang Xiangsui, both from the Chinese Liberation Army. The premise is simple.

Written in 1999, the concept deals with how a technologically limited nation and army such as China’s could defeat a technologically advanced nation like the United States. Force and the use of technology would not work, but a detailed look at the various strata that make up the United States and an unrestricted attack on those strata would.

I am far from being a military expert, but the 228 pages of this report provided interesting reading. I realized that this method could be adapted to marketing. With that adaptation, guerilla marketing and a few other types of marketing are, well, as they say, toast.

The description of guerrilla marketing (GM) as presented above is a fine strategy, but it’s dated. Yes, it’s inventive, structurally sound, and has proven successful; but in my eyes, it’s over for GM. Mob and crowd sourcing has become the modern equivalent of GM.

I understand that the latest techniques of GM continue to evolve using digital and emerging technologies, but I don’t think this change of tactics will help. Today, the consumer or B2B customer needs to be overwhelmed by marketing in a multichannel attack that leaves little to the imagination except that a sale has been made, or engagement of the customer has been measured.

If you read the 228-page report you will see that the plan is to defeat the United States by destroying the basis of our lifestyle—the financial sector, the Internet, energy, food and the list goes on. Even a political or terrorist attack is considered.