Do you have an opposable strategy?

I have already published a few things about the notion of opposable marketing, which, to frame it, just asks the question: do you say something meaningful to your market?

Being cost-efficient, having good quality, paying attention to customers, etc. All that means nothing. Because no one does the opposite of that. If no one markets the facts, they sell over-expensive products that are dangerous to consume because they don’t care about who buys them; why would you waste your time explaining you don’t do that?

And communication is strategy. What you say about your products and your company reflects who you are.

You can imagine that it was quite a trip for me to find this Scott ADAMS strip framing the notion of opposable strategy in just three panels:

Are you customer-driven? Of course, you will say you are.

Although, real market leaders won’t give a Pavlovian answer to that. Apple could probably say no because they don’t do what customers ask, while L’Oréal would say yes because they are built from the ground up to strategically follow and spread out every single one of their market segments.

Go to your corporate website, read your motto, mission statement, and introduction to your latest letter to investors… What do you say?

Are you one of the many companies that just broadcast enthusiastically they don’t have a clue about? Probably.