“Strategy is just empty academic thinking. Tactics are what drive results, right?”

Some people think the statement above is true. If you’re one of them, congratulations on having infinite resource, time and budget.

For the rest of us, consider the tactical effort of your team as a finite resource, and the opportunity cost of executing against a plan with no strategy behind it.

Imagine a team working hard over the course of a week. Maybe the audience, positioning and messaging, timing, pricing, budget investment and channel mix are producing a meaningful result about 25% of the time.

That means every week that goes by, you’re losing 75% of the value of your team. Not only are the tactics barely working: they’re a liability.

There’s a good reason why the brainstorm and “fail fast” approach never worked for Wile E. Coyote. Marketing teams need a brand strategy in order for their activities to make any real impact.