Ad Agency Goals, Objectives, Strategies and Tactics
Clients sometimes get confused about the difference of between goals, objectives, strategies and tactics. I’ve found the following football analogy helpful:
Objective: To win the game.
An objective is specific and measurable. In this case, winning is the primary objective. A secondary objective may be to enable a player to gain enough yards to break a school record or to score a certain number of points. Goals are broad and intangible, so the team’s goal could be to become the best high school football team in the world. Because there are no world playoffs at the high school level, the goal couldn’t be measured.
Strategy: The other team is bigger, but we’re faster. Therefore, we’ll utilize our superior quickness to achieve the objective (i.e. to win the game).
Tactics: The specific plays we will run throughout the game, especially those that favor quicker players. You also could think of tactics as the action plan.
Don Beehler provides public relations consulting services to small- and medium-sized advertising agencies and businesses.
Don,
This is a great illustration. I find that not only clients, but often times marketing and advertising practitioners themselves get these things turned around.
Thanks, Rob. Glad you found this helpful.