The Mirage of Motion vs. The Map to Mastery: Why Marketing Strategy (MSAAS) Prevails Over Mere Activity (MAAAS)

Marketing Effectiveness

The marketing landscape leading into early 2020 was characterized by accelerating complexity. The proliferation of digital channels, the increasing sophistication of marketing technologies ¹, and the growing recognition of customer experience as a primary competitive differentiator ⁴ created both unprecedented opportunities and significant challenges for businesses. Data-driven marketing, once a novel concept, was becoming an essential component of any successful strategy, promising personalized connections with consumers.¹ However, realizing this potential was hampered by persistent difficulties in managing data quality, overcoming data silos, and translating vast amounts of information into actionable insights.¹ Amidst this dynamic environment, marketers faced mounting pressure to demonstrate tangible value and a clear return on investment (ROI) for their activities ⁸, a task made more difficult by the challenges in attributing revenue to specific channels like social media and content marketing.⁸ Studies indicated that a significant percentage of marketing teams were employing ineffective methods, failing to drive desired growth.¹⁰

This confluence of factors placed businesses at a critical crossroads. One path offered the allure of immediate action and visible output – outsourcing specific marketing activities to specialized vendors, a model we term Marketing Activity as a Service (MAAAS). This approach often promised efficiency in executing discrete tasks like managing social media campaigns or optimizing search engine rankings. The alternative path involved a more deliberate, foundational approach – investing in marketing strategy, whether developed internally or sourced through expert guidance, a model termed Marketing Strategy as a Service (MSAAS). This path prioritized understanding the market, defining objectives, and crafting a coherent plan before committing resources to execution. The choice between these paths represented a fundamental decision: pursue the mirage of motion offered by tactical execution, or invest in the map to mastery provided by strategic direction.

This report argues, based solely on the wealth of research and insights available before February 2020, that a reliance on outsourced tactical execution (MAAAS) devoid of a robust, integrated strategic foundation represented a perilous course for businesses. Such an approach was fraught with the risks of inefficiency, misalignment with core business objectives, susceptibility to misleading metrics, and ultimately, a higher probability of failure in the increasingly competitive pre-2020 landscape. Conversely, engaging with or developing comprehensive marketing strategy (MSAAS) provided the essential direction, customer-centricity, data-informed decision-making, and adaptability required not just for survival, but for sustainable, long-term success.

Defining the Dichotomy: Marketing Activity (MAAAS) vs. Marketing Strategy (MSAAS)

To fully appreciate the critical distinction central to this analysis, it is necessary to clearly define the two predominant models for engaging external marketing support prevalent before February 2020: Marketing Activity as a Service (MAAAS) and Marketing Strategy as a Service (MSAAS). While both involve leveraging external resources, their focus, scope, and ultimate contribution to business value differ fundamentally.

Marketing Activity as a Service (MAAAS) – The Execution Engine

MAAAS can be defined as the outsourcing of specific, often compartmentalized, marketing tasks or the management of individual channels. This model focuses squarely on the “how” of marketing – the execution of discrete activities such as running pay-per-click (PPC) advertising campaigns, managing social media account posting schedules, executing search engine optimization (SEO) tactics, or deploying email marketing sequences.¹¹ The primary output is the completion of these assigned tasks or the delivery of specific, pre-defined deliverables.¹⁶

Providers operating under an MAAAS model, often specialized agencies or freelancers focusing on a particular channel or tactic (e.g., an SEO agency, a social media management firm), prioritize the efficient delivery of these activities.¹⁴ This approach can appear attractive to businesses seeking to fill immediate resource gaps, quickly launch a campaign in a new channel, or access specialized execution skills without hiring full-time staff.¹⁷ However, this focus on individual task completion often means that MAAAS operates in functional or channel-specific silos ¹⁹, lacking integration with broader marketing efforts or overall business goals. The selection of tactics might be driven by perceived channel effectiveness, industry trends, or the specific services the vendor aims to sell, rather than a deliberate alignment with overarching strategic objectives.¹³ Critically, MAAAS often functions in the absence of, or detached from, a clearly articulated and comprehensive marketing strategy.¹³ The “how” is addressed without a firmly established “what” or “why.”

Marketing Strategy as a Service (MSAAS) – The Guiding Compass

In stark contrast, MSAAS represents the provision of high-level, foundational marketing guidance. This model focuses on the “what” and “why” that must precede effective execution.¹¹ MSAAS encompasses activities such as in-depth market research, competitor analysis, customer segmentation and persona development, defining target markets, establishing clear marketing objectives aligned with business goals, formulating value propositions and positioning strategies, and developing the overarching plan that directs subsequent tactical choices.¹⁰

Providers in the MSAAS space, typically strategy consultants, experienced marketing advisors, or potentially early iterations of fractional CMOs focused on strategic leadership, bring deep industry knowledge, an unbiased perspective, and a focus on long-term, sustainable success.¹⁷ Their role is not merely to execute tasks, but to provide the strategic roadmap, ensuring that marketing efforts are coherent, customer-centric, and directly contribute to the organization’s overall objectives.¹³ In essence, MSAAS is the process of defining the marketing strategy itself.

Table: MAAAS vs. MSAAS Characteristics Comparison (Pre-February 2020)

The fundamental differences between these two models, as understood before February 2020, can be summarized as follows:

This comparison starkly highlights the contrast. MAAAS offers a solution for doing marketing activities, often addressing immediate needs for capacity or specific skills. MSAAS, however, provides the framework for ensuring those activities are the right activities, performed for the right reasons, directed towards achieving meaningful, long-term business success. The subsequent sections will delve into the significant downsides of relying solely on the former and the enduring value of embracing the latter, based on the business environment and knowledge available prior to February 2020.

The Indictment: The High Cost and Hidden Dangers of MAAAS (Pre-February 2020)

While the outsourcing of specific marketing activities (MAAAS) could offer superficial appeal through perceived efficiency or access to specialized tactical skills, a closer examination based on pre-2020 evidence reveals significant inherent dangers. Relying solely on tactical execution without a robust strategic underpinning often led businesses down a path characterized by misleading metrics, fragmented efforts, strategic stagnation, and detrimental dependencies.

The Illusion of Progress: Chasing Vanity Metrics, Ignoring ROI

A primary pitfall of the MAAAS model was its tendency to focus on, and report, metrics that offered an illusion of progress while obscuring the true impact on business objectives. These “vanity metrics” – easily measurable indicators like website pageviews, social media likes or followers, email open rates, or total app downloads – were frequently highlighted in marketing reports.⁵⁵ As early as 2009, critiques emerged, notably from figures like Eric Ries, warning entrepreneurs against investing energy in metrics that, while potentially making them feel good, failed to provide clear guidance for decision-making.⁵⁵

This concern remained highly relevant throughout the following decade. Analyses from 2015 and 2016 reiterated that vanity metrics often lacked actionable data, could be easily manipulated or “gamed” (e.g., buying followers), could be used to conceal unfavorable truths, and crucially, distracted from the real business objectives of revenue generation and sustainable growth.⁵⁶ They measured activity – the volume of clicks or views – rather than progress towards goals or the value delivered.⁷⁴ The “So what?” test was proposed as a simple diagnostic: if a metric doesn’t inform a decision or matter to the customer, it’s likely vanity.⁷⁴

The structure of the MAAAS model often perpetuated this focus. Agencies or vendors contracted for specific execution tasks (e.g., managing a social media account) are naturally inclined to report on the direct outputs of their activities – likes, shares, follower growth. These metrics are readily available within channel-specific tools and demonstrate that the contracted activity is occurring. Measuring the impact on broader business outcomes like customer lifetime value or market share requires access to integrated data and a strategic understanding that often falls outside the scope of a purely tactical engagement. Consequently, MAAAS providers frequently defaulted to reporting easily accessible vanity metrics, creating a potentially misleading picture of success that masked a lack of genuine contribution to strategic goals.⁶⁷ This focus on optimizing the numbers themselves, rather than the value they were supposed to represent, could lead businesses to make poor decisions based on superficial data, potentially harming the enterprise in the long run.⁷⁰ Pre-2018 examples illustrated this danger, such as companies focusing on metrics like daily active users or total downloads without considering churn or actual engagement, leading to flawed strategies and eventual failure.⁷¹

The Noise Before Defeat: Fragmented Tactics and Strategic Drift

Perhaps the most fundamental criticism leveled against a tactics-first approach, characteristic of MAAAS reliance, was its potential to create “the noise before defeat”.¹³ Executing disparate marketing tactics without an overarching, unifying strategy results in fragmented efforts, inefficient resource allocation, and a failure to build any sustainable competitive advantage. As Mark Ritson argued forcefully in 2016, marketing was increasingly devolving into a purely tactical pursuit, with practitioners selecting their tools and methods of execution long before any strategic thinking, market research, or clear objective setting had taken place.¹³ This “tactification” risked reducing marketing to a mere executional function, disconnected from the core strategic direction of the business.¹³

Pre-2020 research and analysis supported this view. Studies indicated high failure rates for marketing strategies, often attributed to poor planning, lack of concrete goals, or a disconnect between strategy formulation and implementation.¹⁰ Businesses frequently jumped straight into execution – demanding a new website or a social media campaign – without first laying a strategic foundation based on market and customer insights.¹⁶ This led to what was aptly termed “random acts of marketing” – activities undertaken without clear purpose or integration.⁴⁷ Without a strategic plan, evaluating the effectiveness of these random acts or correcting course became nearly impossible.⁷⁶

This lack of strategic alignment could lead to “strategic drift,” a gradual divergence between a company’s actions and the realities of the market environment.⁷⁸ This often occurred when companies became too inwardly focused, prioritizing existing processes or products over evolving customer needs – a risk exacerbated by a purely tactical marketing approach.⁷⁸

The MAAAS model, centered on executing discrete tasks, could inadvertently accelerate this drift. Tasked with efficiently delivering specific activities (like managing PPC bids or creating blog posts), MAAAS providers typically lack the mandate or the holistic view necessary to assess whether these tactics remain aligned with the broader strategic landscape or shifting customer preferences. They fulfill the client’s tactical requests, creating a sense of marketing activity and motion. However, if the underlying strategy is flawed or has become outdated due to market changes, the MAAAS provider, operating within its execution silo, simply continues to efficiently implement misaligned tactics. This creates a dangerous illusion of progress while the company may be drifting further from a position of competitive strength. The focus remains on doing things right (tactical efficiency) rather than doing the right things (strategic effectiveness).

Marketing Myopia Revisited: How Tactical Fixation Led to Failure (Pre-2020 Case Examples)

The dangers of prioritizing tactical execution over strategic understanding are vividly illustrated by the concept of “marketing myopia,” famously articulated by Theodore Levitt in 1960 but demonstrably relevant in the business failures analyzed before 2020.⁷⁹ Marketing myopia occurs when a company defines its business too narrowly around its current products or activities, rather than focusing on the broader customer needs it aims to satisfy. This inward-looking, product-oriented perspective prevents businesses from recognizing or adapting to fundamental market shifts and competitive threats, often leading to decline or failure.⁷⁹

Classic examples, such as the railroads failing to see themselves in the broader “transportation” business ⁷⁹ or the Hollywood studios initially viewing television as a threat rather than an evolution of the “entertainment” business they were truly in ⁷⁹, serve as foundational illustrations. More contemporary examples, analyzed extensively before 2020, reinforce the enduring relevance of this strategic pitfall. Kodak’s catastrophic failure to embrace digital photography, despite inventing the core technology, stemmed directly from its myopic focus on protecting its highly profitable film business – prioritizing the existing product and associated activities over the emerging customer need for digital imaging.⁸³ Similarly, Nokia’s decline from mobile phone dominance was attributed to its fixation on hardware features (like durability) and its proprietary Symbian operating system, failing to recognize the market shift towards software ecosystems, applications, and the holistic smartphone experience demanded by consumers.⁸⁷ Blockbuster, focused on the activity of renting physical media from stores, failed to adapt to the customer need for convenient, on-demand entertainment access, paving the way for Netflix.⁸⁰

These failures were fundamentally strategic, rooted in management’s inability or unwillingness to look beyond current operations and products to understand and adapt to evolving customer needs and disruptive technologies.⁷⁹ Other pre-2020 examples include Ecomom, which failed due to an unsustainable tactical focus on heavy discounting without a viable underlying financial strategy ⁸⁶, and Iridium, which invested heavily in satellite phone technology assuming demand without adequate customer-focused marketing or market validation.⁸¹ Sears Holdings also exemplified this, cutting investments in marketing, product development, and store experience (customer-facing elements) in a myopic attempt to save costs, ultimately eroding its brand and market position.⁹³

An MAAAS model, by its very design, is ill-suited to help clients avoid marketing myopia. MAAAS providers are contracted to execute tasks based on the client’s current definition of their business and market. They deliver the requested social media posts, SEO optimizations, or email campaigns efficiently, but they lack the strategic purview or incentive to question the fundamental assumptions underpinning those requests. They are not typically engaged to conduct the deep market analysis, customer research, or competitive landscape scanning necessary to identify myopic perspectives or disruptive threats emerging outside their specific tactical domain. As such, MAAAS can inadvertently reinforce a client’s inward focus, efficiently executing activities that support a potentially outdated or dangerously narrow view of the market, rather than providing the external, customer-centric perspective needed to challenge myopia and foster strategic adaptation.

The Outsourcing Trap: Vendor Lock-in, Lack of Transparency, and Stifled Agility

A further significant risk associated with over-reliance on MAAAS providers was the potential for vendor lock-in, coupled with issues of transparency and reduced strategic agility. Vendor lock-in, a well-documented concern in business and IT contexts before 2020, describes a situation where a customer becomes dependent on a single supplier, making it prohibitively costly or inconvenient to switch to an alternative provider.⁶¹

This dependency could arise from various factors prevalent in marketing services. Proprietary technologies or platforms used by an agency, non-standardized data formats that hinder portability, a lack of interoperability between different vendor systems, or restrictive contractual terms could all create significant barriers to switching.⁹⁴ In the specific context of websites and digital marketing agencies, lock-in could manifest through the agency retaining ownership or control over the client’s domain name, hosting accounts, website code (especially if custom-built rather than on a portable CMS), or critical customer data.¹⁰³ Lack of access to website backups could also create dependency.¹⁰³ The importance of clear contractual terms regarding data ownership, intellectual property rights, and exit strategies, including vendor assistance during deconversion, was increasingly emphasized as a way to mitigate these risks.⁹⁵

Compounding the issue of lock-in was a growing frustration among clients regarding the lack of transparency in traditional agency models, particularly concerning costs and operational practices.¹⁰⁶ Models like commission-based remuneration, historically common, were criticized for creating misaligned incentives. An agency earning a percentage of media spend might be incentivized to recommend large, easily executed media buys (like TV) rather than more complex, potentially more effective, but less lucrative strategies.¹⁰⁷ This lack of transparency, coupled with concerns about agencies potentially lacking up-to-date digital skills or being slow to respond to client needs, fueled a trend towards companies considering insourcing marketing activities or exploring alternative partnership models.¹⁰⁶ Outsourcing execution also carried risks of reduced control over campaigns, potential dilution of quality if work was further subcontracted by the primary agency, and communication challenges.⁶²

Intriguingly, the very efficiency often touted as a benefit of MAAAS could paradoxically deepen the lock-in trap. When a company outsources the execution of specific marketing functions, it often implicitly outsources the associated learning and adaptation that comes from hands-on management of those tactics. Over time, the internal team’s understanding of the nuances of those specific channels, tools, and processes can atrophy. This erosion of internal capability creates a significant switching cost. Migrating the activity away from the MAAAS vendor requires not only finding a new provider or hiring internally but also rebuilding the operational knowledge – the tacit understanding of “how things work” – that was lost during the outsourcing period. This is particularly true if processes were undocumented or tailored to the specific vendor’s systems. Thus, the short-term gain in tactical efficiency achieved through MAAAS could lead to long-term strategic inflexibility and a deeper, knowledge-based dependency on the external vendor, solidifying the lock-in.

The Strategic Imperative: The Enduring Value of MSAAS (Pre-February 2020)

In contrast to the pitfalls associated with a purely tactical MAAAS approach, engaging with Marketing Strategy as a Service (MSAAS) offered businesses a pathway to more sustainable and impactful marketing outcomes. Grounded in rigorous analysis, customer understanding, and long-term planning, MSAAS provided the essential foundation for navigating the complexities of the pre-2020 market.

Laying the Foundation: The Power of Research, Segmentation, and Planning

The core value proposition of MSAAS, as understood before 2020, lay in its emphasis on foundational strategic work before committing resources to tactical execution. Strategic marketing planning was fundamentally about matching an organization’s resources with market opportunities over the long term ³² and systematically adapting to the continuously changing market environment.²⁷

The documented benefits of this planning process were numerous and significant. It forced management attention outwards, towards customers, competitors, and emerging market trends, countering a natural tendency towards internal focus.²⁹ It instilled a discipline of long-term thinking, crucial for avoiding strategic errors driven by short-term pressures.³² Strategic planning provided a more rational basis for resource allocation, aiming to match resources to the most promising opportunities and away from less productive areas, rather than decisions based solely on financial metrics or internal politics.²⁶ Furthermore, it established a framework for control, enabling proactive problem management, and improved communication and coordination across different functions within the organization.²⁹ Ultimately, a well-defined strategy clarified where the organization intended to compete and how it planned to win ¹³, providing a vital roadmap for action.¹⁶

The process itself, while varying in specific steps, generally involved several key stages consistently identified in pre-2020 literature: defining the business mission and vision, setting clear corporate and marketing objectives (often using SMART criteria – Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, Timely), conducting a thorough marketing audit (including SWOT analysis – Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats), making informed assumptions about the future market environment, developing core marketing strategies (frequently employing Segmentation, Targeting, and Positioning – STP), determining the appropriate marketing mix (Product, Price, Place, Promotion), establishing budgets, and outlining implementation and control mechanisms.²⁹ Crucially, understanding the target audience through market research and the development of buyer personas was identified as an essential prerequisite to effective planning.¹⁰ Segmentation, in particular, was highlighted as a cornerstone, enabling businesses to precisely define customer groups, tailor value propositions, and differentiate themselves effectively.²⁸

This structured, analytical approach inherent in MSAAS served as a powerful antidote to the “random acts of marketing” often resulting from tactical impulsivity.⁴⁷ By mandating a logical progression from analysis and objective setting to strategy formulation and finally tactical selection, MSAAS ensured that marketing activities were purposeful and aligned. Resources were directed towards initiatives designed to achieve specific, measurable goals within defined target markets, preventing the waste and ineffectiveness associated with disconnected or trend-driven tactical execution.

Navigating the Customer Journey: From Touchpoints to True Understanding

A significant evolution within strategic marketing thinking, gaining prominence before 2020, was the focus on the customer journey. MSAAS providers increasingly incorporated Customer Journey Mapping (CJM) not just as a tool, but as a fundamental component of strategic development.⁵⁷ CJM involved visualizing the entire sequence of interactions a customer has with a brand, from initial awareness and consideration through purchase, usage, and post-purchase engagement, encompassing all touchpoints (website, social media, sales interactions, customer service, physical stores, etc.).¹¹¹ Crucially, effective CJM aimed to capture not only the customer’s actions but also their thoughts, emotions, motivations, and pain points at each stage.⁵⁷

The strategic importance of this customer-centric perspective was widely recognized. Understanding the often complex path customers take from need recognition to purchase and beyond was deemed essential for designing effective marketing and sales processes.⁵ CJM helped businesses identify critical “moments that matter” – those interactions that disproportionately influence customer satisfaction and loyalty.⁵⁷ By mapping the journey, organizations could pinpoint friction points, service gaps, and areas where the customer experience was falling short, thereby highlighting opportunities for improvement and innovation.⁵⁷

Research available before 2020 indicated substantial ROI associated with a focus on managing the customer journey. Companies adept at understanding and acting on complete customer journeys reported significant improvements in customer satisfaction (up to 20-81%), revenue growth (10-15%), reduced customer churn, increased Net Promoter Scores (NPS), and lower costs to serve (15-20%).⁵ Understanding the customer journey was increasingly framed as a cornerstone of successful business strategy and a key competitive differentiator, especially in the digital age.⁵ Trends identified for 2017 explicitly included orienting entire organizations around customer journeys.⁴ Importantly, authentic CJM relied on gathering real customer insights through qualitative and quantitative research methods (interviews, surveys, observation) rather than solely relying on internal workshops, which risked institutionalizing employee biases.⁵⁷

The integration of CJM into MSAAS marked a pivotal shift in strategic practice. It moved beyond traditional market analysis focused primarily on demographics, firmographics, and competitor positioning, towards a more dynamic, empathetic understanding grounded in the customer’s lived experience. Strategy formulation became informed not just by who the customer was, but by how they navigated the process of engaging with the brand. This experiential perspective provided deeper insights for creating value propositions, optimizing touchpoints, and building stronger relationships. MSAAS providers who embraced CJM were thus offering a more sophisticated and potentially more effective strategic framework, better equipped to help clients compete in a landscape where customer experience was rapidly becoming paramount.⁴

Data as a Compass (Pre-2020 View): Leveraging Analytics and Early AI for Insight, Not Just Activity

Central to the MSAAS approach was the utilization of data and analytics not merely to report on past activities, but to generate strategic insights, guide decision-making, and increasingly, to personalize customer experiences. The pre-2020 era saw a growing consensus that data-driven marketing was critical for success.¹ Analytics were essential for understanding market dynamics, evaluating campaign performance, optimizing resource allocation, and making informed strategic choices.²⁴

However, realizing the full potential of data was fraught with challenges. Marketers grappled with issues of data quality, accuracy, and completeness.¹ Data often resided in disconnected silos across different departments or technology platforms, making integration and achieving a unified customer view extremely difficult.¹ The sheer volume and velocity of data generated, particularly through digital channels, overwhelmed many organizations’ ability to effectively analyze and interpret it.¹³⁴ Furthermore, the burgeoning landscape of marketing technology (Martech) added layers of complexity, with many companies adopting tools in a haphazard manner (“Random Acts of Technology”), leading to poorly integrated stacks, inconsistent data, and an inability to track customer journeys across channels or measure the ROI of the technology itself.² The need for clear goals to guide data analysis ⁶⁰ and robust data governance practices was paramount.³

Despite these hurdles, significant trends in analytics were emerging. Beyond descriptive analytics (what happened), there was a growing focus on predictive analytics (what is likely to happen) and explanatory analytics (understanding outcomes under different scenarios) to build more resilient strategies.⁵⁹ Real-time analytics, fueled by technologies like beacons and sensors, was gaining traction to enable more timely and relevant customer interactions.⁵⁹

Artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) were also beginning to make inroads into marketing analytics and personalization.¹³⁴ Early applications included using AI for audience targeting, product recommendations, campaign optimization, predictive modeling, content customization, and powering chatbots for customer service.⁵⁹ While the potential of AI was recognized – promising increased efficiency, better customer understanding, and improved ROI ¹³⁴ – the adoption of advanced AI capabilities remained relatively low pre-2020.¹³⁴ Achieving personalization at scale, the “Holy Grail” of marketing ¹⁹, faced significant obstacles related to data integration, timely decisioning, content management, cross-channel coordination, and holistic measurement.¹⁹

Adding another layer of complexity were the landmark data privacy regulations – the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), which came into effect in May 2018, and the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA), set to take effect in January 2020.¹⁵⁵ These regulations imposed stricter rules on collecting, processing, and storing personal data, demanding greater transparency, explicit user consent (invalidating pre-ticked boxes and passive opt-outs), and granting individuals more control over their data, including rights to access, rectification, erasure, and objection to direct marketing.¹⁵⁵ This directly impacted common digital marketing practices like cookie-based tracking, ad targeting, and email list building, requiring significant adjustments to ensure compliance.¹⁶²

In this complex data environment, MSAAS providers were inherently better positioned than their MAAAS counterparts. While an MAAAS vendor might utilize data to optimize performance within its specific tactical silo (e.g., improving click-through rates for a PPC campaign), the very nature of MSAAS demanded a more holistic approach. Formulating a comprehensive marketing strategy requires integrating data from diverse sources – market research, competitive intelligence, sales data, customer feedback, multi-channel campaign analytics – to understand the bigger picture, identify strategic opportunities, and measure overall progress towards business objectives. The significant challenges related to data silos, integration, and deriving strategic insight, so prevalent in the pre-2020 literature, were precisely the issues that a strategic (MSAAS) approach was designed to address. MAAAS, focused on isolated execution, often lacked the incentive, capability, or access to tackle these cross-functional data challenges effectively.

Building Resilience: Adaptability, Competitive Advantage, and Sustainable Growth

A fundamental benefit of adopting a strategic marketing approach, facilitated by MSAAS, was the cultivation of organizational resilience and the building of sustainable competitive advantage. Unlike the potentially rigid execution of predefined tactics, a strategic orientation fostered adaptability in the face of market volatility.²⁷ Strategic marketing planning was explicitly designed to help organizations anticipate and prepare for change, identify emerging threats and opportunities, and adjust their course accordingly.²⁹

By systematically analyzing the external environment and internal capabilities, MSAAS helped businesses define and leverage their unique strengths to create a differentiated position in the market.¹⁷ This involved making conscious choices about which markets to serve, which customer needs to prioritize, and how to allocate resources most effectively to achieve long-term goals.²⁸ Understanding the customer journey played a vital role here, enabling companies to adapt their offerings and communications based on evolving customer behaviors and expectations.⁵⁷ The strategic planning process also incorporated monitoring and control systems, allowing management to identify and address deviations from the plan or emerging problems proactively, rather than reacting to crises.³² Conversely, the lack of strategic adaptation was a common thread in the stories of major business failures like Kodak and Nokia, who remained committed to outdated models despite clear market shifts.⁸⁴

This resilience stemmed not just from the initial plan created through MSAAS, but from the ongoing process it encouraged. Effective strategic marketing wasn’t a one-time event but an iterative cycle involving regular market scanning, competitor monitoring, customer research (including CJM), and performance analysis against strategic objectives.²⁹ This continuous loop of analysis, planning, execution, and review fostered an organizational capability – a “muscle” – for sensing changes in the environment and responding effectively. It embedded a culture of learning and adaptation. In contrast, a relationship based purely on MAAAS, focused on executing a potentially static set of instructions, lacked this inherent mechanism for sensing and responding to strategic shifts, leaving the organization more vulnerable to disruption.

Empowerment Over Dependence: The Rise of Strategic Partnerships and Internal Capability Building

Finally, a notable trend emerging before 2020 indicated a shift in how some businesses sought strategic marketing support. Moving beyond traditional agency relationships that often fostered dependence, there was a growing interest in models emphasizing client empowerment and the development of internal marketing capabilities.¹⁶⁹

Some consultancies and agencies began explicitly positioning themselves as partners focused on transferring knowledge and skills to their clients, rather than locking them into long-term retainers for execution.¹⁶⁹ Their approach involved coaching, training, and collaborating closely with in-house teams to build their digital marketing confidence and competence.¹⁶⁹ This philosophy directly addressed the downsides of traditional outsourcing, such as vendor lock-in and lack of transparency, by prioritizing the client’s long-term self-sufficiency.

The rise of the fractional CMO model also reflected this trend.⁴⁶ Businesses recognized the need for senior-level strategic marketing leadership but couldn’t yet justify or afford a full-time executive. Fractional CMOs offered a flexible solution, providing strategic direction, team leadership, and accountability on a part-time or interim basis.⁴⁶ This model was distinct from a typical agency relationship; the fractional CMO often became an integrated part of the leadership team, responsible for developing the strategy and overseeing its execution, whether by internal staff or external vendors.⁴⁷ Their role was explicitly strategic and leadership-focused, aimed at bridging the gap until a full-time hire was feasible, often involving mentoring internal talent.⁴⁷

This movement towards empowerment and capability building highlighted the understanding that successful marketing strategy implementation requires more than just outsourced execution. It necessitates cross-functional collaboration, internal buy-in, and a shared understanding of the strategic goals.¹⁵ Furthermore, it underscored the importance of retaining control over core assets like data and intellectual property to avoid the pitfalls of vendor lock-in.⁶¹ The frustrations clients experienced with traditional agency models – perceived lack of transparency, misaligned incentives, slow turnaround times, and potential skill gaps – were driving forces behind the exploration of these more collaborative and empowering MSAAS approaches.¹⁰⁶

This evolution represented more than just a new service offering; it signified a shift in the philosophy of the client-provider relationship. It marked a move away from transactional, execution-focused engagements (MAAAS) or purely advisory, arms-length consulting, towards a more integrated, collaborative partnership model (a more mature form of MSAAS). The goal was not just to receive strategic advice, but to actively build the client’s internal strategic marketing maturity, fostering long-term resilience and reducing dependence on external execution vendors.

Conclusion: Beyond the Buzz – Choosing Substance Over Speed in Marketing (Pre-Feb 2020)

The marketing landscape leading up to February 2020 presented businesses with a critical choice: prioritize the immediate, tangible outputs of tactical execution (MAAAS) or invest in the foundational, guiding principles of strategic planning (MSAAS). The evidence available during this period strongly suggested that while tactical execution is undeniably necessary, relying on it in isolation was a strategy fraught with peril.

The MAAAS model, focused on outsourcing discrete activities, frequently led businesses astray. Its susceptibility to vanity metrics created an illusion of progress, measuring easily quantifiable activities like clicks and likes rather than genuine business impact or ROI.⁵⁵ This focus on superficial numbers could mask underlying problems and lead to poor resource allocation. Executing tactics without an overarching strategy resulted in fragmented efforts – “the noise before defeat” – fostering inefficiency and strategic drift as companies lost alignment with market realities.¹³ This tactical fixation often mirrored the symptoms of marketing myopia, where businesses failed to adapt to changing customer needs because they were too focused on optimizing their current products or processes, as seen in the cautionary tales of Kodak, Nokia, and Blockbuster.⁷⁹ Furthermore, over-reliance on execution vendors created risks of vendor lock-in through technical or data dependencies, often exacerbated by a lack of transparency and potentially misaligned agency incentives, ultimately stifling agility and control.⁶¹ Mistaking the motion of MAAAS for meaningful progress was a common and dangerous trap.

Conversely, the enduring value of a strategic approach (MSAAS) was consistently underscored by pre-2020 insights. MSAAS provided the essential map and compass. It mandated the foundational work of research, segmentation, and planning, ensuring that marketing efforts were directed purposefully towards clear objectives and well-defined target audiences, thereby avoiding “random acts of marketing”.¹⁰ It embraced the evolving imperative of customer-centricity, incorporating tools like Customer Journey Mapping to understand and optimize the customer experience – a critical differentiator.⁵ MSAAS aimed to harness the power of data and analytics, not just for reporting activity, but for generating strategic insights and enabling personalization, even amidst the significant data integration and Martech challenges of the time.¹ This strategic grounding fostered organizational resilience, enabling businesses to adapt to market changes and build sustainable competitive advantage.²⁴ Finally, emerging MSAAS models focused on client empowerment and capability building, offering a path away from dependence towards strategic partnership and long-term marketing maturity.⁴⁶

In the final analysis, the pre-February 2020 evidence delivers a clear verdict. While the speed and apparent efficiency of outsourced tactical execution (MAAAS) held a certain appeal, it lacked the substance required for enduring success. True marketing effectiveness demanded the foresight, direction, customer understanding, and adaptability provided by a robust strategic foundation (MSAAS). Choosing strategy over mere activity was, and remains, a fundamental prerequisite for businesses seeking not just to survive, but to thrive. It is the choice for substance over speed, for sustainable growth over the fleeting illusion of motion.