Insights · Strategy

Brand Wargame: plan the move before your competitor makes it

Most plans are built as if the competition will politely stand still. They won't. A Brand Wargame plays the next two moves before you commit budget - so you're choosing the response you can win, not reacting to the one that surprises you.

Open most strategy decks and you'll find a plan that quietly assumes the market holds still while you execute. Prices stay put, rivals watch politely, the channel stays open. Real markets don't behave that way: your move provokes a response, and the response is often what actually decides the outcome. A Brand Wargame is the discipline of playing that response - and your counter to it - before you spend a cent, so the plan you approve is the one that survives contact with a competitor who fights back.

Why static plans lose

A plan judged only on your own actions optimises for a world with one player. But market outcomes are the product of moves and counter-moves. The launch that looks brilliant in isolation can be neutralised in a week if the incumbent matches your feature, out-shouts your media, or leans on the retailer to squeeze your listing. If you haven't modelled that, you haven't finished the strategy - you've written the opening line of a conversation and assumed the other side stays silent.

Play their move, not just yours

The mechanic is simple and uncomfortable. For each option on the table, name the two strongest competitors and have someone argue their side hard: what is their most likely response, how fast, how expensive, and does your move still win after they make it? Options that only look good before the response drop away. What survives is a shortlist of moves that hold up even when the market fights back - a very different list from the one you started with.

A strategy that assumes the competitor stands still isn't a strategy. It's a wish with a timeline.

Prefer moves they can't copy cheaply

The strongest moves are asymmetric: cheap for you to make, expensive or awkward for them to match. A promotion any rival can copy by Friday buys nothing durable. A move that exploits something structural - your cost position, an owned asset, a capability they lack - forces them to choose between an expensive response and letting you keep the ground. Seven Powers is the useful lens here: look for the move that sits behind a barrier, not the one that merely looks bold in the room.

Counter-position on purpose

The sharpest asymmetry is counter-positioning: taking a position the leader can't follow without damaging their existing business. A challenger that goes direct-to-consumer, or drops the feature incumbents monetise, or serves the segment they're structurally unable to serve, wins not because the move is clever but because matching it would cost the leader more than ignoring it. The wargame is how you find that ground deliberately, instead of stumbling onto it.

Decide the trigger before it happens

The final output is not a prediction; it is a set of pre-agreed responses. If they cut price, we do this - not match. If they copy the claim, we do that. If they lean on the channel, here's the fallback. Deciding these in the calm of a planning room, rather than the panic of the moment, is most of the value. When the move comes - and it will - you execute a decision you already made with a clear head, not one you improvise under pressure.

How we run it

This is our Brand Wargame method: a structured session where our team plays your two toughest competitors, pressure-tests each of your options against their likely responses, and leaves you with a shortlist of asymmetric moves and pre-agreed triggers. It pairs naturally with Brand X-Ray, which supplies the honest read on where you and they actually stand. The goal is not to predict the future - it is to make sure your plan already has an answer for the move that would otherwise blindside it.