The Archnemesis

My wife had an archnemesis, a situation that I find neither normal nor disturbing. I guess I just assumed that archnemeses only existed in movies like The Karate Kid 1, 2 and 3 (but not 4). I never had an archnemesis - it was just different for boys. If you had a problem with someone, you just met up at the football practice field or Shorty Howell Park or the local gas station (one near us was even called The Fina Arena) and you pounded each others’ skulls in until you liked each other again. This very situation was graphically illustrated in The Karate Kid when Daniel delivers the final crane kick to the face to win the tournament at which time the opponent, a kid who has earlier beat Daniel unconscious, assaulted Daniel’s girlfriend and mowed Daniel down with a motorcycle, then comes up to Daniel, hands him the trophy and says, “This is for you.” Aesop’s moral is, there’s no contention a little kick to the face can’t correct. Chuck Norris must have made up with his enemies long ago.

But my wife is not Chuck Norris or Daniel Laruso, and I am thankful for that fact. However, her strife with her archnemesis, a girl who had jealously spread vicious rumors about her, was a protracted and vicious affair that no amount of front kicks to the maw would repair. I eagerly bring up the fact that Maura had an archnemesis when we are at social engagements, and the listeners seem eager to hear every detail about Maura’s sworn enemy. Better yet, Maura beams with pride when she talks about her archnemesis as if she is locked in some sort of medieval strife over taxation rights in the duchy.
My opinion: having an archnemesis keeps the drab days of high school more interesting.

While I didn’t have an archnemesis in high school or college, I certainly have had them in the working world. Sometimes they are coworkers. Sometimes they are the boss. Sometimes they competitors and sadly, sometimes they are my very clients themselves. I have to admit though, I must have missed out on the power of focused resentment in my early years. Now, my frustration, disenfranchisement, anger and any other negative feeling that the life of consulting conjures up can happily reside in the persona of whoever my archnemesis du jour may be. If only I had focused as such on the ninth grade wrestling team, I might have better than a 4th place medal. And yeah, I didn’t think they gave a medal for forth place either.

Today, I’ve learned to get mad and channel it. If we are pitching an account against another firm, then the inevitable outcome is that someone will win and someone will lose. And while your nemesis is not so directly responsible for your loss of market share, mind share and profit that you foam at the mouth at the mention of their name, the inevitable results (loss of bonus, decline in job security, addiction to Pepcid) should be enough to make you see red. It has always amazed me how some people insist on being so sedate and spineless at the idea of competition. It must have been that wave of politically correct gameplaying that swept the playgrounds of the late eighties. People were taught games where no one won or lost and basically you just ran around with a ball and had no real goal or objective. When I played seven-year-old soccer for the rainbows in Great Bridge, we went for the shins and throats because Chesapeake pizza always tastes better after you won. Not to mention, when you’ve had a chance to lose, you learn how to make losing into a winning strategy. The hurt and fear of losing can steel any effort into a hardened attack machine and often one learns more from a loss than a win.

I am going to go ahead and give the disclaimer now that I don’t advocate for people truly hating people. By the virtue of my faith and beliefs, I would not want nor condone you to take my words to mean you should go out and find someone to hate. However, hate in the spirit of lively competition is another thing altogether and that’s what I’m talking about when I say you should hate something. In such spirit, I hate the Norcross blue devils, The Florida Gators, all of my clients’ competitors and most consultants and ad agencies I’ve ever pitched against.


There are plenty of books on winning and competition out there and I really don’t want to microwave and serve their leftovers. What I can serve up is my few suggestions about competition and enemies in marketing that I have learned from rugged battles with a few of my most beloved archnemeses.

Don’t be a communist.

In Rocky 4, Ivan Drago was six-and-a-half feet of corded hate. Drago was just mean about everything except perhaps steroids and mother Russia. When Drago killed Apollo Creed, it was just unfocused hate against unfocused buffoonery. Enter Balboa. When Rocky sought to take down the towering socialist, he focused his hate right at Drago. He moved to a drafty farm house in what appeared to be Siberia. He ran in the snow while the KGB followed behind him. He carried the weight of the American ideal that struggle and hard work pay off in proportion. While Drago trained in his state of the art gym/planetarium, Rocky was lifting potato sacks full of rocks, chopping wood and drawing faces on Drago’s picture. When was the last time you did that? No, not ran from the KGB- I mean drew faces on a particularly despicable enemy? It’s liberating. Go do it right now.

The point is focus. Rocky knew who he wanted to beat and he focused that motivation in its highest concentration at the point of decision. That is an old, tried and true military concept and it deserves repeating. When battling an opponent, concentrate the build of your resources at the decision point. Drago hated everyone and everything sans the motherland. Rocky just hated Drago and perhaps Russia. Drago spread it out, Rocky concentrated and Rocky won.

Just because you don’t have an enemy doesn’t mean that someone else hasn’t pegged you as theirs.

There will always be a company that wants what you have. They want your clients and your reputation. They want your distribution and your R and D staff. They want your marketing and credibility with the public. You can pretend all you want, but the truth is somebody is gunning for you right now and it is better the flush them out in the open where you can get a clear shot.

I’m not saying to get all paranoid. Competition is healthy for a business and competitors can be as valuable as allies, if not more. So don’t cower in your office waiting on the attack. Instead, do a little recon and see who sniffs around your camp. You might do a little sniffing around their camp as well.

Then again the enemy may lie in more sinister places. Like in the interdepartmental feuds over what a company really does and how it should be communicated to the outside world. Or perhaps the stagnation of a brand that begins a momentous slide into shrinkage. I know the old saying says better the enemy you know than the one you don’t know but any of you who’ve taken on a home grown enemy probably agree you rather face Drago with your hands tied behind your back.

A true friend is a trusted enemy.

Friends in business are a curious phenomenon. I’m not talking Brian who goes with you to get a latte and scones. I’m talking about strategic partners and supposed allies who agree to relationships that essentially boils down to the equivalent commitment of they won’t let the dog poop in your yard if you have the same respect with your dog and their yard. In the Godfather, the Don said it: keep your enemies closer. At least an enemy is committed and has unwavering faithfulness to hating you. You can rely and even plan on your archnemesis’ disdain. All the while your supposed friends are working up other deals with other friends that all of a sudden propel them to stardom and you to the doldrums. Oops. Their bad!

Controlling your fate as it relates to your partners and competitors is an art that is tough to master. The easy place to start is to follow some rules the Don might have suggested. Be in no ones pocket. Be beholden to no one and make no excuses for protecting your businesses. Attack the weak before they get strong. Take every threat seriously. Don’t let your guard down for anyone whose fate is not inexplicably linked to the fate of the organization. Use the competitors’ force against them. And remember, while it is not war, it is how you make a living and provide for your family. If that is not worth a little fight once and a while, I’m not sure what is.

I wish Maura would just go ahead and kick that girl in the mouth.

It has been many years since Maura has seen her archnemesis, but it’s not the same with me. Some of my ardent critics are now close confidants. I have truly enjoyed the competition and now friendship of people I once pondered sending a poisonous snake to in the mail. Oh, don’t scoff. I know you’ve dreamed up worse.

So do it right now. Get a picture of the competition and hang it in the company bathroom for everyone to deface. Put it on a dart board or put a dialogue bubble coming from the mouth, unleashing a torrent of self-depreciating obscenities. If you don’t have an archnemesis, invent one. Take all that is despicable in your sector and embody it in a symbol of ugly stuffed animal or stupid trinket. Take your enemy and your disdain for them seriously.

Because it is better to have hated and won
Than to have not cared and lost anyway.


Snowden Tatarski is a marketing consultancy based in Athens, Georgia that focuses on the development and implementation strategic marketing plans. The company offers marketing research, marketing strategies, advertising development, media strategy and planning, sales consultation, trade communication strategies and the production of advertising, sales collateral, broadcast and interactive systems and materials. Information online at www.sn-ta.com