Applying sun tzu's terrain and ground to the study of marketing strategy

In the ancient text The Art of War, military strategist Sun Tzu suggests that to be successful in war you have to understanding the environment in which you will do battle. In this paper, the authors apply Sun Tzu's discussion of ground and terrain, the controllable environmental variables, to the study of marketing strategy. The authors demonstrate how Sun Tzu's ground and terrain can serve as parsimonious typologies of competitive market situations that are useful for the study of marketing theory and practice. Marketing is merely a civilized form of warfare in which most battles are won with words, ideas, and disciplined thinking. (Albert W. Emery, xxxx).