Devoted to online marketing, viral marketing, and web marketing

The news that Wal-Mart (WMT) has already launched a campaign to cut prices, may seem somewhat boring and expected at around this time of year, in truth it's a tremendous move that makes a lot of sense for them.

One immediate, important thing it was done unexpectedly - in stealth mode - so Wal-Mart's competitors have been caught off guard. They now must respond to, instead of inititiate actions in this area, along with being put on the defensive, wondering what other products or categories Wal-Mart will discount even more. The reason it surprised people is it is two weeks before last years' announcement of discounts in preparation for the holiday season.

I say this marketing because it centers around Wal-Mart's brand, and deals with the unexpected toy recall problem all the retail industry faces at the most crucial time of they year for them.

This is a powerful way to do things because it keeps our competitors unsure, delights our customers, and can drive traffic and sales in a way that may cut margins temporarily, but increase business over the long haul.

The point isn't the cutting of prices here, but in surprising everyone with unexpected strategies and intitiatives that keeps people wanting to do business with us and make us very difficult to compete against as far as predictability goes.

When we surprise our competitors like Wal-Mart did, again, it puts them on the defensive and makes them play catchup with us. That is definitely a competitive advantage.

Online marketing is very strong in empowering us to do things like this, as it doesn't cost that much, and we can move extremely fast.

To me the major idea is to ensure we keep things in that stealth mode and not allow our plans to leak out. A well-executed surprise is a powerful tool that can add to our image, brand and long-term success.

Another thing is to not do it so often that it becomes expected by everybody. We need to change what we do, when we do it and how we do it, as we execute these types of surprises. Otherwise it won't make any difference if others don't know about it, it will become an expected non-surprise and predictable ... taking away its impact.