---
title: "Has the Internet Made the 'Human Wave Tactics' Obsolete for Traditional Marketers?"
description: "Since its inception, the human wave tactic has been labeled as inefficient and brute-force. Since 2012, companies relying on this tactic for channel refinement and deep distribution have faced declining sales and profits. However, the tactic is not obsolete; it is evolving with internet technology, and the key lies in integrating both approaches."
author: "黄润霖"
publisher: "New Distribution"
email: "zhaobo258@gmail.com"
telephone: "+8615854817671"
published: "2017-01-22"
language: "en"
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# Has the Internet Made the 'Human Wave Tactics' Obsolete for Traditional Marketers?

> Since its inception, the human wave tactic has been labeled as inefficient and brute-force. Since 2012, companies relying on this tactic for channel refinement and deep distribution have faced declining sales and profits. However, the tactic is not obsolete; it is evolving with internet technology, and the key lies in integrating both approaches.

Since its inception, the human wave tactic has been intentionally or unintentionally labeled as inefficient, costly, and brute-force. This label carries both a condescending superiority and an intellectual arrogance of "smart people" playing with methodology.
**Since 2012, companies that relied on human wave tactics for channel refinement and deep distribution have encountered significant troubles.** Looking at their annual reports and industry data over the past two years, sales declines, profit drops, and layoffs are constant. When sales growth can no longer solve underlying problems, troubles follow one after another.
It is against this backdrop that the value of human wave tactics has been questioned again, much like when the U.S. military used so-called firepower tactics to undermine human wave tactics during the Korean War. In reality, when input cannot offset output, any tactic will be questioned; it is not just human wave tactics that suffer this fate.
The awkward position of human wave tactics in the internet age often stems from the past practice of treating people as machines: clocking in, swiping cards, and responding. In an environment of insufficient competition and during the dividend period of economic development, mere presence could bring extensive growth. One more person meant one more opportunity. As long as output exceeded input, no one cared whether more or fewer people were better. **But when information systems truly arrived, the work of a thousand people clocking in could be done by one machine in a second, making the imbalance of revenue and expenditure caused by human wave tactics the culprit.**
**The second reason human wave tactics are questioned in the internet environment is that opponents pit the flexibility of human resources against the standardization of machine processes,** viewing it as a replacement of one tool by another, and even basing the value of the internet on the disappearance of human wave tactics. Historically, overcorrection often stems from replacement rather than coexistence, such as the earlier claim that e-commerce would replace physical stores.
Of course, besides the above two reasons, there is another more insidious argument: **Human wave tactics are designed for the numerous distributors, and with the internet becoming the mainstream business model, channel flattening and disintermediation are only a matter of time.** If distributors are destined to disappear, where would human wave tactics find their use?
To answer whether human wave tactics should exit the historical stage, we must first mention two important laws: Lanchester's Linear Law (in long-range combat, any side's strength is proportional to its numbers) and Lanchester's Square Law (in close combat, any side's strength is proportional to the square of its numbers). These are the theoretical foundations for the widespread application of human wave tactics. The Lanchester equations, based on these laws, are also the first formulas to quantitatively demonstrate that concentrating forces and winning by numbers are crucial guarantees for victory in war.
It is evident from Lanchester's laws that, whether in close or long-range combat, the outcome is determined by the number of troops, and in close combat, the effectiveness of numbers increases geometrically compared to long-range combat. **For ground sales personnel, where business is like war, whether it's vehicle sales or visit sales, the face-to-face "street fighting" mode is their chance to shine.**
In past channel expansion and maintenance, there were both high-altitude advertising bombardments and ground-level street-sweeping visits. However, looking back at China's marketing history, those who left a lasting name on the stage were all reliant on ground forces sweeping like tides. From the rise and fall of Sanzhu in the past, to the ubiquitous Ctrip in recent times, to traditional manufacturers like Midea with 100,000 employees at its peak, and modern internet companies like Meituan with marketing personnel in over a hundred cities across China.
**Human wave tactics have not disappeared in the era of internet advancement; they continue to create miracles in new forms.** Those who pride themselves on asset-light models and internet technology, after the market's frenzy and brief revival, often leave behind not myths but jokes. Even giants like today's BAT: Baidu relies on agents across the country, Alibaba, known as the originator of ground promotion, is the Whampoa Military Academy for offline promotion teams, and countless third-party service providers under Tencent's banner. **BAT's application of human wave tactics is even more extensive than traditional enterprises!**
**I. The internet's medicine cannot cure the disease of human wave tactics.**
**Internet technology belongs to the natural sciences to some extent, while human wave tactics belong to the social sciences. Using natural science methods to solve social science problems is like treating a headache by treating the foot.**
Behind internet technology is a complex set of logical algorithms, which can fully exert its power in areas that can be logically sequenced and quantitatively measured. Thus, the internet can easily solve the problem of queue-jumping at banks, optimize the process of publicizing land certificate progress at government service centers, and quickly verify whether a brand is a fake foreign product with a simple online search. These are pieces of information that should be public and transparent in the public domain, which we have not done well in the past, but the internet excels at.
What problems does human wave tactics solve? It addresses uncertain situations where people can exert subjective initiative to solve problems and track results. Whether a store owner stocks up today is not solely determined by a shortage; they can choose brand A or brand B. This seems like a mathematical problem but is actually a philosophical one. The role of people is to urge the store owner to choose me between two options, and when they plan to choose me, to strengthen that choice. The usage rate of cash discount coupons on Taobao during "Double 11" may be less than 1%, but offline deposit upgrade activities can maintain a conversion rate of over 70%.
**II. To solve the pain of human wave tactics, the internet must first cure its own disease.**
In 2016, after the decline of O2O, the concept of B2B surged, with FMCG B-end startups as a representative. The main appeal of B-end startups is the concept of disintermediation and de-channelization, using systems to replace sales personnel and change the drawbacks of past human wave tactics. Whether this wave of B2B will succeed, I will not discuss for now, but I am willing to predict what this wave will leave behind.
China's internet penetration has been quite effective, but in terms of application depth, it is clearly superficial. A typical example: enterprise informatization was loudly advocated as early as the end of the last century. But today, small and medium enterprises, especially distributors, have fully achieved informatization; this path is still long and arduous.
**Therefore, I believe this round of B2B will leave two legacies: First, it cures the disease of distributors.** It makes channel players return to craftsmanship, doing their work meticulously, deeply, and thoroughly, rather than being mere middlemen buying low and selling high. This value is like Uber to taxis.
**Second, it cures its own disease.** By promoting informatization in offline channels, B2B companies are unlikely to harvest small and medium distributors, but through this trend, they will greatly improve distributors' informatization management levels. I predict that B2B companies may not make money, but SaaS system providers should be the first to reap substantial profits.
**III. The self-evolution and optimization of human wave tactics are also reasons they will continue to play a role for a long time.**
In the history of warfare, human wave tactics have undergone a continuous evolution. From the initial consumption of numbers to the formation of "three-man combat groups"; from absolute numerical superiority in group fights to relative numerical superiority in one-on-one combat; from reckless attacks to coordinated strikes with sea, land, and air support, human wave tactics have not only been enriched theoretically but also improved in practice.
The same applies to human wave tactics in marketing practice. **From Sanzhu's military-style management system to Master Kong's deep distribution model, and then to the "Thousand Group War" with online-offline interaction, human wave tactics have been continuously refined under the internet model.** The development of a series of visit and vehicle sales management systems has also provided more reliable references for the behavior management and standardization of ground personnel. As long as there is a need to improve business behavior, all technical issues are not issues.
**IV. The best remedy for the shortcomings of both the internet and human wave tactics is to combine Chinese and Western approaches, and adapt foreign methods for Chinese use.**
As I mentioned earlier, **the internet and human wave tactics are not a replacement of one tool by another; they are not absolutely opposed but should be considered for more complementarity and compatibility.**
For example, the internet is a tool to achieve the highest reach at the lowest cost, which in our business management is called the sales base; ground-level sales visits can maximize results based on the actual situation of each store, which we call the sales probability.
A company's performance is good either because the sales base is large, such as 10 million, and even with a very low success rate, like 1 in 10,000, it still yields 1,000 successful customers; or because the sales probability is high, such as 50%, and even with a low sales base, like only 2,000 customers, it can still achieve 1,000 successful customers.
Use systems to analyze, prompt, and chase orders; use people to adjust methods, improve strategies, and follow up on results, finding a balance between base and probability. **For example, use internet information to test who are valuable potential customers, then rely on human effort to continuously follow up and obtain results, thereby avoiding wasting time on invalid customers. Once this balance is established, it not only balances workload but also prioritizes the economic account of input and output.**
Therefore, at least for a long time, the internet will not render human wave tactics obsolete but will force them to become more efficient.
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