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Challenger thinking— Ape Challenger Workshop programme for B2B businesses, products and services.

By the end of your challenger workshop you’ll know exactly who and what you are as a business, product or service and what you need to do next.

Your workshop output

OVERLAYING THE RULES

_ Don’t just be a service provider

_ Positive customer experience

generates client advocacy

_ Create a new customer experience,

that considers the whole journey

_ Client empowerment

_ Members not clients

THE CENTRE OF YOUR CHALLENGE IS…

How consumers shop/experience or consume

_ Challenge consumer expectations

_ Sharing and training clients post launch

_ Business performance

_ Pre-packaging

_ Grow your business

We continually challenge industry conventions to

demonstrate a better alternative. Technology has

changed, the approach to web development hasn’t

LIGHTHOUSE

POINT OF VIEW

BIG FISH“We must clearly

demonstrate the impact

and value our projects

create; and we must help

our clients maximise that

value. By doing that, we’ll

raise our visibility at the

same time.”

MAKE MONSTERS

DRAMATISE YOUR

DIFFERENCES

WHAT CAN

YOU SACRIFICE

SO YOU CAN

OVERCOMMIT?

CHECK YOUR

ENERGY LEVELS.

CHALLENGER

BRANDS NEED

MORE…

GAME CHANGER

THE

AMBITION

TWOWrite a manifesto KINDS

110219

Clients with marketing strategies

Add value to

client projects

beyond simply

financial gains£3-5min 3yrs

YOU’REFIRED

STOP! DOING

Junior thinking

START! DOING

Client first

Clients often move faster than the project. Opportunity for

rapid prototype and analysis. (Build, strategy, build, deploy)

COHERENCECHALLENGER MAP

YOUR STANCE A DIFFERENT PERSPECTIVE

ENGAGE YOUR SECTOR IN NEW WAY

CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE REAPPRAISED

SURPRISING REWARDING LIBERATING

EVOLVE INTO

AN ENLIGHTENED

ZAGGER?

DON’T GET TOO

COMFORTABLE,

PUSH YOURSELVES

“ CTI clients think accountants are interesting, that probably explains their attraction

to binary choices and counting beans. Our clients would rather slap an accountant

than slap themselves on their back for commissioning yet another biege website.”

ENLIGHT

ENED ZAGGERENLIGNLNLNLLILIGIGENE

AND HUMAN

CHALLENGER

THE REALT

ANNNNC

EEEEE

MAAAAMGE

EEE

HHHHLLLL

A challenger manifesto document out-lining your following challenger business credentials and your challenger map, a visual summary (opposite):

1. The challenge. Reveal and unpack the number one challenger to your business.

2. Your ambition. You can’t tackle your challenge until you know where you want to go and why. Defining your positioning is a key part of this.

3. Your stance. Your tone-of-voice; how you behave, your attitude, what you do, and what you don’t do.

4. Beliefs. Frame a singular point of view of your sector and your unique take on it.

5. How to make monsters. We give you the tools to demonise causes and issues. It’s an effective way to generate compelling narratives and gather passionate support amongst your customers and your brand’s advocates.

Five reasons why challengers succeed

1. Adopt strong beliefs as to how the sector should look and behave.

2. Create a new criteria of choice for your product or service.

3. Don’t amplify the market leader by mirroring them.

4. Find your stance so you can behave and communicate consistently.

5. What are you prepared to sacrifice in order to over-commit?

Applying challenger thinking can be transformational for the whole business. Three of the most pivotal exercises from the workshop focus on defining your challenge, your persona and your mission.

1. Defining your challenge. What’s your single most importantly held belief, how are you going to project that, and why does it matter to your customers?

2. Stance cards. There are 10 challenger stances – which one are you, which one is definitely not you, and which is your alter-ego? This exercise explores the personality of your business and how you would talk. It guides you on how you need to behave to achieve the required level of salience and consistency of message.

3. Monster generator. You can create a monster of anything – a rival business, an industry figure, a product, a service, a mindset… In the 1980s Anita Roddick and The Body Shop famously demonised the beauty industry, she described it as, “a monster selling unobtainable dreams, one that lies, cheats and exploits women. Demonising something helps focus the mind, gives purpose and creates meaning for customers who share your vision. It can create a cause for your advocates to rally around.

In truth is it’s a really fun, flexible and powerful exercise that you can use to shape your core mission or develop a rich vein of consistent content and messaging.

Three impactful parts of our workshop

2 day challenger workshop (draft guide only)

Part 1 A no commitment conversation to see if there is a need and a fit for challenger thinking

To begin with we start at the end. In an exploratory pre-engagement chemistry meeting we’ll talk about what your big ambition is or might be. Discuss and agree who the market leader is and if different, your primary competitor. We’ll then briefly explain the concept of the Big Fish* and whether or not it is in fact the market leader or another, maybe as yet undefined challenge.* The Big Fish is the primary challenge to your future success or

even existence. In essence it is who, or what, will eat you, if you don’t eat it first.

Part 2 2/3 day workshop (12-18hrs) £9k-£12k

Day 1

• You’re fired It’s your first day at a new business, what would you change first? Out with the old ways and in with some fresh thinking.

• Big Fish What’s the elephant in the room? And it might just be a fierce business devouring elephant at that.

• Positive Negative No more me too. Highlight what makes us the same so we can focus on being different.

• Overlaying the rules Employ some intelligent naivety and look far-a-field to discover some great businesses doing great things. Then imagine what it would look like if we borrowed some of that thinking.

• Defining the challenge What are we challenging? A sector dimension, UX, culture, a trait of the market leader?

Day 2

• Two Kinds Write a manifesto and start to build on our mission and TOV.

• Lighthouse point of view Doubling down on singular belief.

• Sacrifice and overcommit 80/20 rule. What do we give up in order to re-energise what’s important.

• Stance Who the hell are we anyway? Does anybody care? Well they should!

• Monster Generator Let’s create a purposeful strategy for our content and stance.

Five challenger workshop highlights

Choose your stance

Read all about it

A personification exercise. Explore different ways to be consistently recognisable in all that you say and do.

Write a manifesto stating all that is good about your product or service compared to all that is bad about a competitor. It’s a great way to reveal your personality and deeper thoughts and beliefs.

Create abundance: What currency other than money do we possess?

Identify and then maximise your communication channels and opportunities.

What surprising new perspectives and communication ideas can we pull from the daily press?

The monster under your bed was just a tool for parents to get their kids to go to sleep.

What demons can we create? Something we can lean into to help develop our narrative, adding focus to our purpose.

Touch the touch-points

Monster generator

Two kinds

V

from

b2b clients b2c clients

Recommended reading

We always recommend our clients read the book that essentially defined what a challenger brand is all the way back in 1999.

Eating the Big Fish: How Challenger Brands Can Compete Against Brand Leaders, by Adam Morgan. It is essential reading and shaped a lot of our thinking and processes that we include in our own workshops today.

Whether or not we have suitably piqued your interest in having a preliminary challenger conversation, do read the book, it’s available on Amazon.

Thanks.

apecreative.com

Conservative thinking kills creativity and dulls success. Challenger thinking

is the antidote.