Challenger Times

CHALLENGER TIMES2

TEN WAYS TO TELL A

CHALLENGER STORY

From

The Scrappy David

The Irreverent Maverick

The Missionary

The Next Generation

The Real and Human Challenger

The Visionary

The Game Changer

The People’s Champion

The Enlightened Zagger

The Democratiser

18

16

14

13

10

7

6

5

11

8

The Scrappy David / The Irreverent Maverick / The Missionary / The Next Generation / The Real and Human Challenger / The Visionary / The Game Changer / The People’s Champion / The Enlightened Zagger /The Democratiser

We live in challenging times. So it is no surprise that the adoption of Challenger Brand thinking and behaviour is now really beginning to enter the mainstream. Typing ‘Challenger Brand’ into Google this morning got

2,610,000 results. There were 735,000 articles written about them last year alone. That’s a lot of people now joining in on a conversation we started over ten years ago... Since you are reading this you probably know a fair bit about Challenger Brands already– it’s likely you either consider yourself to be a Challenger, or feel you need to become one. But just in case you picked this paper up on an empty train platform, or found it in a dentist's waiting room, here’s the old news before we get stuck into some new stories.

Being a Challenger Brand is not about a state of market; being number two or three or four doesn't in itself make you a Challenger. A Challenger is, above all, a state of mind rather than a state of market. It is a brand, and a group of people behind that brand, whose business ambitions exceeds its conventional marketing resources, and needs to change the category decision-making criteria in its favour to close the implications of that gap.

Familiar?

Yes. The Challenger Brands are the brands that inspire us, the people that we respect and remember, the characters that we are attracted to– real, fictional, today and way back… like David against Goliath.

Which is indeed where the Challenger narrative begins, but not where it ends. Over the years the Challengers we have worked with have tended to share common experiences and face common threats, and have therefore drawn on similar principles and behaviours in order to successfully compete against the Market Leader. But the Challenger narrative they tell is of course not always the same: much depends on the individual identities of the people or brands themselves, and also on the particular strategic stance that each unique Challenger has chosen to employ. Across the last decade we have indeed met many Davids, yet we have also met many other characters less celebrated in the Challenger conversation. Collectively they make up a new generation of Challengers, rooted in a broader range of classic Challenger stances and narratives, which is what this is all about.

So let’s begin the journey and start where any good narrative should. Right at the beginning...

3

The Scrappy David

This first story is very old news, but was reported in a much-respected publication, and is based on a

certain amount of fact, with perhaps a little exaggeration for dramatic impact. The famous battle of David vs. Goliath occurred some time during the early 4th century BC, and was published a while later in The Old Testament: 1 Samuel 17.

So the story in brief: surprise success for boy in battle against armored giant. Original reports talk of politics, paganism, brotherhood and bloodshed, but let’s stick to the simple tale. David, a brave lone figure, stands up to Goliath, a feared and all-powerful oppressor, and defeats the mightier warrior using only a sling-shot and a very sharp stone.

What David has, other than his humble weapon of course, is self-belief, a cause worth fighting for and a preparedness to confront, challenge and call out his enemy face to face. The classic Challenger stance.

Perhaps David could have defeated the giant if he had persuaded his fellow Israelites that ‘People Power’ was the answer. Perhaps he could have created a Killer-App to defeat him. Perhaps he might have used humour, negotiation and self-deprecation to resolve the conflict– all effective stances taken by other Challenger characters we’ll meet later. But the story that has survived and

inspired so many over the last 1500 years is the simple yet powerful underdog tale of victory against the odds. It’s one that resonates today because it is a binary battle we all recognise– the fight between small vs. big, good vs. bad, us vs. them.

Perhaps the narrative of David and his stance against Goliath is most vividly depicted in the brand world by the then-upstart Apple going up against global brand IBM in the 1980s. The 1984 TV commercial may have thinly veiled the attack on IBM as ‘The Corporation’ but Steve Jobs made Apple’s corporate enemy obvious in his speech that announced the ad before it ran.

"It is now 1984. It appears IBM wants it all. Apple is perceived to be the only hope to offer IBM a run for its money. Dealers initially welcoming IBM with open arms now fear an

IBM dominated and controlled future. They are increasingly turning back to Apple as the only force that can ensure their future freedom. IBM

wants it all and is aiming its guns on its last obstacle to industry control: Apple. Will Big Blue dominate the entire computer industry? The entire information age? Was George Orwell right?"

His answer of course was ‘no’, as the woman with the hammer proved. And although the commercial was only aired once during the Super Bowl, it resonated deeply for a generation. And this was because it wasn’t just about which computer was better. It wasn’t one corporation against another. Apple took a deliberate stance as David against the IBM Giant and, using some pretty explicit symbolism, persuaded us that as a young Challenger, Apple wasn’t just going to sell us a better machine but also stand up for the good of humankind, protect our future and defend our freedoms against the oppressive and controlling threat of ‘The Giant Corporation’. And of course, we were with Apple.

As a more recent brand story illustrates quite clearly, when given a choice ‘nobody roots for Goliath’. It’s rare that brand news crosses over into news-news but if there is one stance that will help you to get there its David vs. Goliath. The UK press were recently all over this story about a ‘David versus Goliath-style victory over supermarket giant Tesco’.

Originally a potato farmer struggling to make a living selling to supermarkets in the U.K, Will Chase turned to making quality potato chips in 2002 and decided

to sell his then-niche brand Tyrrells on the independent market through delicatessens and Waitrose. However the young brand’s growth was so strong by 2007 the UK’s biggest retailer (Tesco) wanted in. Chase chose principles over profit, and declined the giant’s advances, but subsequently found out that Tesco had sourced Tyrrells through the grey market and was undercutting his independent stockists by selling them at a reduced price.

On discovering Tesco’s new tactics, and undeterred by the size of his opponent, Chase threatened to sue, and when Tesco refused to stop stocking his product, he

went into battle. His weapon was not a slingshot, but he did hit Goliath where it hurt with a simple tool– he told his story to the national press. Seeing the damage now done to their reputation, and much to the surprise and delight of the U.K. press and public, Tesco conceded and Tyrrells

was victorious. Commenting in the press on his David’s style win, Will Chase made it clear that this battle was bigger than a packet of crisps:

"This is another case of Tesco's bullying tactics. If a company can have so much power over what we can and can't buy, where does one draw the line?"

It turned out that the ‘humble potato farmer’ knows exactly where to draw the line, and has recently sold his brave little brand for £40 million.

Many Challenger Brands start out as the Scrappy David. Firstly because it is a position they genuinely find themselves in, and secondly because playing up to it is an attractive idea that seems like a straightforward way to break into a new category, steal some attention and get an audience on side. But it is of course not that easy. Success with this strategic stance depends not just on a preparedness to play the role of David, but an ability to force the (often much respected) Market Leader into the position of Goliath. After all, this is not about a vague ‘big evil them’ that the underdog hero is fighting, but a specific enemy, with a face and a name and some well-defined muscles. To call out the competition as Goliath, belief is everything, as is the absolute authenticity of your own position as David.

And for the scrappy Challenger that does succeed with this stance? Well once a David becomes an established and not-so-scrappy player in the category, so it becomes increasingly hard to credibly retain this underdog status.

And then? Well, as we shall see with Apple, it becomes necessary to evolve and move on…

THE SCRAPPY

DAVIDSuccess For Scrappy Boy

With Sharp Stone

Small vs. Big

Good vs. Evil

Us vs. Them

5

Nobody Roots

For Goliath

To Call Out The

Competition As Goliath,

Belief Is Everything


It’s 1917, and we’ve now travelled to New York. You are a worldly, open-minded, creative type spending an

afternoon in the city, and so you head to an exhibition at the Society of Independent Artists. You see a lot of lovely artwork. You do not see Duchamp’s Fountain, the urinal that the Dadaist, anti-art, piss-taker attempted to exhibit, but you do read about it in the papers the next day.

It would be an understatement to say this Irreverent Maverick’s work ‘caused a bit of a splash’. The reason you didn’t see it in the gallery was because the curators refused to exhibit it, but you heard about it because Duchamp was forced to resign his position in the S.I.A committee, and the entire art world was in revolt. The press was so horrified by the insulting non-exhibit that the urinal was described by most as ‘an unmentionable object,’ and by only a few brave editors as a ‘bathroom appliance’.

Fast forward ninety-odd years. You are now visiting an exhibition at the Tate Modern in London, where you discover two related things of note concerning the Duchamp. First ‘Shock Art’ has become a not-so-shocking tradition, and second Duchamp’s never-seen urinal (now endlessly replicated) has recently been voted the most influential artwork of the 20th century by 500 selected British art world professionals. So times change, the mainstream catches up and Duchamp, the great genius, is

finally accepted and indeed celebrated by the status quo.

Which is of course a shame. Because, as an Irreverent Maverick, this is not the idea at all.

This stance is all about being provocative, and deliberately setting out to create controversy. The Challenger characters that take on this role have a very serious intent to shock the establishment. They use wit and humour to question cultural or category conventions, challenge the complacency and collusion of those in the mainstream and attract a particular audience to their own brand of counter-culture.

Of course today the art world takes not taking itself too seriously very seriously indeed. And in spite of the ‘my three year old could do that’, or the ‘Outraged from Oldham’ pressure from the tabloids, the

majority of the art establishment feels the need to celebrate the work of even the most random and absurd Turner Prize winners as ‘exciting’, ‘challenging’ and ‘thought provoking’.

But there are a few categories that do still take themselves very seriously– traditional, British craft beer being one. Strict regulation, secret recipes, serious county competition and a close knit community of male drinkers in their

sixties has meant that craft beer has not exactly shaken things up over the last few decades… or ever. Yes, part of that very stuffy traditional heritage has been to use weak innuendos and unfunny caricatures on the sticky labels that cover the dusty brown bottles on the shelves of empty countryside pubs but, as a category, edgy and controversial doesn’t really have a place. Until now, that is.

Enter BrewDog. Self-styled as a ‘bold, irreverent and u nc o mp r o m i s i n g ’ brand, the duo behind BrewDog have deliberately set out with ‘a statement of intent’ to confront and corrupt the cosy world of real ale and the broader beer category altogether.

“CAMRA brewers seem to operate in a vacuum of taste, of logic, of anything that’s fun or cool or edgy” says Co-Founder James in a recent interview. “It’s just old guys with beards and leather waistcoats”.

A wicked sense of humour, a love of the absurd and an appetite for shock are not just part of the character but a crucial part of the publicity plan for this Irreverent Maverick.

“One of our strategies has been to cause as much controversy as possible, which has definitely got our name in the headlines.”

A strategy that had considerable success this year when the brand launched ‘The End of History’– the strongest beer ever made. In case an ale with a higher alcohol content than most vodka or whiskey wasn’t enough to outrage, the ‘premium’ packaging around the bottle has been made from taxidermic road-kill. Yes, a urinal in an art gallery today is candy compared to a stuffed skunk on your pub table.

Of course, the media loves to talk about this brand that is so reviled by real ale societies, horrified consumers and outraged animal rights organisations. And for a Challenger Brand with no

marketing budget, while taking this stance is arguably ‘sick’, it is certainly sensible. In order to compete James and Martin have realized that:

“It’s not about how much money you have but […] how engaging and exciting your content is. We get about 10,000 hits on our website a day. It’s a dialogue with fans.”

And it’s not just about creating debate. This young Maverick has quickly turned publicity into profit, and after just 4 years is now Scotland's largest independently owned brewery,

producing about 120,000 bottles per month for export all over the world. Not threatening the global giants yet, perhaps, but this is certainly part of the plan. And a move into the mainstream will be an interesting journey to watch as the brand grows– not just in terms of how it evolves its own bold behaviour but how the broader category will choose to respond.

After all, Duchamp’s legacy shows us how the shock of the new soon becomes the norm within a category– while it might have taken 90 years for the rest of the category to become comfortable with Duchamp’s Maverick ideas, today within most categories it only takes 9 months

for the rest of the category to catch up.

First feared and vilified, the Irreverent Maverick usually ends up celebrated and copied by the

mainstream it first set out to shock. Subsequently Challengers taking this stance have to work harder and harder to cause continual controversy. It’s the way the world turns, and a watch out for those Challengers intent on playing the Irreverent Maverick within their own categories. While this stance, like the Scrappy David, is a great way to break into a seemingly closed category, it is an extremely difficult stance to keep up. It’s one thing to start a debate, it’s another thing to keep it going– and it requires serious commitment to ensure you get the last laugh.

THE IRREVERENTMAVERICK

Stuffed Skunk And Urinal Cause Splash

This Stance Is All About

Setting Out To

Create Controversy

A Wicked

Sense Of Humour,

A Love Of The Absurd,

An Appetite For Shock

The Shock Of The New

Will Soon Become

The Norm


This stance has never been an easy one to adopt. If you were a young religious Missionary in the

18th century you would have left your village- and your friends drinking cider and having sex in the haystacks- to take yourself and your bible off to the nearest port to climb aboard a boat destined for a ‘A Far Away Land’. On arrival you would try to tell people who didn’t speak your language that your God was good and that their God was bad, but that it was ok because you had come to rescue them, to teach them, to help them and generally do some good around the place.

(The life of the Missionary’s ‘Flock’ was by all accounts not an easy one, either. But as this piece is about the Missionary, we’ll stick with them and to a simple explanation of their role– as it relates to a Challenger Brand stance– rather than get into a complex discussion about religious oppression, cultural imperialism and the rights and wrongs of Missionary movements.)

So the key thing to understand is that the Missionary is dedicated to a Higher Calling. It is their duty to spread the word of their own God and grow their church of worshippers, but at the same time use their relevant religious experience and learning to aid and advance a particular contemporary culture, campaign or cause, that until now has lain outside the realm of their specific church.

And it’s pretty much the same for Missionary brands. Loyal and committed, the Missionary Challenger

sets out to share their love for their own brand and grow its influence, but also to use their own relevant understanding, category and brand experience to do something big and brave and beautiful in the real world. And so we see detergent companies fighting climate change, tea brands defending the rights of plantation workers and beauty products promoting women’s self esteem– brands not just selling products to profit stake-holders but using their brands to do good for the world and its people.

Which brings us to Mary Lou Jepsen.

True to the Missionary approach, when Mary Lou Jepsen decided to help find a way to facilitate and develop education for the world’s poorest children, she didn’t just decide to head off to Africa and politely ask the first person she met how she could be most useful. Instead she started with her own belief in the power and possibility of computers and her own 15 years experience developing screen technology to find a way to really make a difference.

And she has.

The ‘One Laptop per Child’ program has developed the world's simplest, cheapest, greenest, rechargeable laptop designed to be used in the most remote

parts of the developing world by children in poverty, without power or resource, who lack access but now not the ability to get an education.

When we asked Mary Lou last year how the initial idea for the O.L.P.C. project

came about she told us that:

“my then boyfriend had written an article called “The Other 4 Billion” in 2003 about how cell phone technology was going to change opportunities for the developing world. And it was clear to me from reading it that the same kind of thing could happen with computers– but it was hard to reach these people. We based the 'business model' on two principles. First, kids can figure out how to use laptops, and second, we could work with the Ministries of Education throughout the world and distribute these laptops like text books”.

In working out the specific design requirements Mary Lou says she “decided against anthropologic studies”.The idea was not to respond to specific local needs– which would be different across geographies but instead to design “a laptop that had to work universally”.

Accessibility was one thing– it had to be low cost. But usability and durability was another– it had to be low power. Thankfully Mary Lou had the experience and the answer. It was all about the screen, which she explained is not only the most expensive component in a laptop but the biggest power hog.

“I’ve been designing screens for 25 years now. I knew a lot about it” she said. “Also this had to be rugged and it occurred to me that it would be very useful if it could work outside so I made the screen sunlight readable too.”

Mary Lou’s excitement as she talks about screen technology and laptop development is glaringly evident. She was excited by the challenge that the O.L.P.C. project gave her. And what’s more she was determined to prove the disbelievers wrong.

“I knew that it was possible. I knew how to do it. I could see it in my mind quite clearly when I took on this project” she told us.

It was this belief in herself, her brand and the potential of her category to do good that kept her going day in day out. But what struck us most in talking to Mary Lou was that in those dark hours (quite literally) it was the children’s cause that she was determined to champion that gave her strength.

“It was all about the kids and giving them more opportunity and hope in life. I could barely sleep past 2-3AM because I was so driven by the image of these kids and giving them a better chance in life.”

The Missionary is of course loyal to its own brand but it is driven by a Higher Calling. Unlike the Visionary, the Missionary doesn’t use its brand to confront, challenge or change the values or experience within the category. Instead it uses its brand and its category to champion a cause that it cares deeply about in the real world beyond. And of course this is why we are so attracted to the Challenger that takes this stance– we choose to engage with their brands as consumers because we engage with their causes as humans.

THE MISSIONARY

Screen Goddess Gives Hope To Millions

The Missionary Is

Dedicated To A

Higher Calling

Using Their Brands To Do

Good For The World

And Its People

7


When Elvis Presley first thrust his way onto the American music scene, the mainstream media

was so frightened that the gyrating genius would corrupt the hearts and minds of a whole generation that his hips were famously banned on national TV.

Not only did he have to be filmed from the waist up when he appeared on the nation’s favourite TV programme– The Ed Sullivan Show– but America’s most adored family entertainer Frank Sinatra openly warned parents that Elvis’ music was ‘deplorable, a rancid

smelling aphrodisiac’ that ‘fosters almost totally negative and destructive reactions in young people’.

Every generation fears that the next is somehow about to bring down humanity. Indeed it is the required duty of the Next Generation to shake up the current generation,

inform us all that the world as we know it is never going to be the same again– thereby precipitating fear and excitement in equal measure.

Elvis’s ‘unconventional’ music and

moves were as genuinely shocking and threatening to the incumbent generation as they were exciting and liberating for a new one.

Perhaps the only convention Elvis did respect was that well trodden trajectory from successful Next Generation Challenger to Establishment Leader– a path also taken by his critic, and King of Swing, Frank Sinatra only a decade earlier. Entering the scene during the 1940s Sinatra was not only hounded by the media for: ‘corrupting America's bobby-soxers’ but also by the FBI for being a ‘rare triple threat, a growing menace socially, politically and legally’.

And it was this combination– so exciting

to his own young generation of followers– that in part gave him the unprecedented success that went on to catapult him into the mainstream music of the 1950s/60s.

And so it goes… by definition the dangerous and daring Next Generation Challenger, if successful, ultimately becomes accepted and celebrated as the King of ‘this’ one– in music as in so much else.

In the last 5-10 years it is the way we communicate that has been most notably revolutionised by the onslaught of Next Generation brands.

The impact of mobile messaging has, according to many teachers, left aa

THE NEXT

GENERATION

The King Is Dead, Long Live The King


It Is The Duty

Of The Next Generation

To Shake Up The

Current Generation

generation of students unable to communicate using the English language– an old generation of outrage that has been discussed with disgust across a new generation of mainstream global media.

More specifically, though, it has been Facebook that has been both celebrated and castigated in the last few years for changing not just the way we communicate– from personal to public conversations- but the language through which we choose to express ourselves and the way we define friendships and build relationships.

In the few years since its launch Facebook has been blamed for singlehandedly

inventing cyber bullying, destroying relationships (by increasing agoraphobia in adolescents, celibacy in adults and sexuality in children), providing a platform for hate groups and reducing the attention span of children.

Oh, and by the way it is also making email obsolete for anyone under the age of 18.

Of course, despite all this, it has only taken six years for this Next Generation brand to be accepted and adopted globally and across generations by individuals, organisations and businesses as the

established communication platform.

The Next Generation stance for a Challenger can be aggressively and comparatively used against the Market Leader, or it can be a more elegant way to de-position a number one brand that still has a hold on the nation’s heart. By elegantly positioning

the incumbent as perfect for a time gone by, but being clear that time has now gone, it can position itself as a brand for those wanting to be part of a new generation, who dance to a different beat.

The Next Generation

9

If Successful, The Next

Generation Challenger

Becomes Accepted And

Celebrated As The King

Princess Diana's death on 31st August 1997 was met with extraordinary public expressions of grief. She

was royalty and she was beautiful– the most photographed woman in the world– so perhaps no surprise that her public funeral at Westminster Abbey on 6th September drew an estimated 3 million mourners and onlookers in London, as well as worldwide television coverage.

The media– for weeks, months and still over a decade on– have scrutinised her death, the circumstances around it, and the monarchy’s reaction to it in great detail and from every possible angle. But what has been perhaps most interesting, certainly from the point of view of this piece, is the ongoing media analysis not of her death, but of our grief. Why did we all, even the fiercest republicans amongst us, feel so close to this Royal stranger, and respond to her death with such an immediate and profound sense of personal loss?

The answer it seems was simple– she was ‘The People’s Princess’. More than just a headline, this tribute came not only from Tony Blair wanting to rescue the monarchy, from editors wanting to sell more tabloids, or from her brother wanting to reclaim his sister from the grip of the House of Windsor, but from the thousands of messages left by Diana’s public– ‘You were just one of us’ one of many cards read.

And it was true. While Diana had taken her role as Princess of Wales, Mother of a Future King, fashion icon and charity ambassador very seriously, she simultaneously took a defiant stance against the superior status that her Royal position had awarded her. She was a

princess who refused to be contained by convention and instead deliberately reached out of her ivory tower to connect in a way that was not expected by the people, or indeed entirely accepted by the ruling monarchy.

As her brother made clear at her funeral,

ʻʻIt is a tribute to her level-headedness and strength that despite the most bizarre-like life imaginable after her childhood, she remained intact, true to herself”. He continued his tribute saying that the rest of ʻ t̒he world sensed this… and cherished her for

her vulnerability whilst admiring her for her honesty.”

And we did. We expected to be in awe of the glamour and beauty of a Royal Princess, but we were also surprised and intrigued by her ordinariness. We connected with her because she allowed us to see a real human behind a Royal institution. We felt close because she deliberately broke down traditional barriers between a Princess and her public.

And it is for the same reason that we are so attracted to those Real and Human Challenger Brands that deliberately do away with the corporate/consumer divide between ‘us and them’ and instead give the people behind their brands the freedom to engage with us as people not consumers.

When our San Francisco Partner Mark entered the Zappos headquarters to interview founder Tony Hsieh earlier last year, despite travelling all the way to Vegas, he felt instantly at home. Certainly the busted cream sofa in the entrance, the old pair of sneakers by the door, the handwritten notes stuck to every wall

and the friendly faces that welcomed him helped. But the feeling continued as he explored the building; and experienced the very Real and Human culture that supports this billion dollar corporate empire.

People working at Zappos genuinely seem happy. Happy that the Zappos culture celebrates them as individual people with personalities, rather than expecting them to integrate into part of a uniform workforce. People at Zappos are given the power and the freedom to connect and communicate with their customers as they feel it is appropriate– to resolve difficulties and disputes, to take time to give additional help and support or just to be there to listen to a long story about a lost dog. This is not just an eccentric part of the culture, but an integral part of the brand’s strategy. And it works– as the 8137 customer testimonials on their site verify.

There are no scripts, no limits on call times; instead Hsieh simply encourages the Zappos team to take the time to make a “Personal Emotional Connection" with the customer. And, yes, this has meant that one legendary customer conversation lasted over 5 hours– a piece of folklore Tony is fiercely proud of. And it’s hard to over-emphasise just how at odds that last notion is with the rest of the call centre industry's notions of optimum call times and productivity.

It’s a radical idea to start with an ambition to build relationships, rather than just sell product. But of course Tony Hsieh would argue that if you get the first part right, then the second part naturally follows.

He takes this priority right to the heart of his hiring process.

“One of our values is to be humble” he says. “It’s a part of our culture. You could be the greatest superstar… hitting great numbers, but we pass on a lot of people because they don’t fit.”

It’s a strategy that has worked, Zappos sold to Amazon in November 2009 for a reported $1.2 billion.

Taking the Real and Human stance is not about adopting a certain voice– although there are many brands trying to imitate the 'innocent drinks' voice across every category from baked beans to banking. It is about challenging the faceless, corporate competition by making your own human virtues explicit. This includes allowing the people behind your brand to genuinely express themselves and their own identities, to communicate with openness and honesty and take personal responsibility for the products and services they provide… and it means accepting the inevitable, sometimes messy, implications of all this.

Yet the rewards for those brands genuinely brave enough to do this are immense, for the Challengers who take this stance appeal to us on a more

personal level than the Market Leader. We engage because they are making a human to human connection rather than a brand to consumer connection. And as a result these brands become more than just products or services, but compelling characters in our lives. We trust them more and thus allow them to reach us in a way that the distant corporate brand cannot.

THE

REAL AND HUMAN CHALLENGER

True Love For A Princess And A Shoe

You Are One Of Us

Give The People Behind

The Brand The Freedom

To Engage With Us

The Scrappy David /The Irreverent Maverick / The Missionary / The Next Generation / The Real and Human Challenger / The Visionary / The Game Changer / The People’s Champion / The Enlightened Zagger /The Democratiser

It’s 1908, and you are late. You are sitting by the road-side, your carriage is laden with goods from market, your

horse has lost a shoe and your messenger is only just back with the farrier. He assures you that the new shoe he is going to fit is just the thing - not only will the new type of nail stay in for longer, but being made of lightweight steel, your horse will be 10% faster on the roads. ‘Good’ you say ‘that’s exactly what I need, a faster horse. And preferably one that’s five years younger, doesn’t go lame, or need to stop to relieve himself or eat, drink or sleep. And one that doesn’t bite, the bugger'.

Back in your carriage and on the move, you pick up the newspaper to discover that a man called Henry Ford has invented something called a Motor Car– with four reliable wheels, no teeth and consuming only petrol. This motorised carriage has every advantage over your beast, save for the fact that its only available in black. Returning home, you send a telegram to put in an order forthwith.

Fact check; Henry Ford did not actually invent the motorcar, nor were the first Ford vehicles only available in black. But history is correct in presenting this character as the father of the modern car as we know it. With the release of the Model T in 1908 Ford not only revolutionised the way cars were designed and manufactured, but the labour practices and assembly lines that produced them, as well as the distribution systems that delivered them to the driveways of millions across America. Efficiencies meant lower prices for consumers, and resulted in an explosion in car ownership throughout

the United States– transforming the way communities organised themselves, how people worked, lived and socialised– and how populations grew and dispersed.

In the early part of the 20th century Ford was a true Visionary. His infamous observation about ‘people wanting faster horses’ was not just a damning judgment

on the value of consumer research (as it is understood today) but also gives us an insight into how a Visionary

sees things differently to the rest of the category.

Incremental innovation that improves and optimises current systems and products is enough for most players in a category, those who share a vested interest in improving, but also preserving, the status quo– but it is not enough for the Visionary. The Visionary is a preacher not a fixer. Rather than trying to solve problems within the category today, they create a vision of how it should be in the future and then set about turning it into a reality.

In Ford’s case this vision has been the reality of car design, manufacture, purchase and automobile ownership for the last 100 years. And, as most major players in the industry today would probably argue, that is because not much, at least in terms of the basics, has needed to change. For the industry status quo, just like those dependent on the horse and carriage in the 19th century, innovation is primarily of the increased

oats, steel shoes and lightweight saddles type. It is intended to improve, but also preserve the current industry model, rather than transform it.

But this is not how Hugo Spowers, founder of Riversimple and creator of the world’s first fuel cell car, sees innovation. Like Henry Ford last century, Spowers has observed the world’s rapidly changing environment, economy, and society– along with its slowly evolving automotive industry– and he has a conceived r e v o l u t i o n a r y new vision for our automotive future.

100 years ago Ford established the existing automotive industry model based around the combustion engine and the sale of product. Today Spowers has laid out his own vision for the future– an automotive industry based around the hydrogen fuel cell and the sale of service. His Riversimple model intends to make obsolete the entire system upon which 100 years of automotive industry and our own relationship with car ownership has

been built.

An enormous ambition but, as events of the past year have shown, there is clearly something very wrong with the standard car-making

model. Aside from the environmental imperative for the automotive industry to radically transform, there is clearly an economic imperative to do something, as the industry as a whole is simply not

selling enough vehicles to sustain itself.

The problem, Spowers says, is simple.

The “business model of the automotive industry and the value network which it has created is incredibly refined but it is now unfit for purpose. The entire system rewards resource consumption, and we can’t build a sustainable industrial

future on this basis” he argues.

“Today, if you sell cars you are rewarded for the car being as expensive, high maintenance and unreliable as possible, and for the customer to have it for as short a time

as possible– no interest in energy efficiency or security. If you sell a service, you are rewarded for the car being as cheap as possible, as low maintenance and reliable as possible, and for the customer to keep it as long as possible.”

Spowers' vision of the future is an industry that can align the interests of the manufacturer and the customer where they were previously opposed, and reward resource minimisation rather than rewarding resource maximisation.

Of course a Visionary can really only be labeled such in retrospect– once the rest of the world has caught up and their vision has been proved a reality. But meeting Hugo Spowers, hearing his ambition, seeing the opportunity and witnessing what he has achieved so far, it looks like the odds are shortening.

THE

VISIONARY

Faster Horses Forgotten In Fight For Automotive Future

This Character Is A

Preacher Not A Fixer

Create A Vision And

Set About Turning

It Into A Reality

11

For The Majority

Innovation Is Intended

To Improve The Current

Industry Model

Not To Transform It


The Game Changer

As individuals they are all easy to identify– Newton, Einstein, Darwin– Challengers that simply

change the way we see everything. Before Galileo proved Copernicus right in 1633, we all believed that the world was flat. It was once a political and punishable crime to allege that the earth was round and that it circled the sun, and yet today it would clearly be a crime of ignorance to contest that this was true.

Which brings us to the Game Changer. Because when a Challenger Brand sets out to be a Game Changer it isn’t simply setting out to challenge category convention (like its Irreverent Maverick or Next Generation siblings) but to go further. Their explicit ambition is to change the way we think about and experience their category, through our relationship with their brand and product.

The brands that have this capability– often technology Challengers– typically present us with products and services that not only change the way we think about a particular category, but go as far as to change the way we live our lives altogether, in big or in small ways.

So for instance we talked earlier about Apple taking the classic Scrappy David stance against IBM early in its life, and

we mentioned that, with success, brands that initially take this stance often have to evolve and adopt another as they grow and prosper. And Apple have done just this. As a global giant Apple has managed to avoid being labeled the Goliath it once attacked, and has retained its identity as a Challenger Brand by taking a stance not as ‘Leader’ but instead as ‘Game Changer’. Not content to change our emotional relationship with machines by designing computers so beautiful we want to lick them, Apple has gone on to develop

products in the iPhone and the iPad that of course change our relationships not simply with our devices, but with our work, with our entertainment, with our leisure– even, perhaps, with our family. Will the iPad be the death of print

publishing? We hope not. We all love to rustle paper and ink under our fingers, but certainly it is already transforming the world of online literature.

In writing about the new generation of Challengers we’ve witnessed recently, it always seems more stimulating to be able to talk about a few brands that may not, as yet, have had too much of a mention– and by and large we aim to avoid those glaring examples that are already so well written about. However with the Game Changer it is worth revisiting Challengers that have been part of the cultural fabric for a while, because it illustrates both the

opportunities and the threats represented in taking this stance.

Wii is an instructive example, not simply because of the way it famously changed the game in its category as a Challenger, but for the way it is currently faltering as its competitors now seek to change the game again.

Before the Wii, the gaming experience was largely about solo game play: intense visuals, intense experiential worlds, just the screen and you. Perhaps if you were between the ages of 12-18 and too young, skint or lazy to go out drinking, you could have mates over to play Grand Theft Auto, but you weren’t inviting your Nan round to play bowling, you weren’t getting into your hot-pants and sweat bands for a disco work out, and you certainly weren’t rejecting that Christmas game of charades in favour of a family game of Duck Hunt.

But since the Wii revolution we’re all living in a whole new world. Computer gaming can now be a physical, social, sport, to be played when, where and with whom you like. It has not just changed the experience for traditional gamers; it has affected the way people across entire populations are choosing to relax, engage, entertain and work out. Its reported impacts are apparently as profound as they are diverse; Wii Fit has been used for the treatment of balance problems in the elderly, included into school fitness programmes, and is used by the Finnish military to encourage their soldiers to exercise at home.

Wii’s huge success came from taking an entirely new perspective on the possibilities of a category, rather than attempting to compete head to head with the existing player. By flipping the conventional understanding about how the category worked and the fundamentals of the gaming experience

on its head they invited a whole new audience to participate in an entirely new way.

Yet in re-educating the world about the gaming experience, it also re-educated its competition. X-Box’s initial response was feeble, with unconvincing advertising which positioned it too as a shared family experience.

Now with the launch of the Kinect, X-Box have leapfrogged Wii themselves. With three cameras tracking 48 skeletal points on your body, all those plastic nunchucks that

seemed so endearing for a while on the Wii are suddenly rendered entirely obsolete. Full voice control, video chat; if X-Box Kinect doesn’t revolutionise the profile of gamers in quite the same way as Wii did, it promises a big shift in its power to connect. Of course, the development cycles for consoles mean that we won’t see what Nintendo have as an answer for a couple of years; it may spin us all sideways again– but for the moment, there is a new game in town, and it is no longer the Wii.

As with adopting any of these Challenger stances, becoming a Game Changer is not something you can simply intend or something you must convincingly announce. It is something you have to do. This stance, perhaps more than some of the others, is not about taking a point of view or finding a new way to communicate your story or your ambition. It is less about identity and engagement and more about action and impact. It is an entirely new product, service or experience, wrapped in an entirely new category narrative.

And once you start changing the category, you need to keep changing it– or someone else will change it for you. As someone once said, the only way to stay ahead is to think like the hungry Challenger you once were.

THE GAME

CHANGER

Stop Press! The World Has Turned!

An Entirely New Product,

Service Or Experience,

Wrapped In An Entirely

New Category Narrative

The Challenger Brand

That Aims To Be A Game

Changer Isn’t Simply

Setting Out To Challenge

Category Convention

13


You live in poverty in rural Mississippi. You are a teenage single mother or an inner-city

kid from Boston. You’ve experienced hardship or abuse. You’ve just lost your job, your partner or someone close to you. Life is, in short, thin on laughs.

But there is good news. There is Oprah.

Best known for hosting the multi-award winning, highest-ranking talk show in history, Oprah Winfrey can also confirm this year that she is the richest African-American of the 20th century and the greatest black philanthropist in American history.

She certainly is a champion.

But for the weak, weary, angry and unheard she is also the ultimate People’s Champion.

Both credited and criticised for popularising the tabloid talk show genre, Oprah has not only carved out a role for herself as the public voice of the ordinary and the overlooked, but has also succeeded in creating a safe platform for them to confess, confront or campaign. It is no surprise Winfrey was recently described in Time Magazine as the world’s most influential woman. We, the people, allow her to influence

us because we genuinely feel that we influence her too. We believe that she listens, that she understands, that she feels and thinks as we do. We believe that she will support us, and that our fight is her fight, and vice versa. And so we celebrate her every personal success without the slightest hint of resentment, because we feel that her victories are ours. We believe and trust that if we support her, champion her as she does us, we will benefit too.

For all these reasons the People’s Champion is an easy stance to adore but a difficult stance to adopt. Characters that are revered and

honoured as the People’s Champion don’t simply claim this status for themselves, they earn it. As with all Challenger strategy and positioning, it is action not image that counts. Challenger Brands that are able to find success with this stance don’t just declare it, they demonstrate it. Brands like giffgaff– the new U.K. mobile network designed to be run by its online community of users.

We first noticed this brand six months in, when thirty men wearing nothing but top hats, and holding only the Financial Times to

preserve their dignity, marched along the Serpentine in London and subsequently ended up splashed across the tabloid

press. It was a boisterous PR stunt from a new brand wanting to expose the “Naked Corporate Greed” of the category they were about to enter, preparing the way for them to step up as the People’s Champion.

And when we recently met Gav Thompson (one of the brands creators) we discovered that this young brand not only had naked ambition, but a serious community-led strategy for growth. giffgaff was designed from the very outset to service a certain group of ‘Free Thinkers’ who were becoming increasingly frustrated with large, self-serving corporations out of touch with their consumers. The giffgaff brand team recognised that, although this consumer group was small, it was significant and also active.

So the idea was born to create a genuine alternative to the bigger networks– to harness the power of a community of independent and interested users to run and promote a simpler mobile network, where people would get rewarded for helping out. When customers sign up they automatically become members and, if they choose, they can become involved with the network and the running of the company– including everything from customer service to marketing and communications.

And the incentive?

Brand involvement is rewarded with points that get translated quite simply into pounds. So as the brand grows and prospers, so do the people. Marketing is primarily online, led by social media and

word of mouth, and initiated by users and ambassadors of the service who are rewarded for recruiting new members.

It is remarkably simple and transparent. giffgaff members are given the tools and the freedom to respond to customer questions, to suggest new products, to write and publish adverts. New customers can choose to enjoy the benefits of a low cost service or to become a member and therefore part of the community and benefit from its rewards.

And so far it’s working. giffgaff has a CSI of 91, and a Net Promoter score only one point below icons such as Apple and Google. It’s too early to say if this is a mass market proposition, but the people

who love it, really love it.

giffgaff has a clear commercial imperative and yet, at the same time, has a relevant public cause to champion.

It has deliberately instigated a debate about how the dominant players in the category exploit consumers for their own ends and has not only established itself as the defender, but also invited a clearly defined target group to join forces to champion the giffgaff brand and the people it represents.

The last few years have a new emphasis for Challengers taking a People’s Champion stance. In the old days it was simply enough (as Sir Richard Branson has so often done) to proclaim yourself the People’s Champion. Now, it increasingly means being genuinely powered by the people you represent; giving them the steering wheel, and not just the voice.

THEPEOPLE'S

CHAMPIONUnheard And Exploited Find New

Way To Communicate

Our Fight Is Their Fight

And Vice Versa

Action Not Image

Is What Counts

As The Brand Grows

And Prospers

So Do The People


The People's Champion

15

THE

ENLIGHTENED ZAGGER

Swimming Against The Tide Is Good For Your Health

Some of us probably believe that we choose our clothes because we like them, not because they are in

fashion. That it is just coincidental that our unique taste in music, interiors, art and design just happens to be popular right now, or that the brands we buy truly do say something unique about us, as well as everyone else in the store.

Others, whilst accepting that they are not wildly original, might actually enjoy being part of a common consciousness and see it as something to embrace. Maybe we feel a certain safety in numbers, a gentle and affirming comfort in ‘going with the flow’, a confidence in collective consensus.

And a few of us, despite our best efforts, might have discovered that there really is no point trying too hard to be deliberately different. After all when we do try to use our imagination– to dye our hair at 15, design our own bike at 20, grow our own vegetables at 30, learn the guitar at 40 or take a gap year at 60– we find that far from being original we are usually swimming in synchrony with our contemporaries.

Whatever our own experience, we'd all probably agree that it’s not just imagination, but determination and a huge amount of self belief that is required to successfully swim against the subtle but persuasive force of the prevailing cultural tide. And of course it’s the same in the brand world. The dominant forces within any given category will

establish not just the category conditions but also common consciousness. And so it is understandable that the majority of brands entering this competitive landscape will quite naturally adopt the collectively held values and beliefs– consciously or unconsciously.

Not so the Enlightened Zagger.

As the name suggests, this Challenger has informed, personally-held beliefs about the way the world should be, that are different to those that are accepted by the mainstream. And while they don’t set out to gratuitously change existing category conventions, they do decide and declare that they themselves will not play along. Instead they use their own imagination, intelligence and self-belief to do things differently. This Challenger doesn’t Zag when the rest of the world Zigs just for the sake of it, but simply declares its own ‘truth’– one we can then choose to accept or reject.

Unlike the Irreverent Maverick, this stance is not about sticking two fingers up

to the establishment, nor picking a fight David–style. It is not about a Missionary cause that the brand is proactively fighting

for nor, like the Game Changer, about setting the agenda for the future. In fact it is often about resisting change and defending values now seemingly lost, a deliberate rejection of current category trends, behaviours and beliefs.

The Enlightened Zagger declares: ‘I know the world thinks this but I don’t’.

One young Challenger doing just this is Help Remedies; a small online healthcare company that sells simple health remedies and medical necessities. What is so different about this pharmaceutical company is that it is clearly driven by some very simple principles. Principles that Co-Founder Rich Fine was happy to share when we went to see him last year.

The first two of five principles proudly displayed on their website are:

1. To actually help people

2. To be honest

So we ask Rich whether they really think that the rest of the healthcare category lies and doesn’t help people? And he replies diplomatically but decidedly:

“The way people think about medicine is wrong. Innovation in medicine is wrong. It’s all [about] new combinations, new bits of science, new development, new development, new development! You have to think about what works, and not just what’s new.”

It does seem that the pharmaceutical industry is entirely obsessed with the ‘new and improved’, with finding new ways to

claim ‘extra power’ and dramatising the benefits of a product... ‘now with added …’ And obsession with progress perhaps and finding new and better solutions to existing problems is understandable, and in fact necessary. This is science, after all.

Rich says no.

At Help Remedies “...we simply use the best ingredients for this or that condition. We don’t need to make it ‘extra strength’ and all those crazy things. We just

have a product called ‘help I have a headache’ and then if you have a headache this product will work for you. We are not going to invent something with an insignificant difference in order to tell people we did something new vs. using what actually works in it's simplest form.” Instead Rich believes “...we should celebrate the things that really work and make them available, acceptable and approachable.”

But it’s not just newness, and overstated claims that Help Remedies resists. It is also that industry convention which tries to sell to us both by preying on our fears and yet, at the same time, being incredibly condescending.

“Health care is frightening. But our interactions with it don’t have to be that way. We can take a different tone.”

Swim Against

The Tide

"I Know The World Thinks

This But I Don't"


The Enlightened Zagger

17

Help Remedies do this by being a friendly adviser talking to a sensible human, rather than as a slightly manic, paranoid and over-worked doctor talking to an inconvenient and stupid patient. A company that most people would love to engage with surely.

Yet they do also have strong beliefs and ask some questions that many in America will have found very uncomfortable and challenging over the last year: issues not deemed appropriate to discuss within this brand’s category, but much discussed and debated beyond– like their open support for U.S. healthcare reform:

“We hope that talking about people without healthcare will sound very old fashioned in the near future.”

Or take the most taboo subject in the healthcare category– death. Help Remedies not only mentions death casually on their website, but also quietly questions religion, and the existence of heaven...

“We are not certain there is a heaven but it would be nice if there were one, because that would mean you didn’t just die and face eternal blackness.”

Amen to that.

When India took its independence in 1947 and held its first democratic election after two

centuries of British rule universal suffrage was instant and true to Gandhi’s early ambition: to achieve not just freedom but genuine democracy including equal rights between men and women:

“To call woman the weaker sex is a libel; it is man's injustice to woman. If by strength is meant brute strength, then, indeed, is woman less brute than man. If by strength is meant moral power, then woman is immeasurably man's superior. Without her, man could not be. If nonviolence is the law of our being, the future is with woman.”

When the constitution was written, articles 14, 15 and 16 promised equality between the sexes. And to a surprising extent India has, in its short independent history, seen some great achievements for women– the election of Indira Gandhi as Prime Minister in 1996 (one of the first and certainly the longest serving female Prime Ministers in world history) being perhaps the most celebrated example.

But aside from the hugely significant and symbolic achievements of individual women within India’s political and social spheres– and primarily as a result of India’s caste, capitalist and religious divides– the fight for economic equality

for India’s poorest women is still very much an ongoing battle.

And it is a battle taken up most recently by perhaps a surprising candidate– a male, billionaire banker.

Muhammad Yunus, founder of Grameen Bank, started his micro-finance business in Bangladesh as a profit-making enterprise, committed to democratising credit and giving the nation’s poorest people a way to help themselves out of poverty. Based on his business success, Yunus has recently launched the not-

for-profit Grameen Foundation, which now supports the Grameen Capital India project.

The idea behind the project is to help

establish micro-finance institutions in India and enable them to lend capital to India’s poorest section of society– primarily women with children.

The problem behind economic inequality in India is simple, says Yunus, and is the same the world over:

“Poverty is not in the human being because we were all born the same. Poverty is created by the institutions that we build. If you fix the institution, there will be no poverty.”

Yunus’s direct criticism of the economic system that traps people in poverty is damning, and his ambition– not just to

alleviate, but to eradicate poverty– is impressive. Yet his answer is not to end the capitalist system, but to extend it. He is not a revolutionary, but a Democratiser– determined to give greater access to the financial system, that is currently denied to those who most need it.

“Conventional banks go to the rich– we go to the poor.”

In India, until now, the poor have traditionally lacked access to formal credit. More than 65 million poor households have no access to micro-finance largely due to an ineffective delivery of financial services to them.

“Local banks will not lend to micro-finance institutions because they cannot provide collateral,” Yunus writes in his book, ‘Creating a World Without Poverty’. However because Grameen Capital India is now able to “act as a guarantor, local banks are happy to provide the money.”

And so by opening doors to affordable capital, micro-finance institutions and other poverty-focused organisations are now able to grow and serve more of India’s poor, especially women. Grameen Capital India’s success has surpassed expectations. In less than two years, it has generated more than $100 million in financing for Indian micro-finance institutions, which will fund more than 800,000 microloans for poor people in that country.

And what does micro-finance look like?

One example that has proved particularly effective is the ‘Telephone Lady’ initiative. Through micro-finance a woman is able to buy a mobile phone to provide a telecommunicat ion service to her entire village, while earning the profits for herself. An award winning and wide spread “initiative that has created a new class of women entrepreneurs who have raised themselves from poverty.”

According to the Development Gateway Foundation it has:

“improved the livelihoods of farmers and others who are provided access to critical market information and lifeline communications previously unattainable”.

This and the many other micro-finance initiatives made possible by Grameen’s support have not gone unnoticed in the world’s largest democracy. Despite relative self-sufficiency, rapid economic growth and an increasing role in world political affairs, India’s current government acknowledges that while India has succeeded in achieving political democracy for its people it is a long way from achieving economic equality. Grameen’s democratisation of credit is

much appreciated and rewarded.

And just this year the Prime Minister of India, Dr. Manmohan Singh, joined world leaders to applaud this Democratiser.

Dr. Singh declared while addressing

the Indian Parliament in December last year. “Professor Yunus is truly an exceptional human being and it is really a privilege to be in his company,”

Professor Yunus has revolutionised the idea of micro-credit and made it accessible to the poorest of the poor. A credit Yunus can add to his 2006 Nobel Peace Prize “for their efforts to create economic and social development from below.”

So is this what it means for a Challenger to take the Democratiser stance? It need not be quite so intimidating. Taking this stance does not necessitate that you become a campaigner for peace or against poverty. It is really about giving a large group of people access to something that

has previously been denied.

Of course across history the Challenger characters who have taken this stance are often like Gandhi– civil rights activists, political leaders and philosophers. But

they are also inventors, entrepreneurs and opportunists who have found ways to make that which has been reserved for the few now available to the masses– whether that be freedom, money… or cake.

THE DEMOCRATISER

Millionaire Banker Gives

Credit Where It’s Due


"Conventional Banks

Go To The Rich–We Go To The Poor"

Give A Large Group Of

People Access To

Something That

Has Previously

Been Denied

What Was Reserved

For The Few

Is Now Available

To The Masses

19

Yes, yes– all very interesting. But what's the utility of ten possible Challenger narratives? How could we actually use this to help us see new potential for our brand?

If we are launching, or extending into a new category, then the model’s value is to shine a fresh light on the strategic areas that are most open for us profitably to occupy. Because if we look at our category through this lens, one of the things that is most likely to strike us is how few of them we see being used. If one simply looks at packaged goods categories created in the last 20 years, for example– like energy drinks or smoothies– most of the brands in those categories seem to be defined by the stance of the first entrant into that category. If the brand that effectively launched energy drinks is an Irreverent Maverick, then it seems that every subsequent contender feels they need to be an Irreverent Maverick as well– just in a bigger can and with more caffeine. If the brand that launched smoothies is a Real and Human Challenger, every smoothie brand all over the world since then seems to have felt obliged to follow suit. Yet surely, with both categories as saturated as they are, if we are launching so late into one of them ourselves, that defining stance is the very last stance we should now be looking at. We should instead be using this model to explore the opportunities that might lie for us, as a new contender, in adopting one of these other nine stories. Each with its own unique take on energy, or approach to fruit, or whatever the story is we want to tell.

And if we are looking to focus on our core, rather than launch or extend, what is the value of these challenger narratives to us then? Well one of the most significant questions that people ask us about Challengers is this: ‘Why is it that some Challengers thrive over long periods of time, while others just seem to flare brightly for a while, and then fade and die?’

One of the key answers to this question lies in the world becoming over-familiar with a Challenger’s initial narrative. What was new becomes stale, what was unique becomes imitated. Think The Body Shop, think any number of once startlingly fresh Challengers that have now simply become rather tired parts of the cultural scenery. And in this situation, as owners of the brand, our temptation is to confuse values with stance. We either think that because we want to stand for the same core values, we have also to go on taking the same stance, wrapping the same story around those values (The Body Shop). Or we think that because people are getting over familiar with our stance, that we are going to have to change what we stand for– those core values themselves (as Orange seemed to do).

And yet if one looks at the Challengers who have genuinely endured, one of the reasons they have done so is precisely because they have always stood for the same core values, but changed their stance along the way. Southwest, Apple, even Virgin– those masters of Challenger longevity have maintained our interest by migrating the story they told. Look at Apple; from Scrappy David to Irreverent Maverick to Game Changer (one even reads interviews with Steve Jobs talking about Apple as a Democratiser now). They continue to keep our relationship with the brand as vibrant as our relationship with the products.

To paraphrase Giuseppe di Lampedusa, in his masterpiece The Leopard:

‘If we want to stay the same, we will have to change.’

If we want to keep a fresh, dynamic relationship with our consumers, we will want to evolve our own Challenger story without changing our defining point of view. One compelling headline at a time.


SO HOW CAN WE USE THESE

10 CHALLENGER NARRATIVES

eatbigfish is a consultancy whose unique focus is Challenger behaviour and thinking. Our expertise comes from researching and working with businesses who either are or want to be Challengers. We do not view ourselves as traditional consultants, but rather as catalysts that help clients reach their own solutions. We do this primarily through a facilitated workshop approach. Our offer covers large parts of the brand development cycle, but always through a Challenger lens.

We want to increase the effectiveness and reach of our work, so much of our thinking and the tools and frameworks we use are also available in online programmes and in DIY kits that clients can run for themselves.

London

Teresa Murphy

[email protected]

+44 (0)20 7234 9970

New York

Chad Dick

[email protected]

+1 203 227 6919

San Francisco

Mark Barden

[email protected]

+1 415 891 8348

Auckland

Kate Smith

[email protected]

+64 21 338 680

CONTACT

eatbigfish

First Floor,

Bramah House,

65-71 Bermondsey Street,

London,

SE1 3XF, UK

www.eatbigfish.com

Documents

Challenger Times