Being a challenger brand isn’t just about where you sit in a market place, it is about adopting behaviours and attitudes that set you apart and helps you to deliver your value proposition.
Different agencies have different perspectives on what it takes to be a challenger brand, a few of which we have taken a look at.
It can be argued that everybody in a sector that doesn’t occupy the top spot can be described as a challenger brand.
Bray Leino believe that thinking like a challenger however, isn’t something that everyone can truly do. In order to be a successful challenger you need to be able to communicate who you are and what you stand for and thereby, staying true to your purpose and values. Having an ambition to go further and faster than conventionally your business or marketing would allow, is also a key part to how you think as a challenger and you need to be prepared to bend or break the rules that govern your sector in order to demand attention and be impossible to ignore.
Similarly, BMB talk about helping challenger brands gain an unfair advantage through the behaviours engrained within the company. They describe their pattern of spirit brought through internal culture mixed with the ability to deliver at speed, tied together by the overall strategy in order to gain success for these types of brands. All of this pattern follows a way of thinking about a brand and, in their work for the likes of Virgin Money and Not on the High Street, they helped bring across a brand message that connected with the disaffected customers at the time and through the right brand positioning, helped the brands act as a beacon of light in an otherwise dark sector. Essentially, BMB talk about not necessarily inventing challenger brands, but instead recognising a real challenger brand and having the knowledge to make them the best version of themselves.
Looking at it from their point of view, Fold 7 argue that brands should stop focusing on trying to be a challenger brand altogether and instead be driven by simply wanting to make an impact. A valid point that is made, is that by the time you’ve said that you’re a challenger brand, it’s probably too late and the saturation created by the sheer number of brands claiming to be challengers has created a sense of ubiquity on the topic. Fold 7’s work with Gocompare.com is an example of what can happen when you put ambition ahead of the need to be a challenger brand and, by using the genuine ambition of doing better for its customers, they were able to grow warmth towards the brand by 12%.
How to be a challenger brand in modern day
So being a true challenger brand today, isn’t just about going against the grain when it comes to sector practices or market leaders. To be a challenger brand is to adopt a way of thinking that enables behaviour and generates ambition.
Brands such as Aldi, Lidl, Brewdog and Tesla aren’t successful because they are selling something that is brand new and innovative because food, beer and even electric cars have been around for quite some time now. They are successful by having the ambition to think differently, because let’s not forget that Aldi and Lidl have been in the UK since 1990, which is around 20 years of believing in what they stood for and who had heard of either of them up until 5 – 10 years ago?
But even before these brands had taken off, they believed that their market needed a fresh approach and they are all experiencing amazing success for sticking to that belief and integrating everything that it is to be a challenger brand into everything they do.
Different agencies have different perspectives on what it takes to be a challenger brand, a few of which we have taken a look at.
It can be argued that everybody in a sector that doesn’t occupy the top spot can be described as a challenger brand.
Bray Leino believe that thinking like a challenger however, isn’t something that everyone can truly do. In order to be a successful challenger you need to be able to communicate who you are and what you stand for and thereby, staying true to your purpose and values. Having an ambition to go further and faster than conventionally your business or marketing would allow, is also a key part to how you think as a challenger and you need to be prepared to bend or break the rules that govern your sector in order to demand attention and be impossible to ignore.
Similarly, BMB talk about helping challenger brands gain an unfair advantage through the behaviours engrained within the company. They describe their pattern of spirit brought through internal culture mixed with the ability to deliver at speed, tied together by the overall strategy in order to gain success for these types of brands. All of this pattern follows a way of thinking about a brand and, in their work for the likes of Virgin Money and Not on the High Street, they helped bring across a brand message that connected with the disaffected customers at the time and through the right brand positioning, helped the brands act as a beacon of light in an otherwise dark sector. Essentially, BMB talk about not necessarily inventing challenger brands, but instead recognising a real challenger brand and having the knowledge to make them the best version of themselves.
Looking at it from their point of view, Fold 7 argue that brands should stop focusing on trying to be a challenger brand altogether and instead be driven by simply wanting to make an impact. A valid point that is made, is that by the time you’ve said that you’re a challenger brand, it’s probably too late and the saturation created by the sheer number of brands claiming to be challengers has created a sense of ubiquity on the topic. Fold 7’s work with Gocompare.com is an example of what can happen when you put ambition ahead of the need to be a challenger brand and, by using the genuine ambition of doing better for its customers, they were able to grow warmth towards the brand by 12%.
How to be a challenger brand in modern day
So being a true challenger brand today, isn’t just about going against the grain when it comes to sector practices or market leaders. To be a challenger brand is to adopt a way of thinking that enables behaviour and generates ambition.
Brands such as Aldi, Lidl, Brewdog and Tesla aren’t successful because they are selling something that is brand new and innovative because food, beer and even electric cars have been around for quite some time now. They are successful by having the ambition to think differently, because let’s not forget that Aldi and Lidl have been in the UK since 1990, which is around 20 years of believing in what they stood for and who had heard of either of them up until 5 – 10 years ago?
But even before these brands had taken off, they believed that their market needed a fresh approach and they are all experiencing amazing success for sticking to that belief and integrating everything that it is to be a challenger brand into everything they do.
Observations inspired by insight articles posted on haystackonline.com. Read more from haystackonline in our Clubhouse.
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