Credos Book

8/4/2019 Credos Book

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eatbig shThe eight credos of challenger behaviour
http://www.eatbigfish.com/


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Reversing the food chain i s never easy.

Its not just that brand leaders are bigger and enjoy proportionately greater bene ts; its that the superiority of their advantage increases almostexponentially, the larger they get.

But there are advantages to being a Challenger. You dont have to be allthings to all people. You can choose a place to stand and something to believe in. And if some choose to navigate by you, and others choose to sailright on by, well, so be it; the one thing we dont want to be is what Wal-Mart calls the mush in the middle. To be just another second-rank brand isto put yourself into the mouth of the big sh and wait for its jaws to close.

Being a challenger is not about a state of market; being number two or threeor four doesnt in itself make you a Challenger. A Challenger is, above all,

a state of mind. It is a brand, and a group of people behind that brand,whose business ambitions exceed its conventional marketing resources, andin consequence it needs to change the category decision making criteria inits favour, to close the implications of that gap.

If we want or need to think like a Challenger, while the overall marketingmodel may indeed have signi cantly changed over the last ten years, thereare still some core principles for us as challengers to live and thrive by.

These principles have been distilled into the Eight Credos of successfulChallenger Behaviour, which are summarised in t his booklet.

Reversing TheFood Chain

FOODCHAIN NAIVETY LIGHTHOUSE THOUGHT-LEADER REEVALUATION SACRIFICE OVERCOMMIT POP-CULTURE IDEAS-CENTRED NARRATIVE FINAL-THOUGHTS

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Success as a Challenger comes through developing a very clear sense of who or

what you are as a brand/business and why - and then projecting that identityintensely, consistently, and saliently to the point where, like a lighthouse,consumers notice you (and know where you stand) even if they are not lookingfor you. This credo looks at the roots, source and nature of such identities, andhow successful Challengers have built them.

Challenger Brands do not attempt to navigate by the consumer. Instead, theyinvite the consumer to navigate by them. These Lighthouse Brands have four keyelements. . .

1. A POINT OF VIEW Lighthouse brands have a unique point of view on theworld, based on a belief or a value system be they a jeans company with its ownphilosophy (Diesel) or a retailer like Target, who believe that; just because you

dont have money doesnt mean you dont have taste.2. INTENSITY This perspective is projected insistently and consistently ineverything they do. Challengers do not break through in a mature categorysimply by being a little more more convenient or trustworthy; they need a whollystronger and more emotional relationship with the consumer.

3. SALIENCE Lighthouse Brands are highly intrusive: you notice them even if you arent looking in their direction. You might never wear leggings, for instance, but you could probably tell me what American Apparel stands for.

4. BUILT ON ROCK Lighthouses are built on rock: on a brand or product truththat is indisputably theirs. The embrace of diversity at the heart of MAC cosmetics,

for example is based rmly on its origins in the Toronto drag scene.What we are creating here is not a Lighthouse Image, which would simply informthe communications strategy, but a Lighthouse Identity, which will impact everyaspect of the business.

2nd CredoBuild A ChallengerLighthouse Identity


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1. REPRESENTATION Conventions of Representation are the conventionssurrounding how a brand portrays itself, including naming, product descriptors(think of Heston Blumenthals snail porridge) and extending sometimes even avisibly different brand architecture, like Bene ts Fixing it and Faking it. Criticalhere is to recognize that these brands do not break convention for the sake of it:instead they do so both to signal their distinctive identity and to prompt consumersto consider the category in a fresh way.

2. MEDIUM Conventions of Medium encompasses distribution, message deliveryand physical packaging structure. Lush, for example, uses popcorn as packagingller, adding a sensual dimension to its mail order products as well as saving 10%on shipping costs.

3. PRODUCT PERFORMANCE Conventions of Product Performance are self evidently those surrounding what your product actually does, over and abovewhat it is expected to do, the Toyota Prius dramatising the energy transfer of itshybrid engine on the central screen housing the satnav system, for instance.

4. EXPERIENCE Conventions of Experience are those surrounding the productor service experience beyond pure product performance a train service boastingthe longest champagne bar in Europe, for example, as Eurostar did at its newLondon home at St Pancras station.

5. NEIGHBOURHOOD AND NETWORK The fth convention we can break isthat of Neighborhoods and Networks, who we partner with to create our uniqueoffer, Panasonic with Leica in the camera market, for instance.

6. RELATIONSHIP As the fundamental relationship between brands andconsumers continues to change, there exists an opportunity for brands incategories which still observe a barrier between brand and consumer (whetherphysical, such as a bank counter, or informational, such as lack of transparency).They can become Thought Leaders by removing one or more of those barriers andthereby opening up an entirely new kind of relationship with their consumer.

Thought Leadership involves deliberately breaking some of the conventions of thecategory, while grounding yourself in others. The sense of momentum this helpsto create is not a one-off act of irreverence, it is the start of a longer term ambitionto be seen as a brand that is constantly at the forefront of a fresh way of seeing andthinking about the category and its possibilities.

3rd

CredoBecome aThought Leader

There are two kinds of brand leader in any category: the Market Leader and theThought Leader. While the Market Leader is of course one kind of brand leader inthe sense that it has the dominant share and the distribution, the Thought Leaderis the brand in the category that everyone is talking about, that is seen to be setting

or resetting the agenda in the category. This is best achieved by surprising theconsumer with behaviour that breaks some (though not all) of the categorysconventions.

The most common kinds of convention that challengers choose to play with inorder to take Thought Leadership seem to be these . . . .


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Challengers are brands in a hurry; most consumers, however, are locked in habitual behaviour and purchases. To break through then, Challengers often determine tocreate an initial and dramatic Symbol of Re-evaluation, that will jolt their chosentarget market out of their complacency regarding the category and therefore theirchoices within it.

We might want to prompt a signi cant re-appraisal of how consumers viewthe brand, for instance. Audi did this recently in the USA with the launch of its$120,000 R8 supercar in the Superbowl, in dramatic opposition to Old Luxury.Besides image and consideration shifts, the car lured people into Audi showroomswho had not previously taken the brand seriously as a luxury car.

Or the area of complacency we need to puncture might be consumers perceptionsof the category as a whole. Few people in the UK gave much thought to schooldinners until TV chef Jamie Oliver pointed out that Britons spent less on lunches

for their school children (the future of society) than they did on lunches for theirprisoners (the threat to society). Suddenly, he had a nations attention.

It is said that a moon rocket uses half of its entire fuel supply to leave the earth andreach its desired speed. The same is true of getting a brand off the groundthereal effort and dif culty lies in achieving that initial critical momentum.

4th

CredoCreate aSymbol of Re-evaluation


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The greatest danger facing a brand today is not rejection, but indifference. Most

brands we see around us are not really marketing, they are merely tweakingindifference, their marketing makes no signi cant difference to our feelingsabout that brand one way or another. But a Challenger does not have the timeor the luxury of indifference they know that weak or parity preference willsimply not be enough; their only currency will be strong preference. And tocreate strong preference they will need to reach out and bind certain groups of consumers very strongly to them. They must accept that they will need to takeactions and communicate messages that will by the same token leave other groupsof consumers cold, and sometimes even put off. So strong Challengers have to be single-minded, even if it means sacri cing what might seem to be importantmarkets or messages.

When Kodak found itself languishing a dismal sixth in the digital camera marketin 2000, it took the decision to target its cameras primarily at moms, as the nextgeneration of purchasers after the male early adopters, and centring its product bene ts and communications around all that was relevant to them. A bold choice,this meant sacri cing potential sales to men (the main purchasers of digitalcameras at the time), who were, for the main part, driven by a different set of purchase criteria. But the sacri ce paid off, by 2004 Kodak was again number onein the US market.

Sacri ce is crucial to maximizing a Challengers consumer presence, especiallygiven its comparatively limited marketing resources. It concentrates the internaland external expressions of identity by eliminating activities that might be diluting,and by stripping away secondary marketing activity. It also enables strong points

of difference to be created by focusing on a narrow, intense loyalty rather than aweak, universal appeal.

5th CredoSacrice


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When a karate black belt attempts to smash a brick in two with his bare hand,he aims not at the brick itself, but at an imaginary point two feet below it. Inother words, it is a triumph not of commitment, but of overcommitment. The sameapproach is required of Challenger Brands, it is only overcommitment which willpush through the inertia and resistance they will inevitably encounter.

The New Zealand superpremium vodka brand 42BELOW is a good case in point.When they wanted to break into New Yorks nightclub scene, they knew they hada ght on their hands. They were too small to buy their way in and, with 100vodkas launching every year, the marketplace was already seriously crowded.Starting to think about ways of making their brand stand out, they came up withthe idea of the 42BELOW Snow Patrol. When it started snowing (this was, afterall, New York in January), two of them turned up outside nightclubs in 42BELOW branded jackets, unasked and unannounced, and simply started shovelling thesnow away from the pavement outside.

The bouncers loved them for it, as did the clubbers and the club owners. So, whenthey subsequently approached those same clubs about stocking 42BELOW, theywere already known, liked and respected as a determined Challenger who knewhow to create new kinds of relationships and publicity for themselves. Ordinarycommitment to a killer sales presentation would never have taken them there; itwas overcommitment that sent them out onto the streets on those freezing coldnights and, ultimately, won them the business.

6th CredoOver Commit


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Much has been written about the changing communications landscape. On the

one hand, it is more challenging to break through than ever before: traditionalmedia are waging a desperate battle against fragmentation, clutter and audiencedistraction. On the other hand, e-mail culture, the emergence of social networksand online communities, as well as YouTube have created entirely new kindsof opportunities for Challengers to build high degrees of social salience andinteraction on limited budgets. And we see a number of the brands that haveemerged relatively recently to become some of the worlds favourites Google,Flickr, Zara in fact never spend anything on mainstream advertising at all.

The thought that brands must increasingly concern themselves with how to makethemselves a vital part of peer to peer communication has been given a newimpetus by Web 2.0, yet the core underlying concept is one that we see as having been critical to challengers for years.

The thought that brands must increasingly concern themselves with how to makethemselves a vital part of peer to peer communication has been given a newimpetus by Web 2.0, yet the core underlying concept is one that we see as having been critical to challengers for years.

Lexus provides an interesting example. The story goes that shortly after the brandslaunch in the US a customer called his Lexus dealer the day after picking up hisserviced car, because oil was leaking onto his garage oor. So the dealer turned upat the customers house to investigate. Not only did the dealer x the problem withthe car, he actually took up the entire concrete oor and relaid a new one all athis own expense. The story subsequently circulated entirely by word of mouth asa symbol of Lexus commitment to service all for the cost of a concrete garageoor.

As an aspiring Challenger Brand, then, we need to recognize not just the humanneed to share, but also how and why it can be stimulated, from a brand point of view, in a way that bene ts both parties: the Challenger Brands need to get peopleto spread our word for us, and peoples need to enjoy pro table human interaction.And we need to think about how we re-structure our own personal strategicmindset, our organisational structures and our business partners to ensure thatwe are constant manufacturers of such social salience and mythology.

7th CredoEnter Popular Culture

FOODCHAIN NAIVETY LIGHTHOUSE THOUGHT-LEADER REEVALUATION SACRIFICE OVERCOMMIT POP -CULTURE IDEAS-CENTRED NARRATIVE FINAL-THOUGHTS

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Successfully entering a category as a Challenger is one kind of problem;continuing that success is another one entirely. Challengers need momentum actual momentum (the source of return on investment) and perceived momentum(the sense that this is the brand to watch). And the reason most Challengers losemomentum after initial success is that they fail to realise they have to change tostay the same. Changing in this sense doesnt mean changing their core identity, but rather changing the way the consumer experiences it.

This refreshing of the experiential relationship is one that is fed by a consistentstream of ideas not just technical innovation and product news (although thesecan be important) but marketing and communication ideas that will stimulate theconsumers imagination.

8th CredoBecome Ideas Centred


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1. PROPOSITION (LOVE THIS)

Target has a number of Facebook groups devoted to loving it.

2. OPPOSITION (HATE THIS)

Keep Austin Weird is a community rallying cry, mostly seen on bumper stickersand T-shirts, resisting the increasing commercial homogenization of a proudlyidiosyncratic town in southwest Texas.

3. PLAY AND DISPLAY (LOOK AT THIS)

Ikeahackers is a community of people who are innovating with basic IKEAproducts, then posting and sharing their ideas with like-minded souls (a television base turned into a tortoise tank, for example).

4.CREATE/RE-CREATE (MAKE THIS or sometimes PUT THIS RIGHT)

These centre more on product-centric issues. Whereas Opposition has to do with amacroissue or brand (people who hate Starbucks, for instance), this has to do withmaking or improving products within a brand (Dell, for example).

The more interesting and important question for us to devote our energies to asLighthouse Keepers, then, is how to build our ability to feed, trigger, and respondto each of these sources of consumer energy around our brand.

So we still have to keep the Lighthouse. We are of course going to actively engagewith the consumer, but we are not going to simply give over what we stand forto them; they dont want that, and nor should we. We are going to recognize the

ways in which communities of consumers unite around challengers such as ours,that stand for something in the popular imagination, and explore ways to feed themost bene cial forms of this kind of energetic community.

Evolving The Challenger NarrativeThe Scope Of TheLighthouse Keeper

What does it mean to be the Keeper of a Lighthouse Brand, in a world where theconsumer is an increasingly active participant in commenting on, and interactingwith the brands around them?

We still have to have a very clear sense of what we need to stand for. We still needto clearly project that sense of ourselves. But we also need to recognise that wenow have entirely new kinds of communications and content partners, some of whom will be powerful shapers of perceptions of our brand. Some we pay, somewe dont. Some we brief, some we dont. Some are strident, some playful. Some aresel sh, some community-minded. But on all sides they will play, essentially oneof four roles:


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Brand Leaders are a law unto themselves. They have no relevance at all to secondrank brands, which need to pursue fundamentally different kinds of strategies tosurvive and grow. The new models for the new business world for us to activelylearn from are no longer brand leaders but:

i) Second rank brands

ii) Outside our category

iii) Who have achieved signi cant growth over the last 3 years

In other words, Challenger Brands.

The last 10 years have seen an exponential increase both in the conversations aboutChallenger Brands, and in the number of brands actively and publicly pursuing aChallenger Brand strategy. The range of possible Challenger stances that studyingthese recent challengers offers as stimulation for our own challenger positioninggoes way beyond the simple David vs. Goliath stance that is sometimes seen totypify Challenger positioning. Indeed eatbig sh offers another booklet on 10 suchtypes of Challenger stance.

The possibilities open to us as Challengers have never been so rich or inspiring.It may not be getting any easier, but there is at least a greater body of knowledgeto draw on from those that have passed this way before. Fresh ways to shade theodds in our favour.

Final Thoughts


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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

You can explore our wider offer at www.eatbig sh.com/our-offer, contactus directly at info@eatbig sh.com, or if you want to speak to someone youcan call our London of ce on +44 (0)20 7234 9970. Or contact one of thenumbers below.

Or maybe what you are looking for doesnt t neatly into one of theservices outlined here? We are a small personal business and we enjoy thechallenge of briefs that are a little different. So, if its not here, please dontassume we cannot help.

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