If you google the term ‘challenger brands’, you'll get results numbering in the tens of thousands. Yet today, we still often think of challenger brands as the underdog who has to fight tooth and nail against the brand leaders.

While that may still ring true for some challenger brands, other ‘challengers’, as they are also known, are far from being the David to the Goliath. According to Adam Morgan, founding partner of brand and marketing consultancy eatbigfish, and author of ‘Eating the Big Fish’, there are 12 different kinds of challenger stances that companies have adopted over the years – and to great effect.  

“People are rightly talking about challenger brands from Vietnam to Venezuela … There’s lots of new thinking about challenger brands; lots of different kinds of challenger brands,” says Morgan, who was also a keynote speaker at the recent Singapore Institute of Advertising conference.

Challenger brands, he adds, do not just challenge the status quo; they may very well become the market leaders. He cites the example of Google, which grew as a challenger, then leapfrogged to become a brand leader, and is now of one the world’s leading brands, interestingly without marketing itself at all. Every decade, Morgan says, has an iconic challenger struggle, and Google was that icon in the past 10 years.

He explains that the secret to Google’s success was its ability to make itself “startlingly useful” – and it delivers this in a matter of seconds. Google, he adds, was also relevant – not because it was  useful for searching the internet but rather it delivered on points of emotional value.

Similarly, the Nintendo Wii was not pitting itself against Sony’s Playstation or Microsoft’s X-Box when it was launched. It adopted the challenger stance of The Game Changer, which invited the consumer to participate in the category in a whole new way – again by appealing to them on an emotional level. Up against the two established brand leaders, it battled the indifference of people who had no interest in video games.

“Challengers actually think of the relevancy of what is out there at the moment, in the consumer’s relationship with the brand,” says Morgan.

Other challenger stances that have made certain companies stand out more than others are: The People’s Champion, embodied to great effect by Virgin Atlantic; The Missionary, in which Dove advocated inner beauty to the world; The Enlightened Zagger, where Camper’s underpinning message was to slow down while the rest of the world – represented by the likes of Nike – was was speeding up; and The Democratiser, epitomised by IKEA, who took something previously stylish and made it more accessible to the masses. 

Some challenger brands such as Apple have even been known to adopt challenger stances to remain fresh and engaging to their customers. “Apple has been at different points in its life a Game Changer and an Irreverent Maverick, The People’s Champion,” Morgan explains. “There has been a number of different narrative stances depending on its product strengths.” And that is how challenger brands can extend their life – not by changing what they stand for, but by changing the ‘story’ or narrative.

First published: July 30, 2009

Last updated: July 30, 2009

KC/AH 07/09