Challenger Brands vs. Challenger Branding
Aren’t we all challengers in some way or another? Don’t we all feel as though we’ve overcome, are attempting to overcome, or will at one point on the near horizon be called on to meet (and presumably overcome) some sort of hardship? Some conflict. Some point of decision-making that could or should help define who we are as we enter the next period of ramping up toward the next big deal?
The answer, of course, is yes. We are — you are — a crystalline hybrid of those two (and only two) types of people: victors and victims. You straddle the divide and are in your own right something different: a challenger. A scrappy little underthing…someone who fights for each and every morsel you get, and as such, you are become whole. You have merit, value, and an internalized worth in that you are not bred of entitlement, yet you remain desirable — attractive, even — to others, as you were able to attain some level of…something. You didn’t lose. You’re not empty-handed.
In other words, you earned it. You took your licks…you paid. But you got what you wanted. You’re an anti-hero. You’re the only thing that’s really mattered to anybody who wants to matter to anybody (read: brands. Advertisers. Them.) since Abbey Road.
I guess I’m setting you up in a pretty ham-fisted way here, huh? My point is that you’re relatable and great. You’re the thing you want to believe you are: someone who hasn’t happened by what you have on accident. You use your brain to make decisions about who to be, what to pay attention to, and — ultimately, for the sake of this little chat — what to buy. Brands understand this about you and wish to use a manufactured sense of camaraderie to sell you things. It’s a bummer but it’s obvious, at times hilarious, and at the bottom line, true.
But what about organizations that have things to sell people like yourself who — by some strange twist of reality — actually do share your values? Organizations that have made similar decisions about their future, where to expend their energies, and ultimately how to be what they are in a way that is not only to your liking and relatable to you in some authentic way but — wait for it — actually true?!
Well friend, those are called challenger brands, and there is room in our world for them to exist, succeed, and proliferate, but you will — we will — always be more inclined to reject them as pretenders — as phonies — than we will be to accept them as sympathetic and complementary forces in our lives. Another truth.
Pretty shitty and dismal and dark. I agree. But isn’t that just how it goes? Do you find yourself ever truly trusting anybody — any company — that you do business with? Part of being an actual challenger — an actual underdog — is that you are trustworthy. You play fair, as you understand what it’s like to be given an unfair shake at life, and refuse to participate in handing that down to others. And of course by you I mean they. Them. Brands.
Can brands — any of them — be trusted to be who they say they are? If they can’t be, then can they really be trusted to be or do or say or think anything else? Do you really believe in any of the brands you do business with? I don’t. At least I can’t think of any. So why does my life consist of doing constant, macro- and micro-transactional business with entities I don’t — and will never — trust? Am I just an outlier? I don’t think I am. At least not with regards to this.
But let’s test the theory. Who do you trust? What brands do you actually feel ‘good’ about giving your money to? Who provides you with an equal or greater amount of value for your time, attention, and money? Which of the multitude of brands you encounter on a daily basis are the genuine article; a force that is what it is and makes what it makes, and are happy to have your business but also OK with just not being what you’re looking for? Who?
I hope you can think of at least one or two examples. If you can you’re an influencer and the price on your head just tripled. If you can’t you’re an influencer and the price on your head just went up by more than triple. All for differing but similar reasons that are probably too bleak to go into. You’ve either got blinders on and don’t care, or you’ve got blinders on and don’t know. Both circumstances are valuable to advertisers.
Well. I can’t really say I feel good now. So what? Why? What — other than wanting to write something about brands and challengers — is the point of this?
I should have mentioned to you — the consumer, the audience, the crowd — that there is an option other than being a listless victim of commerce. Of being conned away towards the edge of the playground to see what all the fuss is about. There’s questioning your allegiance to a business body and deciding a) if you trust them, b) if you need to trust them if you intend to do business with them, and c) if there are others whom you distrust less that could offer you a same or similar solution to your problem for less or equal investment from you. It’s a pretty cold formula for being in the world. At best, you have to work hard and make hard decision about where you spend your money. At worst, you have to knowingly — consciously — give money to organizations you feel maligned by. You’re gonna pay them to keep lying to you.
But what to the brands?
You guys need less background, of course. You know what you’re doing. You know who among you is a challenger — a body who is succeeding for being exactly who and what they already were, and on their own terms — and who among you have crafted and contorted themselves to be — to look like. To sound like. To seem like. — what they think the world needs. What the world wants.
It’s strange, really: I didn’t know that I didn’t trust any of you until I started to write this. The only companies I can think of that I don’t feel a lurking suspicion toward are those run by friends and family…and even then, only when the ‘company’ itself consists of 2 to 5 people and helms maybe a handful of products. Why then do I do this? Why do I degrade myself by doing business with countless bodies that I feel are at odds with me?
I should stop. I should trust my nose more. I should peer ever-so-critically into the available self of a company before I give them a red cent of my hard-earned capital. And if a company does not make their psyche — their believable and true platform of identity — available to me? Then I should move on. I should value honesty and integrity over flash and dazzle and convenience, and I should pay twice in spite to brands that abuse me with lies and half-truths.
Utterly macabre to say, but: I don’t think it’s possible to only do business with brands you trust. So — and this is in conclusion, believe it or not — look to do business with those you mistrust the least. Punish those who disappoint you.
Brands: be the brands we mistrust the least. Tell us who you are, why you’re that, the mistakes you make and the achievements you’re proud of. You’ll come off as less than perfect, flawed, and on a ramp between obstacles. Relate to us by admitting — to yourselves — that the market is choked with alternatives, you’re learning as you go, and that you value your customers enough to show them who you really are.
It’s gonna be uncomfortable for both of us, but better in the end.
Trust me.
