How to be a Successful Challenger Brand
August 17th 2020
Gary Osborne, Insight & Brand Planning Specialist, Bord Bia - The Irish Food Board
The original term "Challenger Brand" was popularised in the late 1990's after it became part of Adam Morgan's seminal book on the subject, ‘Eating the Big Fish’ and has since become part of the marketing lexicon. Challenger brands, by their nature, challenge something about the category or world around them. The most successful Challenger Brands are ones that are able to bend the rules in their favour, creating new paths to success that we all can learn from.
Smaller brands/start ups can be more agile and take advantage of niche opportunities in a way that bigger brands might struggle to do. Think of the speed boat/oil tanker analogy. In packaged water, Global Hydrate from Borrisoleigh Bottlers in Co. Tipperary has brought a tetra pack water product to market before many of the more established players. The packaging is 88% plant based and helps consumers be more environmentally-friendly when choosing a water brand.
Nick Geoghegan from WARC Best Practice makes the following recommendations when it comes to building a challenger brand.
1. Embrace Intelligent Naivety
Market leaders rely on their expertise. Challengers rely on their inexperience. Many challengers come from outside of the category that they then go on to change so much. This is because they are able to look at the category with fresh eyes and to see its faults and opportunities clearly. Food Works is an innovative programme run by Bord Bia, EI and Teagasc aimed at start-ups many of which have taken this piece of advice on board.
2. Change the Narrative of the Category
Experimenting with new ways of telling your story can very quickly signal your brand's intent to change something about the category. RUDDS is a good example of an Irish food brand that has challenged its category narrative and begun speaking in a younger, more contemporary tone.
3. Take a Challenging Point of View
Not all challengers are start-ups. They can be brands that challenge current consumer thinking or behaviour. In the US, Dunkin Donuts, beset on all sides by the rise of espresso culture, has forced consumers to choose. Are they part of an elite, who thinks coffee is for sipping, savouring and fussing over? (insert the first competitor brand you can think of here!) Or are they part of mainstream America who sees coffee as what it really is: fuel?
And closer to home in the UK, Yorkshire Tea has shown how a regional, family-owned, challenger brand has been able to take on long-established national brands backed by multinationals a consistent media strategy and engaging creative focussed on a very challenging positioning ‘if you’re not drinking Yorkshire Tea, you’re not drinking a proper brew!
REFERENCES:
Are big brands really doomed? How big brands can
adapt to the threat from small insurgents, David Taylor
Source: WARC Best Practice, October 2018
How to build a challenger brand, Nick Geoghegan
Source: WARC Best Practice, July 2016
How Yorkshire Tea became the UK’s favourite brew, Brian Carruthers
Source: Event Reports, Thinkbox, March 2020