The Importance of a Brand Enemy
I don’t eat a lot of cereal. It’s not that I don’t enjoy it, I’m just more of an egg eater. Recently however I was in the cereal aisle at my local grocery store and was blinded by the sheer number of branded and private label choices, each box touting what it believes could be its differentiator: low sugar, high fiber, all natural, nutritious fuel for your active lifestyle, even more marshmallows! The list goes on. It got me thinking how cereal, like most categories, is commoditized and brands are really struggling to find and articulate their ownable difference.
As consumers, we deal with choice every day. The average adult makes between 33,000–35,000 decisions daily and processes 70,000 thoughts. No wonder it’s so hard to decide what to make for dinner! Personal struggles aside, a remit of my job as a brand strategist is to help my clients find their tangible point of difference so the human brain will choose their brand over a competitor. A powerful but sometimes overlooked method to differentiation is one that I really love — the brand enemy.
Choose Your Enemy Wisely
It’s a tale as old as time. Rocky vs. Ivan Drago, Batman vs. the Joker, David vs. Goliath. All great stories have tension between a protagonist and antagonist. Brands are no different.
Think about Apple vs. Microsoft. Airbnb vs. traditional hotels. But the enemy doesn’t have to be another brand. Instead, it can be the ideas, practices or beliefs that clash with your brand’s core values. The one thing that drives you to do better because you know it needs to change. That one thing your brand dislikes the most but everyone seems to accept — that’s your enemy.
Dove fights against being superficial. Disney’s enemy is growing up. Nike rails against self-doubt.
These brands are successful because they inspire us while simultaneously harnessing the power of a shared cause. Because when done right, brand enemies not only motivate action, they bring the consumer into the fight.
Bringing Your Enemy to Life
Once you’ve identified your enemy, you need to help the consumer visualize it. What does it look like? How does it sound? How does it make you feel? Only after this work is done can your consumer help you defeat it.
Take our work for 19Crimes as an example. Over the past few years, we’ve helped rule breakers bring the Infamous Life to the world through partnerships with iconic rogues like Snoop Dogg and Martha Stewart. And more recently we helped 19Crimes engage with the UFC and powerfully challenge the status quo that wine doesn’t belong at a fight.
These bold collaborations show that using brand enemies — in this case the often stuffy perception of wine culture — can redefine expectations and break norms.
Final Thoughts
When thinking about your brand enemy, keep these seemingly simple tips in mind:
- Make sure the enemy is an actual problem that needs to be solved. Your goal here is to position your brand as the ultimate ally in the fight.
- Position the enemy as something that once vanquished, will allow the consumer to live in the world they want to live in.
- Don’t make the enemy so grandiose that it can’t be defeated.
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