Bellwether Blog. Catch up on our latest thinking.
So you call yourself a challenger brand?
Ah, the “challenger brand” label. It’s edgy. It’s rebellious. It makes you feel like the underdog ready to shake up the industry. But let’s be honest—are you really challenging anything, or are you just calling yourself one because it sounds cool in a strategy deck?
A true challenger brand doesn’t just exist outside the top three in market share. It thinks, acts, and moves differently. It picks fights with industry norms, calls out outdated practices, and dares to do what others won’t.
So, let’s test that challenger spirit:
– Are you making bold moves that might ruffle some feathers, or just tweaking what’s already been done?
– Do you have a clear enemy (yes, real challengers have one), or are you just trying to be liked by everyone?
– Is your brand voice unmistakable, or could it belong to any number of competitors?
– Are you setting new standards, or just slightly adjusting the status quo?
Being a challenger isn’t about attitude alone—it’s about action. It’s about giving your audience something to rally behind, not just a new shade of blue on your logo.
So before you add challenger to your next brand deck, ask yourself: Are we really challenging anything? Or are we just talking to ourselves?
Because the real challengers? They don’t need to tell you—they show you.
So you’re a challenger brand? What’s your vision?
A challenger brand without a vision is just noise.
It’s not enough to be against something—you need to be for something bigger. A vision that’s bold, ambitious, and gives people a reason to believe. Think of Patagonia’s commitment to saving the planet, or Airbnb’s mission to create a world where anyone can belong anywhere.
The best challenger brands don’t just sell products; they sell change. They stand for something meaningful, something their customers can get behind.
So ask yourself: Is your vision just a polished statement on your website, or is it something that drives every decision you make? Does it inspire action, or does it just sound good in meetings?
Because a real challenger vision? It makes people want to follow you into battle.
So you’re a challenger brand? Picked a fight lately?
If you want to stand out, you need an enemy.
Not necessarily a competitor (though that can work), but a big, frustrating problem that your audience can get behind fixing. Think of Apple vs. Big Brother in 1984. Dove vs. toxic beauty standards. Tesla vs. fossil-fueled complacency.
Picking a fight gives your brand an edge, a mission, and a rallying cry. It makes your audience feel something—whether it’s anger at the status quo or excitement for a new way forward.
But be warned: lukewarm fights don’t count. If your battle cry is “we’re just a little bit better,” no one’s listening. A true challenger brand dares to take a stand, disrupt the norm, and make people pick sides.
So, who or what are you fighting against? And are you brave enough to go all in?
The commercial power of a relentless curiosity
Curiosity is the nursery of progress.
Curiosity is the first step in the journey to a different goal.
Curiosity is the birthplace of better.
The right question can spark a whole new world of opportunity.
Why is it done like that?
What could we do to improve this?
How would we make this faster?
Where should we focus our energies?
Who would make a better customer?
When will it be enough?
Curiosity helps us find different ways to make things more effective.
For customers. For businesses. For clients.
It starts by wanting to know what’s really important.
Where is the frustration really coming from?
Rory Sutherland gives this great example.
When faced with complaints about the journey of the Eurostar between Paris and London, the first instinct of management was to ask why.
“Because we want to get there faster.”
So, they sought to find ways to make the journey quicker.
Engineers were consulted. And for six billion Euro, it was determined the three-hour journey could be shortened by 30 minutes.
If they’d asked another why, they may have had a more insightful answer.
“Because it’s boring – nothing to see but tunnel.”
And a different, more affordable, more memorable answer might have presented itself.
Why not provide free wifi for the kids?
Why not turn one of the carriages into a cinema?
Why not do something so entertaining the passengers would demand the train be slowed down?
Curiosity is not simply a question of “Why?”
It’s often a question of asking a different question. Not, “What do you think you need?”
Which is so often answered by incremental improvements. (A faster train. A faster horse.)
But, “What is the frustration?”
Which gives you a much broader horizon of opportunity. (It’s more affordable to find a solution to “boring” than it is to make 750tonnes go 15% faster.)
How does curiosity help you sell more product?
So often, businesses lack to time to be more curious.
To ask a more interesting why.
Why do customers say one thing and do another?
Why don’t more people visit your site?
Especially when you’ve gone to all the trouble of making it look so good.
Why do we do things like this?
Is there a better way?
Curiosity drives us as a business.
It helps us see options which provide a healthy alternative income stream.
Options which drive down a cost of a sale.
Options which might not, of themselves, go anywhere – but which provide a bridge to a new way of thinking about a product or service.
Which, in turn, leads to a more effective way of going to market.
It’s why we team business people with creative people.
The right brain and the left brain working together.
Because, in a world where processes and systems are becoming more and more similar, the only legal unfair advantage you have is to do things differently.
More effectively.
To be more interesting.
To zig when others zag.
And the only way to find that is to ask.
“Why not?”