The Contender’s Corner: Beating Around the Ambush - 10 Great Examples of Guerrilla Marketing

Beating Around the Ambush: 10 Great Examples of Guerrilla Marketing

Brands have been at war since the time that cow was stamped on top of its rear. With commoditization of most product categories the only other option to being at out and out war is to play out zero sum games. As ideal as socialist ideology, nobody’s prepared to play stalemates in a consumerist society. So being on the offensive is the only choice most consumer brands are left with. To achieve this end there are a number of traditional marketing methods,One such effective way of hurting competition and winning quick quarters is ambush. (Read More…)

Curtains for Qwikster: The Death of a Challenger Brand Before it Even Lived

In the latest twist in the Netflix saga, the company has backed off a plan to offer a separate service for DVDs under the Qwikster name. Netflix CEO Reed Hastings announced the change Monday on Netflix’s blog, stating, “It is clear that for many of our members two websites would make things more difficult, so we are going to keep Netflix as one place to go for streaming and DVDs. This means no change: one website, one account, one password… in other words, no Qwikster.” (Read More…)

7 Disruptive Innovations that Turned Their Markets Upside Down [Infographic]

Who are the movers, the shakers, the companies that affect profound change? And what products do they bring to market that disrupt all others, making other companies completely re-think their strategies? Let’s take a look at seven of those products whose competitors wish had never existed. That’s what we’ll find out with this infographic by professional networking site Focus.com. You’ll see how 7 companies such as Skype, Netflix, Apple and Google rolled out products and services that approached their market in such a unique way that they changed everything. (Read More…)

Challenger Brand Case Study: How Orabrush Got into Walmart

Orabrush is the first company to take their product from zero sales to nationwide distribution using nothing but YouTube and Facebook for advertising. The tongue cleaner that rose to fame on YouTube, garnering nearly 40 million total views and over 160,000 subscribers, is the third most-subscribed sponsor channel on YouTube (after Old Spice and Apple). In a new case study video they share their story of how they convinced Walmart execs to carry their product using nothing but YouTube and Facebook. (Read More…)

The Ten Types of Challenger Brand

Over the years the Challengers we have worked alongside have tended to share common experiences and face common threats, and have therefore drawn on similar principles in order to succeed. But the narrative they tell is of course not always the same. Much depends on the individual identities of the people or brands themselves, and also on the particular strategic stance that each unique Challenger has chosen to employ. Across the last decade we have indeed met many Goliath-slaying Davids, yet we have also met many other characters less celebrated in the Challenger conversation. Let’s consider the broader range of challenger stances we can tell. Here’s a brief overview of each. (Read More…)

One Last Bite at the Apple

In 1999, Adam Morgan published Eating the Big Fish: How Challenger Brands Can Compete Against Brand Leaders, a manifesto on winning in the face of superior competition. Morgan outlined eight “credos” of Challenger Brands. And though he illustrated his work with examples of many companies in many markets, the book was, more than any other, the story of one man – Steve Jobs. So it seems only fitting, in the painful context of Jobs’ passing, to revisit Big Fish, reflecting on the life of a gifted competitor. For in the end, the future of Apple will be defined not by Steve Jobs, but by the organization’s ability to sustain his vision, and to continue to redefine their markets through the eight principles explained in Morgan’s book. (Read More…)

The Contender’s Corner is our monthly round-up of challenger brand news, information, case studies, disruptive ideas, and resources for aspiring brands who are ready to get F.I.E.R.C.E. and take on the market leader! For more great content, subscribe to our Challenger Brands topic on Scoop.it and follow our #isfierce hashtag on Twitter.

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