We designed the website as a resource for the Challenger community and we hope it has so far proved to be useful. It certainly has been for us – we’ve re-watched and shared some fantastic bits of content many times with clients over the past year. However if, unlike us, you’ve missed a few bits in the last 12 months we thought now would be a good time to look back and pull together a few of our favourite films, articles, stories and exercises. These are some of ours, but if you have your own favourite please let us know…

Although not where it ends.

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 Davids, yet we have also met many other characters less celebrated in the Challenger conversation.

This month, in conjunction with the publication of our Challenger Times newspaper, we are going to be presenting this new cast of Challenger characters and offering ten different Challenger stances to inspire your own Challenger brand narrative.

Challengers see opportunity as something they have the power to create for themselves. Naturally curious, always open and constantly questioning, the Challenger Brand often identifies and acts on an opportunity that the rest of the competition has failed to see. Of course as quickly as that opportunity turns into an idea that revolutionizes our entire landscape, so as quickly it becomes obvious and simple to us all. And only then do we quietly kick ourselves that we weren’t the ones to make it happen.

So this month, while we can’t ensure that opportunity will come knocking at your door at a convenient time this evening we can help you to better look out for it. Our content shares some recent learnings and unlearnings from our Challenger friends – tips and techniques that will help you to look beyond the constraints of your own brand, category and competition to find insights, inspiration and opportunities for your future.

Let’s Outlook.

Argh haa!

Scary stuff, but powerful too. So not too much talk of horses or courses but as always we’ve pulled together some inspiring stories, interviews and articles and a practical guide to starting your own Two Horse Race.

Place your bets.

This month, inspired by an inconvenient, unhelpful and stress-inducing car rental experience, Adam suggested we spend some time exploring usefulness – not just plain usefulness as opposed to uselessness but understanding and appreciating the surprising and generous spirit of the ‘Startlingly Useful’. So we start with rant from Adam that turns into a very reasonable and really rather interesting perspective on competitive usefulness in the modern world and then we have an example of a startlingly useful innovation from the beauty business and a story about the surprising usefulness of a pig in the 18th century.

And then above and beyond this, we are going to try to be extra useful too. This month our takeaway is going to be a little different. Of course we hope the Challenger Project has in its short life proved to be interesting, inspiring and even useful. At least sometimes. But this month Adam has decided to over-commit. Every other day there’ll be a new interview up in the Take Away section that will offer Three Bits of Advice on a particular aspect of brand and/or business life. We are hoping you’ll find these additional thought pieces useful or that you’ll know someone that will. So although we’ve now given away the ‘surprise’ element of the plan we hope you’ll still find this month useful, maybe even startlingly so.

This month we’ve been talking about community. What makes it? What breaks it? What it feels like in our local neighbourhoods? What it looks like on the world-wide-web? What meaning it has in life and what value it has in business?

We’ve been in the streets of London and New York and on a farm in Devon, we’ve covered community brands that sell clothes and cars, that exchange money and ideas. We’ve talked to businesses and charities, to artists and musicians and we’ve still got a community lunch to attend in a yurt on the Holloway Road and a mini music festival to organize in Liv’s back garden… so lots of fun, lots of learning and some highlights to share.

P.S. If you want to comment or contribute to content you can do so in the comments section – you don’t have to join up or sign your name at the door. And if you have something to say but prefer one-to-one conversations rather than public speaking then you can email Liv on olivia@eatbigfish.com or call us in the office.

When we started researching and writing about Challengers 10 years ago it was fierce beliefs that armed the scrappy David against the highly polished brand image held by Goliath. But today, thanks to the success of those belief driven brands and the broader adoption of Challenger thinking, brand beliefs seem to be a new kind of corporate religion. And so of course there are those ‘Believers’ who simply recite the words, carry on with business as usual and repent when necessary and there are those whose commitment to their principles and convictions define and drive their every behaviour.

Together we’ve been trying to get beyond the words written on a lobby wall or on a website to understand the kinds of beliefs that drive decisions, that challenge and change behaviour, that matter not just to the people who wrote them in the brand book but to people in the real world outside. We are looking for sharpness, for brand beliefs with teeth. We’ve found a few but please do give us yours.

You can join in the daily conversation about this and other topics on the blog and if you want us to let you know when new interviews and articles go up on the Project then please just click here to join our mailing list.

We’ve had some good debate exploring the power of words vs. actions when it comes to communication, campaigning and inspiring behaviour change and thought we’d kick off this month with a few ‘Action’ highlights from the worlds of fashion, theatre, premier league football and food. Yes the potato story is a bit random, not so glamorous as the other pieces or as hot off the press, but it’s a true story, an action-packed adventure and perfect dinner time trivia.

Throughout the month wise words will start making a comeback as new content goes up …. so get stuck in, have your say, do your do.

We kick off with a series of articles around the topic from eatbigfish. Then we’ve got an interview with Naresh Ramchandani from greenthing about the need to over-commit time, energy and creativity to succeed in the disposable world of digital media; a story about an artist who finds a new canvas for his creative communication on the streets of London and a ‘print and play’ exercise that forces a new filter for Challengers selecting communication media.

We’ll be adding content throughout the month and will be letting members know whenever we start a new subject, so if you’d like to become a member and keep up to date with the Challenger Project, then just join the community and we’ll keep you in the loop.

And we’re always interested to hear about Challengers, especially those that we may not have come across yet. Are you a Challenger we’ve not yet met? Please email us and tell us your story.

NEXT MONTH:

Next month is all about the power of ‘Saying vs. Doing’ when it comes to communication. So if you have any brand examples that illustrate when:
- words work wonders and/or when its action that counts
- saying acts as a substitute for doing
- brand behaviour contradicts the rhetoric
- inaction speaks volumes

Or any other ideas that you’d like to share around the topic then we’d love to hear from you.

eatbigfish