This is a story about some Norwegian pirates.

To be more accurate it is a story about a group of sea faring DIY enthusiasts who liked camping but preferred house building.

So the story goes that a few years back a group of people from mainland Oslo set out on a weekend boat trip around the Fjords stopping to explore each of the islands as they went. Now some of these islands had remained uninhabited (as some still are today) and this group of people took a liking to one of these islands in particular. So as they sat watching the sun set that Sunday afternoon they decided that they would ask the Norwegian authorities if they could build a few weekend houses on this island so that they could visit at the end of a hard week at work.

So on Monday morning once back at their desks these people go through the appropriate channels and write to the appropriate people to find out if their house-building dream is possible. They discover that it is not. They absolutely definitely certainly cannot build any permanent residential structures on this island or any other uninhabited island for a million and one reasons.

But they can camp.

They are allowed to create a campsite on the island as long as they bring only a limited number of tents with them from the mainland each weekend and take them away with them when they leave. The only evidence of the campsite that can remain between visits are the windbreaks that they are allowed to construct in order to protect their tents from the fierce winds – that is as long as these windbreaks are made entirely of the natural materials that are found on the island.

So the very next weekend this pirate gang set sail with their boat and their tents. Being summer the winds aren’t too bad and so they create themselves a small collection of windbreaks made from twine and sticks and straw-stuff reaching 5 foot tall which they leave on the island and erect each time they visit. And for a few weeks this works out ok but every now and then a strong gust of wind huffs and puffs and blows them down.

So they decide to build their defenses with stronger stuff and create a new set of windbreaks from logs that they collect in the forests. And this works out ok too for a little while until a particularly furious wind blows these windbreaks down as well.

And so on their next visit these Pirates go about collecting rocks that happen to be lying about on the beaches and construct windbreaks made from stone and sand. And of course no matter how hard the wind blows these brick and cement walls stand fast against the elements.

Now the only problem that our Pirates face is that the wind tends to blow in many different directions and these now 40 foot stone windbreaks, although definitely not permanent, are pretty hard to maneuver. So they decide to build a number of windbreaks at right angles to each other be sure to protect each individual tent from the North, South, East and Westerly winds. Four adjoining stone windbreaks should do it they think – a bit like the four walls of a conventional house but with a tent in the middle.

Apparently after some time the tents were removed from inside the four stone walls of each of these little houses and nice carved wooden beds presumably replaced the sleeping bags on the floor but no one knows exactly when. It was probably about the same time that the roofs were put on.

Today the owners still stand by the fact that their lovely homes with their permanent looking window boxes are merely a set of very effective windbreaks that can be removed at any time the Government wishes. I guess the Norwegian authorities just don’t have the heart, or maybe they don’t want to mess with these DIY Pirates who have a strange and quiet way of getting what they want? Or maybe it’s something to do with the publicity and revenue generated by this now infamous tourist attraction?

Using the Power of No

One of the Challengers we interviewed for The Pirate Inside said that he used the word no merely as a request for more information. In this case these Pirates used the word no as their inspiration to find a new way of achieving their goal and the information they were given as the means to their end.

If you’re trying to build a metaphorical house within your organisation and the powers that be say no. Don’t just build it anyway. That will piss them off. But don’t give up.
- You might have to break down the jump for them a bit if it’s a big demand that you’re making. So take the time to build in a number of stages to reach your goal.
- If your goal is simply too scary for words help them out by redefining your ambition according to their rules and their language. What is your equivalent to the windbreak?

And of course if you’ve always wanted a seaside retreat but are finding beachfront property prices prohibitive you could try out the windbreak vs. house-on-the-beach approach with your preferred seaside council.

It would be an understatement to say this Irreverent Maverick’s work ‘caused a bit of a splash’. The reason you didn’t see it the gallery was because the curators refused to exhibit it, but you heard about it because Duchamp was forced to resign his position in the S.I.A committee, and the entire art world was in revolt. The press was so horrified by the insulting non-exhibit that the urinal was described by most as ‘an unmentionable object’ and by only a few brave editors as a ‘bathroom appliance’.

Fast forward ninety-odd years. You are now visiting an exhibition at the Tate Modern in London, where you discover two related things of note concerning the Duchamp. First ‘Shock Art’ has become a not-so-shocking tradition, second Duchamp’s never-seen urinal – now endlessly replicated – has recently been voted the most influential artwork of the 20th century by 500 selected British art world professionals. So times change, the mainstream catches up and Duchamp, the great genius, is finally accepted and indeed celebrated by the status quo.

This is of course a shame. Because, as an Irreverent Maverick, this is not the idea at all.

This stance is all about being provocative and deliberately setting out to create controversy. The Challenger characters that take on this role have a very serious intent to shock the establishment. They use wit and humour to question cultural or category conventions, challenge the complacency and collusion of those in the mainstream and attract a particular audience to their own brand of counter-culture.

Of course today the art world takes not-taking-itself-too-seriously very seriously indeed. And in spite of the ‘my three year old could do that’ or the ‘Outraged from Oldham’ pressure from the tabloids, the majority of the art establishment feels the need to celebrate the work of the even the most random and absurd artists as ‘exciting’, ‘challenging’ and ‘thought provoking’.

But there are a few categories that do still take themselves very seriously – traditional, British craft beer being one. Strict regulation, secret recipes, serious county competition and a close knit community of male drinkers in their 60s has meant that craft beer has not exactly shaken things up over the last few decades … or ever. Yes, part of that very stuffy traditional heritage has been to use weak innuendos and unfunny caricatures on the sticky labels that cover the dusty brown bottles on the shelves of empty countryside pubs, but as a category – edgy and controversial doesn’t really have a place. Until now that is.

Enter BrewDog. Self-styled as a ‘bold, irreverent and uncompromising’ brand, the duo behind BrewDog have deliberately set out with ‘a statement of intent’ to confront and corrupt the cosy world of real ale and the broader beer category altogether. “CAMRA brewers seem to operate in a vacuum of taste, of logic, of anything that’s fun or cool or edgy” says Co-Founder James in a recent interview. “It’s just old guys with beards and leather waistcoats”.

A wicked sense of humour, a love of the absurd, an appetite for shock are not just part of the character but a crucial part of the publicity plan for this Irreverent Maverick.

“One of our strategies has been to cause as much controversy as possible, which has definitely got our name in the headlines.”

A strategy that had much success this year when the brand launched ‘The End of History’ – the strongest beer ever made. In case an ale with a higher alcohol content than most vodka or whiskey wasn’t enough to outrage, the ‘premium’ packaging around the bottle has been made from taxidermic road-kill. Yes a urinal in an art gallery today is candy compared to a stuffed skunk on your pub table.

Of course the media loves to talk about this brand that is so hated by real ale societies, horrified consumers and outraged animal rights organisations. And for a Challenger Brand with no marketing budget, while taking this stance is arguably ‘sick’, it is certainly sensible. In order to compete James and Martin have realized that:

“It’s not about how much money you have but […] how engaging and exciting your content is. We get about 10,000 hits on our website a day. It’s a dialogue with fans’.

And it’s not just about creating debate. This young Maverick has quickly turned publicity into profit and after just 4 years is now Scotland’s largest independently owned brewery, producing about 120,000 bottles per month for export all over the world. Maybe not threatening the global giants yet but this is certainly part of the plan. And a move into the mainstream will be an interesting journey to watch as the brand grows – not just in terms of how it evolves its own bold behaviour but how the broader category will choose to respond.

After all, Duchamp’s legacy shows us how the shock of the new soon becomes the norm within a category – while it might have taken 90 years for the rest of the category to become comfortable with Duchamp’s Maverick ideas, today within most categories it only takes 9 months for the rest of the category to catch up.

First feared and vilified, the Irreverent Maverick usually ends up celebrated and copied by the mainstream it first set out to shock. Subsequently Challengers taking this stance have to work harder and harder to cause continual controversy. It’s the way it goes and it’s a watch out for those Challengers intent on playing the Irreverent Maverick within their own categories. While this stance, like the Scrappy David, is a great way to break into a seemingly closed category, it is an extremely difficult stance to keep up. It’s one thing to start a debate, it’s another thing to keep it going – and it requires serious commitment to ensure you get the last laugh.

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