The thought occurred to me as I sat down for yet ANOTHER presentation where Starbucks and Jet Blue were used as examples of great challenger brands: By this point, as category leaders, they’re really not challenging anyone, are they?

What defines a challenger brand? The following are a few thoughts that answer this question.

RULE #1: BREAK WITH YOUR IMMEDIATE PAST. Much of what has been written about brand management concentrates on consistency over time - recognizing equities, and maintaining them through marketing. This is out-of-date thinking in the new marketing world. Challenger Brands deliberately break with their own past (if they have one) - they intentionally reinvent key aspects of themselves in order to force rapid reappraisal.

RULE #2: DO NOT GO TO THE CONSUMER, LET THE CONSUMER COME TO YOU “In this new world, the brands that flourish are not the brands that mirror the consumer by playing back an understanding of the consumer problem, through slice-of-life vignettes that evince an artificial sympathy. Such brands overtly navigate by the consumer: they see where the customer is and sail by them, and when the consumer changes position, a little time, some research and a few focus groups will allow the brand to re-formulate its position and re-present itself.” [Source: “Challenger Brands.” Eatbigfish, UK, Whitepaper 2001] One of the interesting things about Challengers is how much they talk about themselves, where they stand and why they stand there. These are Brands that, while they understand their consumer very well, do not overtly navigate by that consumer, but instead invite the consumer to navigate by them. RULE #3: CLAIM THE CHALLENGER TITLE The normal way of viewing the marketplace is to assume there is only one leader: The Market Leader. When infact, there are two: the Market Leader, physically the largest, but whose pre-eminence is often as much to do with sales and consumer preference, and the Thought Leader: the brand that everyone is talking about. The brand that people are keeping an eye on, are interested in, even if they have yet to try it. And, following on from this, Challengers also seem to have realized that if you cannot be the first of these, you have to try to be the second. RULE #4: SYMBOLIZE CHANGE + RE-EVALUATION Successful Challenger Brands create symbols that quickly and emotionally signal to the consumer a change is in the weather. These companies are not about doing things the expected way. They change the marketplace. They change the definition. They fill a void. RULE #5: SACRIFICE – THE FIFTH CREDO. In the world of clutter and information saturation that consumers are faced with, the greatest danger is not rejection but indifference. Rejection is easily spotted and quickly remedied - you make a big change or you pull out. Indifference, however, is a far more insidious and expensive problem. Selective listening allows the traditional marketer to convince themselves everything is all right, and they pour more and more money, over more and more time, against less and less return. This is particularly important for a Challenger to recognize. RULE #6: FIND A GREAT IDEA. AND STICK WITH IT THROUGH THICK AND THIN. A Challenger Brand - and the people behind the Challenger Brand – need to over-commit + feel passionate about their original idea in order to overcome the pockets of inertia and resistance they will experience internally and externally. RULE #7: A CHALLENGER BRAND IS IDEA-CENTERED, NOT CONSUMER-CENTERED. “Successful Challenger brands are not static - they constantly add to themselves to keep ahead of the market; and the fuel for that movement is ideas. The company has to give primacy to ideas and creative thinking above all else. This is not to say that the consumer is unimportant - on the contrary, insight into the real mindset of the consumer strongly underpins every action taken and decision made. But understanding on its own cannot create movement - And while one good idea is enough to launch or relaunch a brand, it is not enough food to keep it strong as the competition reacts and copies what it is doing.” [“Challenger Brands.” Eatbigfish, UK, Whitepaper 2001] Being idea-centric has one further benefit over and above the ideas themselves: at the heart of every successful Challenger company there is a certain enthusiastic restlessness, an energy and dynamism that infects the attitude and performance of everyone in the company. This dynamism and energy comes from the sense of possibility and excitement that being around stimulating ideas and stimulating people creates. RULE #8: NEVER SETTLE FOR MEDIOCRITY Playing by the existing rules will not create leverage: exceptional and differentiating ideas are the only currency of the successful Challenger Brands.

Considering this, I’d like to nominate the next generation of challenger brands who are, once again defining the marketplace and in a David vs. Goliath marketplace succeeding as “the little engines that could.”

Sirius Satellite Radio [Despite lagging behind XM for two years, with a few careful strategic moves, the satellite radio company has carefully and steadily begun to grow market share and increased sales and profits in the past year.]

Song Airlines [Attached to the negative press surrounding their parent company Delta, analysts said Song was destined to fail. But by focusing on the customer experience instead of the airline experience, Song is closing the gap in low-cost airfare which JetBlue now leads…]

NASDAQ [NYSE has been the wall street darling for well-over a hundred years. Everyone thought NASDAQ would go bust along with the dot.com’s. But careful focus and strategy as the marketplace for visionaries has put them back in the running.]

Burger King [Sure. An easy target as the #2 burger chain. Recent introduction of the mega-breakfast omelet sandwich with twice the fat, defies current category conventions and wins the heart [and stomachs] the world over.]

Are there others you think that fit the mold?