Eating the Big Fish

"Eating the Big Fish is a lucid, well organized and well executed analysis of successful Challenger strategies...Highly recommended." (TheBookBag.co.uk, April 23rd 2009) a must read for anyone in marketing.' (Admap, January 2011).

ADAM MORGAN is a partner in eatbigfish (www.eatbigfish.com), an international brand and marketing consultancy specializing in Challenger brand strategy, behavior, and culture. Previously an executive with TBWA\Chiat\Day, one of the worlds largest advertising agencies, he has worked with clients like IKEA, Unilever, Virgin, and Apple. He and his partners together run The Challenger Project, the evolving research into how Challenger brands think and behave, on which their thinking, writing, and speaking is based.

Preface xiii Foreword by Antonio Lucio xxi Part 1 The Size and Nature of the Big Fish 1 1 The Law of Increasing Returns 3 The task facing a Challenger in competing strongly against a Market Leader is more intimidating than we might have imagined. This chapter explores the scale of the advantages their superior sizeand the fact of leadershipbrings, and points to why we need as Challengers to consider a different kind of strategic approach in order to succeed. 2 The Consumer Isnt 13 Marketeers step into this new business world equipped with a set of basic assumptions about their business that have by now become dangerously flawed. The fundamental premises underlying everyday marketing vocabulary such as consumer, audience, and category require careful reexamination, and the implications of their weaknesses need to be understoodin particular, the consequent need for ideas, rather than communications, as the new currency of growth. 3 What Is a Challenger Brand? 24 This chapter offers an entirely new kind of brand model for second-rank brands finding themselves threatened by the Brand Leaderthe model of the Challenger brand. A Challenger brand is defined through three attributes: a state of market, a state of mind, and a rate of success. This chapter concludes by explaining how the core brands considered in Part 2 came to be chosen, and gives an example of how the book attempts to turn each significant Challenger case history into a relevant exercise that can be valuably applied to the marketeers own brand. Part 2 The Eight Credos of Successful Challenger Brands 33 What marketing characteristics do the great Challenger brands and companies of the past 15 years share? If we could identify those characteristics, how could we apply them to our own situation to generate a source of personal business advantage? This section identifies and discusses the common marketing strands these brands have shared and devotes eight chapters to discussing each in turn. 4 The First Credo: Intelligent Naivety 35 The great wave makers in any category are those who are new to itlike Jeff Bezos, who came out of finance to change the way books were sold, or Eric Ryan of method, who left advertising to reinvent the household cleaning business. This chapter looks at the need for marketeers to break free from the clutter of little pieces of knowledge that are the basis of their strategic thinking in order to see the real opportunities for radical growth. It also offers ways for those already deeply experienced in a category to achieve this vital innocence. 5 Monsters and Other Challenges: Gaining Clarity on the Center 61 Once you have explored the potential opportunities available to you as a Challenger, it is time to be clear about what your challenge to the category or another category player is going to be. This chapter explores a structure for thinking about that central challenge and discusses the key options open to us; this clarity is also a key part of laying the foundations for the strategic thinking that follows. 6 The Second Credo: Build a Lighthouse Identity 80 Success as a Challenger comes through developing a very clear sense of who or what you are as a brand/business and whyand then projecting that identity intensely, consistently, and saliently to the point where, like a lighthouse, consumers notice you (and know where you stand) even if they are not looking for you. This chapter looks at the roots, source, and nature of such identities and how successful Challengers have built them. 7 The Third Credo: Take Thought Leadership of the Category 109 Marketeers tend to talk as if there is one Brand Leader in every category. In fact, there are two: the Market Leader (the brand with the biggest share and the biggest distribution) and the Thought Leaderthe brand that, while it may not be the largest, is the one that everyone is talking about, that has the highest sensed mom