Eating the Big Fish: How Challenger Brands Can Compete Against Brand Leaders » (Revised and Expanded)

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 world's 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.

Once upon a time, spirited David challenged the towering Goliath. Forty years ago, rental car company Avis challenged Hertz—the big fish in its industry—and won a larger, more profitable share of the market by "trying harder." Today, Challengers such as method, JetBlue, Nintendo Wii, and Linux successfully compete with much bigger brands in their markets by redefining in their favor the criteria consumers use to make choices. The leaders in any market are never in reality invulnerable; they just seem that way before a smart, focused, Challenger brand takes them on.

Updated and revised with additional chapters and thirty new examples of Challenger brands in action, the Second Edition of Eating the Big Fish reflects recent developments in the marketplace and media since the publication of the bestselling and influential first edition. Author Adam Morgan—who, with his company, has researched and worked with Challengers over the last decade—presents and analyzes the effective marketing tactics Challenger brands use to raise their profiles and take market share.

Morgan provides practical advice and plentiful, easy-to-follow examples to show how a Challenger brand can get noticed and steal customers from competitors with much bigger advertising and marketing budgets. He presents eight Challenger credos that stress bringing a fresh perspective to market, building a prominent and emotionally appealing identity, implementing a pervasive communication strategy, and focusing intently on ideas rather than consumers.

This new edition explores what needs to change and what needs to stay the same for Challenger brands in the shifting communications landscape of media, technology, and the Web. Most important, it affirms that Challenger brands are alive, well, and hungry. If you want to increase the profile and the profitability of your brand against bigger competitors, this book puts the big fish on your menu.

Marketing Business

Although out last year, Eating the Big Fish, is one of the most stimulating books on brands and has grown to become a must read.

Foreword Antonio Lucio Lucio, Antonio

Pt. I The Size And Nature Of The Big Fish

1 The Law of Increasing Returns

2 The Consumer Isn't

3 What Is a Challenger Brand?

Pt. II The Eight Credos Of Successful Challenger Brands

4 The First Credo: Intelligent Naivety

5 Monsters and Other Challenges: Gaining clarity on the Centre

6 The Second Credo: Build a Lighthouse Identity

7 The Third Credo: Take Thought Leadership of the Category

8 The Fourth Credo: Create Symbols of Re-evaluation

9 The Fifth Credo: Sacrifice

10 The Sixth Credo: Overcommit

11 The Seventh Credo: Using Communications and Publicity to enter Social Culture

12 The Eighth Credo: Become Idea-Centered, Not Consumer-Centered

Pt. III Using The Challenger Program

13 Writing the Challenger Program: The Two-Day Off-site

14 The Scope of the Lighthouse Keeper

Pt. IV Mind-Set, Culture And Risk

15 Challenger as a State of Mind: Staying Number One Means Thinking Like a Number Two

16 Risk, Will, and the Circle of Rope

References And Sources

Photo Credits

Index