Creating a modern challenger brand: a case study
In his two seminal books “Eating the Big Fish” and “The Pirate Inside”, branding and marketing expert Adam Morgan has studiously analysed and codified the secrets of dozen of successful “Challenger Brands”. Morgan’s work is based on the premise that the traditional, established market leaders in the most business sectors enjoy a level of unassailability built upon decades of developing commercial scale, consumer awareness and protective distribution networks, all of which contribute to a far higher return on investment than that of the second and third ranked players in the marketplace (what Morgan refers to as “The Law of Increasing Returns”).
In today’s prevailing market dynamics of over-capacity, brand proliferation, unfettered brand extension and manifold competitive threats, the advice for aspiring brands is not to pursue the futile course of imitating the models and strategies of the market leaders, but to forge a new model: that of a Challenger Brand. Even with a compelling weight of evidence and the ongoing hegemony of multi-national-market-leaders across most categories, it is relatively rare that brand consultancies get the opportunity to help steer the course of a true Challenger Brand, but this is exactly what happened when The Brand Union Singapore started working on the launch f a new direct-to-consumer insurance brand called DirectAsia.com. What follows is a summary of the key foundations and strategies for the brand’s development and launch in Singapore in June of this year and how these relate to ‘classic’ Challenger Brand best practice.
- CHALLENGER BRANDS ARE 10% INSPRIATION AND 90% PERSPIRATION
Classically cited Challenger Brands such as Apple and Virgin are characterized by a clear, passionately-held iconoclastic business vision, driven by a committed management team determined to address the perceived inadequacies of the existing status quo. The vision for DirectAsia.com came from the Whittington Group, an insurance investment business headquartered in Singapore. The Whittington team, led by Group CEO Anthony Hobrow, was fervent in its belief that the typical agent-commission-based insurance model, dominated by 3 established players, was no longer serving the best interests of Singaporean consumers in terms of both value and the quality of service provided. The team had seen at first-hand how the introduction of a direct insurance model had transformed the markets in the US and Australia and were convinced that a similar model could succeed in Singapore. As with other Challenger Brands, the key for Whittington was to support the ‘inspiration’ of its business vision with the ‘perspiration’ of methodically evaluating the scale of the opportunity and building a detailed understanding of the marketplace and the usage and attitudes of the target audience. This involved extensive research and painstaking refinement of the product and pricing model.
- ASSEMBLE A WINNING TEAM
Even with the most visionary of founders, Challenger Brands generally rely on the interaction of multi-skilled, multi-disciplinary team members who can subscribe to and help refine the over-arching business vision while delivering clearly defined areas of expertise and insight. The Whittington team acknowledged this by drawing its own cross-functional project team from a variety of backgrounds and markets, both from the insurance sector and beyond. They also invested a great deal of time in selecting the right external partners, evaluating them not only on the strength of their professional credentials but also on the cultural fit and enthusiasm for the venture.
- DON’T JUST RIDE IT THE WAVE. DIRECT IT
As with many successful Challenger Brands, a main strength of the Whittington proposition was timing. Much of a Challenger Brands’ initial potency often comes from responding to a prevailing zeitgeist; tapping into emergent consumer disaffection and offering at timely solution to the r ‘pain points’. In Singapore in the months prior to DirectAsia.com’s launch there was growing consternation at rising motor insurance premiums and poor claims-handling, with the letters pages of the StraitsTimes and the ‘blogosphere’ showcasing customer complaints and anger. In addition, internet penetration in Singapore is among the highest anywhere in the world and the barriers to purchasing online were quickly receding as it became commonplace to book travel and entertainment tickets and buy other goods via the web. As the world reeled from recession, there was also discernible backlash against some established global financial services brands. The convergence of these trends may have provided a propitious backdrop for the launch of DirectAsia.com, but the team recognized that it was not enough simply to ride the wave of public disaffection and become a one-dimensional ’anti-brand’. The real task was to give focus to any underlying dissatisfaction, define clearly what a better alternative might look like, and guide them towards it.
- FOCUS, FOCUS, FOCUS
One of the eight credos of Challenger Brands identified by Adam Morgan is ‘Sacrifice’. Another way of looking at this is the ability to maintain a laser-like focus on the immediate requirement of a nascent brand, without getting side-tracked by other lower-priority non-core or longer-term considerations. For DirectAsia.com, this focus was demonstrated in the careful prioritization of markets, consumer segments and product platforms so that the new and growing team was not overwhelmed. To ensure that this focus was maintained, a huge emphasis was placed on effective and holistic project management, with a team of experts tasked with keeping the various strands of the project moving in synchronicity. SME
Read the second part of this article "DirectAsia - Online Insurance Brand launched in Singapore"
Graham Hitchmough is Managing Director of The Brand Union, a world-class global brand agency comprising of 500 people across 20 offices that are united thorough its deep-seated commitment to becoming masters of the art and science of brand building.