Uprising: How to Build a Brand--and Change the World--By Sparking Cultural Movements by Scott Goodson

Author:Scott Goodson
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Publisher: McGraw-Hill Education
Published: 2012-02-16T16:00:00+00:00

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For some reason, it can be easier to figure out what you’re against than to figure out what you’re for—maybe because what you are pursuing is often elusive, whereas the thing you’re against is usually standing directly in the way. Keep in mind, however, that it’s important to think about pursuits and obstacles not in terms of your own interests, but of your customers’. What is it that they desire (that you can help provide), and what is standing in the way of that? Identifying that obstacle will help you identify your brand nemesis. It may be that you’re championing some kind of new approach or new way of doing things; if so, you can take a stand against the old, entrenched ways or status quo attitudes. Or, conversely, you might be defending tradition by taking on trendy new attitudes and behaviors. Either way, there’s no shortage of things worth taking a stand against.

(One caveat: don’t simply take a stand against your competition. You may hate your competitor’s guts, but nobody else cares; the outside world is looking for you to take on something more meaningful and interesting. Now if your competitor can be used to represent something larger and more meaningful to people—à la IBM and “Big Brother”—then you may be on to something.)

It certainly helps when the thing you’re taking a stand against is big and malevolent. One of the most effective public service advertising movements in recent years was the “Truth” teen antismoking campaign, overseen by the American Legacy Foundation, which did a great job of rallying teenagers against smoking. Historically, it’s been difficult to get teens to care about the fact that smoking can harm them later in life—that’s just too far removed from their present-day concerns, so there’s no “strain” or dissatisfaction to light that initial spark. But in this case, what resonated with teens was the idea that a nemesis was trying to manipulate and harm them. The “Truth” campaign showed the various ways in which Big Tobacco companies have lied, obfuscated, targeted youth, contributed to disease and death, and gotten rich in the process. The righteous anger stoked by that movement got teenagers engaged and involved in the cause, and led to significant declines in teen smoking.

But you don’t necessarily need an enemy as ideal as Big Tobacco; it could be something as harmless as bland food. Our client Sabra, which makes hummus, faced a challenge in that some Americans viewed it warily as “foreign” food. We saw an interesting friction at work here. Today, more and more Americans are looking to expand their cultural horizons and adopt a larger worldview. And yet their eating habits and food choices often lag behind. We tend to play it safe and go for the familiar with food choices. So the “nemesis” here was the predictable and unadventurous culinary habits of Americans, which are at odds with the rise of a more global, multiethnic, multicultural society. To sharpen it a bit more, you could

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