No holds barred
Do we need competitors to make us look good?
New brands won’t be built by doing what old brands did better; new brands are built by thinking about the world in new ways, by reimagining the role and purpose of brands in people’s lives. Branding is first and foremost a battle of “episteme”, to own the ideological framework, one that determines truth itself. Big brands are good at passing off their truths as the ultimate truths. Dettol will make you believe that the whole world is hostile and we are under siege, Airtel and Nokia will convince you that “We” is greater than “I”, Nike will make you believe that if you have a body you can be an athlete and so on.
Fundamentally, all branding is competitive and competition bashing is simply a style, one that only makes explicit arguments that are implicit to the oedipal vocabulary of capitalism. Establishment, the outsider, you make enemies, wage war, overthrow, come into power, in turn waiting to be challenged and overthrown — the cycle is immutable and all progress and success is born out of this continuous crisis. Branding is seen as both the actor and site for this battle, both as a way of immunisation from this cycle as well as the chief perpetrator, and hence will always be a conflicted and contested space.
A distinction, however, needs to be made between the proximate and the more enduring (ultimate) truths. Competition bashing is about proximate truths. How I am different or better still does not answer the question, “Why do you really need me”?
The whole discourse of competition bashing is flawed and in my opinion seldom works. It implicitly acknowledges the competitor’s ideological framework. The battle is fought on the competitor’s terms, and the attempt is to say, “I am better than you at being you”. Most competition bashing tends to be left-brained, rational and comparative, while most consumer decisions tend to be made exactly the opposite way.
Competition bashing invariably becomes a battle for the mind, while branding is about winning over your customers, not just selling but getting a buy-in. Competition bashing gets you the consumer response “you have my attention”, but the bigger question is what do you do with that attention? Branding is a battle for what I call “new truths” and the big problem with competitive bashing is that it only does part of the job, of demolishing the old, but seldom replaces it with something new.
The question to ask is what are people buying into, what is the narrative of my brand, and what meaning do I make in people’s lives? Successful iconic brands play in the macrocosm of culture and not the narrow microcosm of categories and competitors. They unlock cultural value and create cultural capital. They have a story to tell, a spell to cast, and a belief system to work in to people’s lives. They are creating their own worlds, complete with heroes, rituals, value systems and badges (awards). These brands exist in categories of “1”, seldom acknowledging competitors. They seek immortality and not merely customer approval ratings. They make love to their ideals and beliefs, they have quests and embark on great journeys. They want to simply make the world better, they don’t need to run anyone else down, they are convinced that the lesser ones will fall by the wayside and the more worthy will be co-passengers.
Branding is about systemic thinking, being always cognisant of where any action (competition bashing) fits into the overall story of the brand, what cultural ideals are being challenged and what they are being replaced with, what is the archetype for the brand, and does it have permission to speak in this way. Challenger brands are designed as counterpoints, for instance, and have permission to go around bashing. Virgin and Pepsi, for instance, for they profess not to seek establishmentarianism. It must be done in the authentic voice of your brand and in style. It must be engaging and worthy to be viewed by its target audience. The consumer’s been telling us: “Don’t bore me with facts because I don’t believe any of you anyway.”
If you decide to fight in the streets you can definitely gather a crowd but I am not sure how many of them will be inviting you home. On the other hand, if you build a beautiful home, chances are that there will be more guests than you planned for.
ARVIND MOHAN
Founder, Religious