Malcolm Devoy, PHD Worldwide’s Chief Strategy Officer EMEA and Overthrow II co-author, shares his thoughts on the changing media landscape and why a challenger media plan has such a positive and disproportionate effect on sales.

The concept of ‘challenger brands’ is now twenty years old, and the business world is a very different place today. What have been the most significant changes to the media landscape for challengers over that time?

The media landscape has changed extraordinarily in those twenty years. The major trend is a far greater proliferation of choice for consumers of where they consume media and consequently a massive scarcity of attention because it’s no longer the case of people having set routines for media consumption. It’s now available 24/7, on multiple platforms, in so many different ways, and often layered on top of each other. From a media agency’s perspective, identifying how to reach consumers has become far more complex and the opportunity to reach them in meaningful ways has become far harder because of this attention scarcity today.

Overthrow II by Adam Morgan and Malcolm Devoy.

And what is true of effective media behaviour in 2020 as it was twenty years ago?

Some real fundamentals have stayed the same. Marketing tries to make people feel a certain way, about a particular thing, at a certain point in time, crucially at a buying point of time. So, the high-level ambition is the same, just the methods and mechanics have changed. But because the ambition is the same, some media behaviours also remain the same. The principle of reaching large audiences with fame inducing creativity is the same now as it was twenty years ago. Consequently, some of the channels that we were using twenty years ago are still absolutely appropriate now. And in studying challenger brands we're finding that they are masters of blending the old with the new, so using traditional channels along with new methods, new technologies and new channels.

How has the proliferation of new media impacted creativity?

Twenty years ago, creativity was very much around a 30-second spot. Now there are multiple other media channels; from a simple static image or a tiny format that needs to get the point across on a website, and there are constraints to being creative through these formats. So it's not just the content of the creative or the copy, that needs to be creative, but also the use of the media channel needs to be creative as well. And there are some brilliant examples of challenger brands using media in very creative ways to force attention and get their message through.

Do you think the industry has seen a decline in creativity overall because of an obsession with newer formats and a shift in focus from big ideas towards media use and execution?

Yes, but it's not because of the newer channels. It's because there are so many other activities within our armoury now that are measurable. And the media industry tends to optimise towards what is measurable because it's always looking for real-time results and feedback for optimisation. But it comes at a cost because if we start optimising towards what's measurable, we'll miss out on the benefit of what is less measurable. And just because something is less measurable, doesn't mean it's less valuable. So, we have seen a shift towards measuring activities which move us into more rational messaging and final activation at the expense of fame inducing shared meaning brand campaigns. So, there's been a reduction in creativity by virtue of those reasons, rather than because of the formats themselves, which can still be creative.

You co-wrote Overthrow II with Adam Morgan, which looked at the strategies and behaviours of a new wave of challengers upsetting the status quo. What were the key insights from the research, interviews and case studies that featured in the book?

We found that despite the differences in the brands, differences in brand characters, differences of category, the difference of competitors, they had some things in common.

The first was about effectiveness and efficiency. The brands we studied were about effectiveness. And that is counter-category culture at the moment because so many brands strive for efficiency. And the reason why it’s such a crucial difference is that these challenger brands were essentially being very efficient by virtue of being effective. In contrast, many brands tend to focus on efficiency first, and brands would rarely become effective by being efficient. It looked like these challenger brands would invest in stuff that on face value didn’t appear to be very efficient, but because it works so incredibly well, it made it extremely effective and therefore, efficient.

Second, our challenger brands all put attitude first, and this works extremely well for them. These brands tend to have big mouths, and they look to court attention, and they do that by having a clear point of view on something. That view might be divisive, but they stand for it and champion it. And the remarkable thing is they will draw buyers from people who don't necessarily share that point of view but are seduced by the power of that brand standing for something. So, a difference for challenger brands versus non-challenger brands is these brands take a defined point of view but a broad audience, so they are telling everyone - not just the people who they think align with their stories. They're unapologetically confident for believing in what they believe in, and it tends to work incredibly well. It creates disproportionate attention, a disproportionate memory, ultimately disproportionate salience which has a disproportionate effect on sales effects.

The third one is that they are all rule-breakers. The rule-breakers are ruling. They are looking at every category convention, they’re looking at the behaviours that exist in the category and from competitors, and they’re challenging what is outdated, inappropriate or just not right for that brand or that category. And they’re doing it dramatically. They’re doing it creatively, and they’re doing it to court attention at every touchpoint, be it packaging, be it PR, be it the product shape itself. They’re courting attention by breaking down category convention, and it means they stand out. These brands are outstanding at standing out.

What’s your favourite interview or case study from Overthrow II?

Vitsoe closes its stores on Black Friday.

I love the Vitsœ case study. It's a furniture company that believes people should live better, with less, that lasts longer. It's a very decisive attitude. They're against the disposability of other brands and that throwaway culture. I love that definition of their beliefs. It's really clear. And their marketing activities align with it, like closing their stores on Black Friday. It's brilliant. What's interesting is another challenger brand in that category, Ikea has the exact opposite idea. Vitsoe is all about no throwaway and Ikea gives an opportunity to change moment to moment because of their accessible price point. And you might get people that buy from both. Many people I'm sure will, depending on what product it is, what life stage, what they might be thinking presently, what value they place on the individual item. So, having an idea that people can move from mindset to mindset is powerful, and it just shows why challenger brands do work very successfully in broad audiences, just by being very decisive. An outdated idea of media planning would say let's find the audience that this would resonate with and then figure out how to target and reach them in the media. Whereas challengers define the attitude but then go broad with the audience because people exhibit different mindsets at any time. It understands that people are not static, unchanging people that exist in one customer audience and exist in that alone. We change moment to moment, and that's why standing for something is important to a broad audience, not just a defined set.

What advice would you give to someone wanting to take a challenger approach in their media plan?

Getting a great brief is everything. Typically we might receive a brief from a brand that doesn't necessarily consider themselves a challenger, is happy with the status quo as it exists, and the market is serving them well. And the brief might be something like we want to grow market share by X per cent or we want to increase sales revenue, or we want to protect our price premium. The media response to that will be very different to if we get a brief that says, we want to end slavery in the chocolate supply chain. So, having that defined challenge that you're going after in the brief, is going to lead to far more creative media executions than one that says we want to grow market share. So, define that attitude, what you're challenging, what you're up against, or what you want to see change.

My favourite example of that is Oatly. They're incredibly bold and brave in their execution and if you are going to be bold and brave with what you stand for, then there's no point in having tiny vehicles to communicate your message. It's why we'll see massive ads in key areas or absolute domination in Tube Stations, for example, and they are a small player in a massive category because they're up against the whole milk industry. They behave with the authority and unending confidence of a brand that wants to make a radical change, and it's a great example of putting effectiveness first because you might think that in the interests of efficiency, you'd try and get your message out in smaller formats. But they're not interested in that. They're interested in a wholesale change of attitude and thought-provoking messaging, and they do that through very aggressive, large placements.

Oatly’s dramatic takeover of the London tube.

A non-challenger approach to media is one that we'd probably define as playing it safe, which is using the various media channels that are available to us but doing so in a traditional way. It would measure share of voice, cost per GRP, those kinds of metrics that are relatively easy to measure that leans a brand more towards what they're trying to achieve in terms of reach and, ultimately, sales. A challenger approach focuses single-mindedly on an outcome, and the outcome would then dictate whether a media channel is appropriate or not. If it is, it's then a question of how to use it creatively to enlarge the message. So, at that point, you'll start finding very dramatic uses of media channels. That might be big or provocative or brilliantly timed with cultural events or news articles that have just come out, so that rapid turnaround of messaging to jump on things that align with what they stand for. So, a challenger media plan is more dynamic, it's more creative, and it's more dramatic.