There! On the sidewalk! It’s a scooter… it’s a nuisance… it’s a Bird, and it’s the hottest transportation solution since Uber. Bird is a Santa Monica transportation startup that’s currently flying high with a $400 million valuation and thousands of users from California to DC.

Unless you’re fat, happy and alone at the top of your category, you’re likely battling giants of some kind. You’re a challenger. You’re forced to turn constraints into opportunities by outthinking the competition. 

SEO can make or break your visibility online—visibility which is imperative for every brand, challenger or industry leader. So what happens if your smaller brand just doesn’t have the beef of your larger competitors to magically appear first in search results?

Another installment in the Empowered Challenger interview series featuring Katie Forrest and Taylor Collins, Founders/Owners of EPIC Provisions, talking about going with their gut.

There are certain things you just don't hear people say. You don't hear anyone say they are going hunting for “animals." So why do marketers keep saying they are targeting “millennials?” 

Much like how we’ll match our own behavior to those around us, we like to know that other people are buying certain products or services before we buy in ourselves. Challenger brands build tribes of customers that think the way they do.

The art of rejecting the masses in order to attract your most ardent fans. We all have friends that aren’t a good fit in our lives. Guess what? Your brand faces the same problem. 

From infrastructural changes to car sharing to straddling buses, challenger brands are taking a stand against transportation methods that have remained largely unchanged since Henry Ford came rattling out of his garage. 

“The difference between ordinary and extraordinary is that little bit of extra.” When you make a powerful operational change that becomes part of your DNA, it can be the drive your team needs to try harder than their competition. 

How do empowered challengers make their brand ethos inherently sharable? Simple. By tapping into what customers of challenger brands care about most. Here are four truths challenger brands never forget when building tribes.

We’ve been thinking a lot about briefs lately. No, not the cotton variety with the stretchy waistband. There’s a misguided belief that an open-ended brief will liberate creative minds and lead to blue sky thinking.  

Crystal balls rarely work in marketing. None of us can truly forecast what’s going to happen 10 days from now. But there are eight percolating trends that are worth noting. And all indications are that they’re here to stay.