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Tom vs Jerry. Peter Pan vs Captain Hook. Hamilton vs Burr. Zeus vs Hades.
Rivalries are the stuff of legends—memorable, compelling, and endlessly entertaining. They light our imaginations on fire and teach us an invaluable lesson in marketing: making enemies is a masterstroke of brand strategy.
What ‘Making Enemies’ Actually Means
Before we dive into the benefits of making enemies as part of your brand strategy, let’s get one thing straight about what we're not suggesting you do:
Ignore or attack customers who don’t like your brand.
Flout industry rules and regulations.
Call out competitors (unless you do it in a specific way... more on that later)
Buy a social media platform, re-platform hate speech, and insult your biggest advertisers (we're looking at you, cough bird app cough).
When we're talking about making enemies, we're not suggesting you pick a fight with competitors just for the sake of it. Instead, the real enemy is the generic, the bland, the dull sameness that makes customers’ eyes glaze over. Defining your brand's enemy might sound aggressive, but it’s really about focus: giving yourself something to push against. Brands with a clear enemy are much easier to build creative, impactful ideas around. For instance, if you're a dietician focused on repairing your client's relationship with food, your enemy could be diet culture, Weight Watchers, or "fitness influencers" who tout green juice as a meal replacement.
The Battle of the Brands
While we're not suggesting you go out and start an actual fight, defining your brand’s “enemies” requires careful thought and a deep understanding of your brand’s purpose. Unlike in comics, where all you need is a police scanner and an unwavering sense of justice, in branding, it's about revealing why your business exists beyond making a profit.
Here are three angles to make your brand strategy more distinctive:
1. The Threat to Your Cause
Every business has a core cause. For environmental tech companies, for instance, the cause might be to minimize the negative impact of commercial tech usage. In this case, your enemy is the threat to your cause—things like outdated supply chain practices, fossil fuel dependency, or the negative environmental impact of AI.
Word to the wise: beware of doom-mongering. While it’s crucial to have a cause worth fighting for, be mindful of balancing your messaging to avoid alienating your audience with too much negativity.
2. The Goliath to Your David
Everyone loves an underdog. In the customer journey, this translates into a preference for smaller businesses over large corporations. Studies show that 99% of customers can cite specific benefits of working with smaller businesses, such as better customer service and easier relationship building.
If you’re a newer brand, positioning your competitors as the Goliath to your David can be a powerful strategy. Think back to Apple’s Mac vs. PC campaign, where Apple stood as the agile challenger to Microsoft’s market dominance. This approach can position you as an alternative that audiences may not have considered before.
3. The Generic to Your Speciality
In many B2B sectors, complexity acts as a barrier to entry. Some companies innovate to provide simpler solutions, but simpler isn’t always better. If your audience is craving more sophisticated options, your enemy could be the generic, broad-appeal solutions that flood the market.
How Far Do You Go?
Now that you’ve got your enemy in your sights, there’s one more decision to make: how far are you willing to go in communicating this dynamic? Your approach will depend on:
Industry Rules: These include both official regulations and unofficial cultural norms. Breaking official rules is a no-go, but breaking cultural norms can help you disrupt the market and reach underserved audiences. Just remember to consider what makes sense and garners trust in your industry.
Your Customers: Some customer personas will be more engaged by certain rivalries than others. Small business owners, for example, might be more motivated by the David vs. Goliath narrative.
Appetite for Risk: If you're taking on a competitor, consider how they might react. If your business has a low appetite for risk, consider a more subtle approach that avoids naming competitors outright. If you’re more comfortable with risk and have legal backing, you can explore cheekier approaches.
We’re naturally stubborn when it comes to our opinions, often making decisions based on our existing beliefs. Over time, these beliefs may change, but the process is slow. However, there’s a quicker way to shift perspectives: Disrupt-Then-Reframe.
This technique has been a staple in advertising for decades. Consider MasterCard’s famous ‘Priceless’ campaign. It disrupts the idea that shopping on credit is just about buying things you can’t afford and reframes it as doing something special for loved ones. The result? A campaign that resonates deeply by creating and resolving conflict.
De Beers did the same thing for diamonds. Engagement rings weren't SOP until the 'A diamond is forever' campaign. Now, diamonds are an expectation with 90% of proposals in the Western world featuring one of the stones. As massive ethical concerns came to the forefront of public awareness, mined diamonds became the enemy, and ring crafters began promoting ethical sourcing, lab-created stones, and unique, lower-cost alternative stones.
Dare to Be Divisive
Let’s face it—you’re going to make enemies. It’s inevitable. But being bland and inoffensive is not the answer. You might as well make the right enemies and be intentional about it. Your job is to refine your approach based on your customers, industry culture, and strengths as an organization. Remember—you can’t and don’t need to please everyone. You want to stand out because you stand for something different.
The lesson? Every effective campaign needs conflict. Without it, your ads are less likely to change opinions or motivate action. Still, many marketing briefs avoid conflict out of fear of alienating potential customers. This cautious approach often leads to underwhelming results—ads that don’t get clicks and products that don’t sell. There's something worse than being a little bit controversial: being boring.
Your product needs an enemy, something it saves people from—whether it’s wasted time, hidden costs, harmful chemicals, plastic waste, vendor lock-in, uncertainty, anxiety, loneliness, or anything else holding them back.
So, pick a fight. Playing it safe might feel comfortable, but safe doesn’t change minds. It doesn’t turn spectators into customers. Safe is forgettable, and forgettable doesn’t sell.
Who is our nemesis, you might ask?
Here at SCSMM, it's Bro Marketers. You know who we're talking about. The guys who use pressure sales, talk down to their audiences, and tell you to "just cold DM 100 people a day." We're not about that life. We ARE about social media strategies that align with your business goals, are authentic to you, and feel good to execute. Non-scummy feeling sales, if you will. Who is your enemy?
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