Every great brand has an enemy. Not a competitor, an enemy. Apple had boring conformity. Nike had inertia. Patagonia has overconsumption. The enemy isn't a company you're trying to beat. It's a worldview you're trying to defeat.
Every great brand has an enemy.
I've been thinking about this because I just finished positioning work for a client who makes genuinely excellent products but has zero point of view. Their brand says 'we make great stuff' in seventeen different ways without ever saying why it matters or what they're fighting against. It's pleasant and completely forgettable.
When I push clients to name their enemy, they get uncomfortable. 'We don't want to be negative.' 'We want to be inclusive.' 'We don't want to alienate anyone.' But the paradox of trying to appeal to everyone is that you inspire no one. An enemy gives your community something to rally against together.
The enemy doesn't have to be a villain. It can be a status quo, a category norm, a cultural assumption. Glossier's enemy was the idea that beauty requires expertise. Slack's enemy was email's inefficiency. These aren't aggressive positions. They're galvanizing ones.
Find your enemy. Not your competitor. Not your opposite. Your enemy: the thing in the world that shouldn't be this way, that your brand exists to fix. If you can't name it, you don't have a brand. You have a product.
Barnaby just knocked my pen off the desk in what I'm choosing to interpret as agreement.