PHD and eatbigfish Launch Challenger Strategies Podcast Series

Just a year on from the publication of PHD and eatbigfish's Overthrow II – 10 strategies from the new wave of challengers, the world is a very different place. As businesses and people alike revisit their plans for 2020, it feels more than ever that brands are at a crucial point of deciding how they can define – for themselves and their consumers – the coming months and years. 

PHD and eatbigfish have teamed up once again to launch 'Overthrow II: Challenger strategies for a new era', a six-episode podcast series to speak directly with brands and industry experts on the role of challenger strategies in this new era. 

'Challenger strategies for a new era', now available for streaming, touches on topics such as the importance of challenger thinking during (and following) a global crisis and where the opportunities are to build brand value through distinctive and creative advertising.

In the first episode of the six-part series, Overthrow II co-authors Malcolm Devoy, chief strategy officer for PHD EMEA, and Adam Morgan, founder of eatbigfish and host of the podcast series, discuss the changing landscape for challenger brands and which path brands are taking at this advertising crossroads – is it the useful and practical path, or the creative?

Throughout the episode, Devoy explains that up until life as we knew it ground to a halt with COVID-19, the media was seeing a natural uptick towards bottom-of-the-funnel activities. As discussed in Overthrow II, challenger brands who have seen disproportionate growth do not focus on bottom-of-the-funnel activities; rather, they prioritise creative-led and brand activity even in a crisis.

However, what we've seen so far, says Devoy and Morgan, is that many brands, in an effort to quickly adapt, are putting even further emphasis on bottom-of-the-funnel activities. During such a global crisis, there is a huge opportunity for brands to be distinctive and creative, but the problem for many brands is that these are the very elements that have been deemed unnecessary in this uncertain climate and cut from their advertising. 

For brands that are willing, there is a real opportunity to be innovative and to carve out a distinctive place in their category for the months and years to come. This opportunity, of course, lies in brand-led, upper-funnel comms.

Hear the rest from Adam Morgan and Malcolm Devoy with the first episode of ‘Overthrow II: Challenger strategies for a new era’, available now on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts or Audioboom. To purchase a copy of Overthrow II or to find out your challenger type, visit overthrow2.com.