When building a creative campaign strategy, teams must decide how they will frame your value props. More often than not, the answer is to affirm and celebrate them. Using humor, endorsements or testimonials to highlight product benefits just feels right. And in many cases, it's the best call.

However, there is a different, grittier approach. One that goes against most team's instincts. Yes, I'm talking about calling out an enemy and getting in the ring. I know this may raise some pulses, but before dismissing it, remember that enemies come in many forms.

And they have a hidden superpower.  

Sometimes an enemy is an idea. Conformity, inauthentic, mass-produced, unhealthy, cowardly, out-of-touch. No business wants to be lumped into one of these categories. If someone were to accuse you of being one of them, you would be offended. This is because a specific kind of fear has been triggered; the fear of not being special. This signifies failure. To succeed, we spend most of our lives proving that we are special. To our spouses, children, parents, friends, teachers, bosses, clients, colleagues.

It's this automatic emotional response that makes these enemies so useful. We are pre-wired to oppose them. They offend us because they threaten our identity. Brands, of course, are in the identity building business. And a great way to invent meaning for your brand is to yoke your competitor–either explicitly or implicitly–to one of these ideas. As long as the link is rooted in truth, your brand will gain moral high ground with consumers. Call it contrast or conflict or a foil–the end result is the same: your brand benefits.

From Nike to Apple to Airbnb, many industry leaders have used an enemy to demonstrate who they are. For decades, Nike has insisted that we "Just Do It." To "not do it" is to commit two of the seven deadly sins which brings another key feature of an enemy to light: you don't have to mention an enemy for it to exist.

Other times, the best enemy for your business is the category leader. Maybe you've found white space and build a superior product in a segment that's done very little innovation. Exploit this weakness, recruit their customers, and draft off their market dominance like BodyArmor did to Gatorade. Just make sure that you're bullet-proof because there's honey in the hive, but there's also bees. Angry bees.

But, let's not forget the hidden superpower of an attack: we are drawn to conflict. (See all of social media). I learned this firsthand early in my career making entertainment franchises for television networks like A&E and Warner Bros. Discovery.

As a storyteller, you quickly learn through ratings and experience that audiences are drawn to rich character development, high-stakes conflicts and satisfying resolutions.  Nielsen's data and psychographic studies have made this paradigm clear. However, these truths go beyond traditional storytelling- they’re fundamental to how we evaluate the brand choices we are presented with every day.

Hold them Accountable

Upstart beverage brand BodyArmor understands this dynamic. Since its 2011 inception, the sports drink has framed its entire positioning against the Gatorade Empire. BodyArmor's social media is a kaleidoscope of Gatorade slander memes, denouncing their signature neon liquid to a cloying drink of the past. 

It's a David vs. Goliath narrative, but the twist is: Rob Gronkowski and J.Lo are on David’s side. And despite Gatorade's overwhelming market dominance and billions in marketing spend, it's been a remarkably effective strategy. By painting their incumbent rival as a stodgy dinosaur peddling neon corn syrup, BodyArmor has established itself as a virtuous, healthier, and more modern alternative. Sales, as a result, skyrocketed 200% over four years, reaching over $500 million before selling the majority stake to Coca Cola for $5.6 billion.

BodyArmor's Gatorade-bashing represents the "Reverse Ogilvy" philosophy - rather than strictly promoting their own product's superiority, they spotlighted Gatorade flaws and positioned themselves as the clear alternative. It's an approach countless brands have employed over the years to dethrone incumbents.

The Redirect

Even Apple, one of the world's biggest brand, owes its immense mythology to flogging its enemies. From Steve Jobs railing about IBM's oafish PCs as the embodiment of uncool conformity, to the legendary “Get a Mac” ad campaign depicting Microsoft users as frumpy losers, Apple's strategy made a meal out of a drab antagonist who looks vaguely like Bill Gates in his twenties.

Apple made the nerds look aloof and self-important while making the cool kids seem unstoppable. It's classic marketing redirection - using your rival's ubiquity against them, so their mainstream appeal becomes blandness personified.

Your Strength is Their Weakness

While I was at Airbnb, the largest home-sharing marketplace in the world, we were in full-scale combat with Hilton, Marriott and Hyatt. Time and again, we portrayed traveling like a tourist as a wooden, inauthentic way to experience another city.  The “Live There” campaign plays a montage of selfie sticks, Segway tours and hop-on-hop-off buses while sardonically saying, “Don’t go to Paris. Don’t travel to Paris. And, by all means, don’t do Paris.”  Guests are encouraged to live there instead.

Airbnb Plus followed by introducing a more luxurious tier with all the amenities of a hotel, but none of the blandness.  This gave skeptical customers the best of both worlds: the consistency of a hotel experience with the novelty of a unique home in a local neighborhood.  Adventures and Cooking campaigns took this one step further, presenting  immersive access to activities in the local communities that hotels simply couldn't reproduce at scale. 

Make It Up

Fighting an enemy is one thing, but manufacturing one is another.  And perhaps no company has been as deft at this as athletic apparel juggernaut Lululemon. Their "we were once awkward and that's okay" vibe has not only created a powerful sense of community, but it has also given these “outsiders” a platform to reject the traditional archetype of an athlete.

For over a decade, Lululemon has targeted wellness-curious suburbanites' insecurities about their local gyms being clique-ish nightmares. Each of their stores and pop-up yoga sessions essentially promises an escape from the judgmental jock bro-topia of traditional athletic brands. Their skyrocketing growth has flourished from fanning these flames; whether it’s a fictional "Mean Girls" antagonist to pledge allegiance against or an antidote to malaise in the “Feel” campaign.

In a Nutshell

Brand values become sticky when you put them on the winning side of a conflict. Whether it's painting rivals as gut-busting calorie bombs or tone-deaf gadget geeks, brands that deploy an "us vs them" narrative have repeatedly proven effective. It not only helps brands stake an identity, but it also provides consumers with a gratifying role to play in choosing a side.