Where are Asia's challenger brands?

In Asia, though, a true local challenger brand is harder to identify. Markets tend to be more complex in terms of accepted social and cultural conventions. The often brash and cheeky attitude of the challenger fails to resonate among many Asian consumers, especially in countries that place strong emphasis on traditional virtues such as generational respect. This is changing, although with typical Asian characteristics.

In China, for example, brands are more likely to be followers than they are challengers. Local brands tend to ape the business models of their global counterparts. Whether this is in terms of advertising strategy, branding or even product design, the emphasis is more on being the same - and ultinately as successful - as their MNC rivals.

But there are brands in China that are doing things a little differently. Sports brand Li Ning built its market position not by differentiating itself from the likes of Nike and adidas but by recreating their most obvious marketing strengths, even down to suspiciously similar logos and marketing slogans.

In 2008, though, as the two sports giants intensified their marketing efforts in China, Li Ning fell more into the underdog role, in particular riding on the back of growing patriotic sentiment and positioning itself as the domestic challenger to the might of its foreign competitors.

A similar case can be observed in the auto market. Whereas the majority of automakers are happy manufacturing less expensive - but strikingly similar - versions of Western and Japanese models, BYD Auto has set itself up in the market as China’s environmentally friendly alternative.

BYD’s challenger status has been helped by the fact that it is owned by Wang Chuanfu, a Chinese equivalent of Richard Branson or Steve Jobs, who has managed to create much noise in the media, both around himself and the BYD brand.

Malaysia, meanwhile, is also home what is perhaps the ultimate challenger brand - budget carrier AirAsia, which pitted itself against the might of Malaysian Airlines through agressive marketing, and a charasmatic and highly visible owner and CEO.

Also in Malaysia, local telco DiGi plays on its challenger status compared with the more established player Celcom. DiGi’s CEO Johan Dennelind approaches the market with typical challenger bravado: “We dare to be different, we have the guts to try new things,” he said last year. “With the DiGi brand you can do that because it is unconventional.”

Indeed, if the typical criteria for a challenger brand are observed - ambitious, creative and nimble, with a strong sense of purpose and the confidence to do things differently - then Asia is not short of interesting challengers

While they may not always be challengers in the traditional David versus Goliath sense, they are still managing to create market buzz through a number of tactical and strategic stances that position their brands against time-served category leaders.

Industry comments:

Dheeraj Sinha, chief strategy officer at Bates 141 in India:
“In Asia, many emerging markets have opened up in a big way lately, and so there is a huge amount of brand activity in every category. Given the stiff competition, there is often little differentiation to be played upon within categories.

At the same time, there is a lot of change in society and culture across most of Asia. Therefore, the fast changing cultures and societal values are the bigger hotbeds for challenger brands here, compared with the West (whose developed societies witness less change).

There, challenger brands compete by offering innovation in their category norms (like Apple). But in Asia , one approach challenger brands have taken is to challenge the way people live and think.”

Chris Reitermann, president at OgilvyOne in China:
“Every brand needs good doses of ambition and angst, and must think like a new kid on the block. Brands like Virgin have ‘challenger’ ingrained in their corporate DNA, and their businesses are built on challenging existing ones. At some point, most brands are challengers because these are usually the innovators.

Unfortunately, market forces often dictate the degree to which one can behave like a challenger. In a market such as China, one can be a challenger but in most segments it cannot be done without a serious level of investment.

Creativity and competitive drive can help a brand stand out and spend less on buying awareness, but history has shown that spend often wins the day.”

Andy Wilson, head of planning Singapore at BBDO/ Proximity:
“One of the greatest examples of a challenger brand is Avis. It was creative in a different way as it went underneath the strategy to get ahead.

The contract Bill Bernbach established with Avis in the 1960s shows that he was not just a creative genius, but an inspired business lead as well.

With ever-diminishing resources to satisfy ever-increasing client needs, we could use a bit more innovation at this end of the value-chain.

All existing contracts are financial in nature, with no recourse to the type of work needed, or to how clients and agencies should bring their different expertise to create great work.”

Adam Morgan, founder of eatbigfish:
“The misconception about challengers is that they are always challenging a bigger player, or equally that they are always rebels that are overturning every convention.

It is certainly true that challengers need to challenge something in the category in order to succeed - it could be a culture around the category or a convention of the category - but its really about the way in which they challenge it.

With Asian brands in particular, you can’t succeed with the Western model.

If, for instance, you aretrying to succeed in India, you can’t do it by simply challenging the generation above you; that’s not culturally acceptable. So you must challenge conventions in a different way.”

Got a view?
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This article was originally published in the 8 April 2010 issue of Media.