Summary
This book expounds a new generation of challenger brands and explores an illustrative set of current examples from 'The Irreverent Maverick' to 'the Democratiser'. It acts as a simple guide, covering the 10 key types and attributes of challenger brands, including practical models on how challenger brand can make the desire impact in the marketplace and drive sales.

Summary
A report from the BRITE Conference on Branding, covering a presentation from Julie Cottineau, founder of BrandTwist. Cottineau discusses her experience at Virgin USA, and offers five ways brands large and small can bring ideas to market with impact. These are: Make it personal, Look at old problems from new angles, Be useful, Live in beta and Fail smarter.

Summary
The brand manager at a food company asks: 'What examples are there of a brand leader in a category successfully defending itself against a major branded competitive launch?' Feldwick says it is harder to find a brand leader that hasn't successfully defended itself. Those brand leaders that have disappeared have usually done so because of fundamental changes in the market paradigm, such as technological change, which the company proved unable to keep up with.

Summary
This briefing, written by author Adam Morgan, offers an overview of the history, theories and key trends related to Challenger Brands. It discusses Morgan's theory of challenger brands, with reference to the key characteristics of this type of business. It also highlights future issues for the challenger model including in the developing markets and online.

Summary
The presentation of Eric Ryan, co-founder of Method Products, to the ANA's 2009 Masters of Marketing annual conference is the focus of this report by Warc's U.S. editor, Geoffrey Precourt. Ryan outlines the innovative marketing techniques used by this all-natural-ingredient cleaning brand to take on the budgetary might of established rivals. Key aspects of Method's approach include collaboration with employees and customers, clever packaging design, close relationships with retailers and pop-up "detox stores".

Summary
IPA commissioned research conducted by Nielsen into FMCG brands proves that advertising share of voice (SOV) drives share of market. The research looked at the impact of brands’ SOV in the first year on sales over a two-year period. The key metric that drives growth is excess share of voice (ESOV) and Nielsen found that across 123 FMCG brands, 10 points of ESOV produced 0.5 share points of growth per year. The bigger the brand the greater the impact. SOV is an important marketing effectiveness issue and, in the current global recession, there is an opportunity to root accountability in the robust metric of ESOV.

Summary
We are accustomed to thinking of challengers as small, often new, entrants taking on existing and occasionally complacent market and brand leaders. However, whilst the David and Goliath scenario is a familiar story, what if you’re a Goliath that's big and in danger of being seen as a bully? Goliaths, argues Adam Morgan, should think of creating monsters bigger than themselves to battle on behalf of their consumers.

Summary
While some marketers begin to start the uphill struggle against restricted promotional budgets, some brands have always had to operate on limited resources. In this article, Adam Morgan argues that rather than develop tactics based on past economic downturns, there are five valuable strategies that can be adapted from a new generation of 'challenger brands'. Firstly, at a time where attention is at a premium, brands need to be visible, not only through advertising, but also in their packaging and the product/service they provide. A second approach is simply to be 'startlingly useful', something most clearly illustrated by Google. Challenger brands can also thrive by creating a conflict against a chosen 'monster', which could be other brands, historical characteristics of the category, or even social tendencies. Rethinking traditional approaches to media, both online and offline, can also help differentiate challenger brands. Finally, people in charge of marketing brands should also take personal responsibility for making sure their product is always being talked about, rather than leaving it to a PR agency.

Summary
Established brands embarking on digital marketing must think like start-ups: this means taking calculated risks and being innovative in order to connect with consumers. A brand that fails to create a continuing mutually beneficial conversation with consumers online will be ignored. Brands must listen to consumers before speaking to them; this means finding where the conversations are going on and listening to the chatter in general. Consumers want to participate, not just be talked to, so brands should share honest points of view in a human voice. Brands should also be authentic and honest, and try and understand how they are perceived by consumers, and use this to create entertainment, education or experience that reflects those perceptions. Brand owners also need to keep feeding the conversation with new ideas.

Summary
At $93bn a year, the U.S. beer market is big enough to tempt overseas drinks groups. Can Asian brands Tiger, Sapporo and Tsingtao use the Beijing Olympics as a platform to win over the U.S. beer consumer? This article examines how brands are allying with groups such as Anheuser-Busch to try and crack the U.S. market, and includes sizing data on the U.S. imported beer sector.