‘You’re not Apple’: Mimicking giant brands isn’t strategy, it’s delusion
Four Pillars co-founder Matt Jones comes on board as a regular Mumbrella columnist with a razor-sharp recommendation to cut out delusions of grandeur and start thinking like a middle-power brand.
"Don't chase superpower status": Mark Carney's clear-eyed view of power works for brands too (Carney, L, Apple logo on a 1980s Mac Plus R)
I wrote my first political speech in 2002. I was 26. The topic was economic policy and, in hindsight, I have no idea what made anyone think I was qualified to help chart the future of the UK economy. But the Conservative Party was five years deep into the bleak midwinter of opposition, and the talent cupboard was bare.
Speechwriting, I learned quickly, is the hunt for a great line. One that cuts through the noise, echoes beyond the room, and maybe, just maybe, lodges itself in the culture. Most lines don’t, instead dying quietly in media inboxes and Reuters newsfeeds. But every so often, someone names reality so cleanly it sticks. And then it spreads.
Two weeks ago in Davos, Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney delivered one of those lines. Talking candidly about the state of the global economic order and the resurgence of great power politics, he called on world leaders to recognise that “We are in the midst of a rupture, not a transition”.
In a sea of Davos-speak, all smooth plutocrat euphemisms and tech-enabled optimism, Carney brought brilliant clarity. The global rules-based order? Broken. The polite fiction of a level playing field? Dead. Quoting Václav Havel’s “living within a lie”, he argued that middle powers like Canada, Australia and Britain need to stop pretending and start acting like what they are: strategically squeezed states in an age of great power dominance.
Carney’s speech was one for the ages. That might be a bit much to say for this article 🙂 but this is so spot on and insightful. Definitely one of the best articles I have seen written for quite a while, and spot on for today and the challenges we all face.
Thanks Corbs. I wasn’t aiming for generational impact, but glad the piece resonated!
Here’s your one liner that stuck with me Matt: “Big-power cosplay isn’t just unhelpful, it’s strategically lazy.”
I learned that lesson in what I fondly call the year of hard knocks for TANICA. In my case the challenge was overcoming engrained corporate ways of working when making a leap to my own start up. I burned through energy, cash and time on agency outsourcing, building bloated strategies, and distancing myself from the customer coal face through hiring other people, because that’s just how I used to do it as a big brand.
Since then I’ve learned to embrace the beautiful constraints of being small. The real power is having to be obsessed with execution. It’s strategy on the fly, not in a pretty deck. Zero barriers between what you know your brand needs to do, and the freedom to just get on and do it.
Tough lessons, learned the hard way. And I’m with you…unlearning the habits of big/corporate brand playbooks is a key part of the start-up journey.
This is great! A reminder to everyone that there isn’t a rule book to follow, just an opportunity to out think.
Agreed Nick. I often talk about the importance of using that thinking to develop a clear theory of growth…something you can hold onto as your business starts to shift and decisions come at you faster and faster. Thinking on their feet and being agile is one of the few advantages insurgent middle powers have against the muscular but slow-moving big powers of their categories!
Very insightful article with great truths.
Seeing an opportunity to create a product to do a job better than the present accepted offerings means taking risks and hastening slowly as the market applies such product and constantly monitoring the progress.
Using patents to protect the integrity is part of the cost structure.