by Adam Morgan (Author)
Most marketing and branding books fall into one of two camps: either they are about leaders or they assume that brands can be managed by process alone. The Pirate Inside is different. It forwards the idea that brands are about people, and Challenger Brands are driven by a certain kind of person in a certain kind of way. Challenger Brands don't rely on CEOs or founders, but on the people within the organization whose personal qualities and approach to what they do make the difference between whether the brand turns to gold or falls to dust.
In line with this thinking, The Pirate Inside forwards two key questions: what does it take to be the driver or guardian of a successful Challenger Brand, and what are the demands made by this on character and corporate culture? Building on his answers, Adam Morgan then explores the critical issue of whether big, multi-brand companies can create Challenger micro-climates within their companies, and the benefits that they might achieve by doing so.
Back Jacket
This is a book for Necessary Pirates. People who have to leave 'the Navy' - the way their category and perhaps even their company has historically done things - in order to succeed.
In writing it, Adam Morgan has deliberately set out to research not just the legendary founders associated with iconic Challenger brands such as Diesel, but also the previously 'invisible' people that have been responsible for step-changing Challengers within larger, multi-brand corporations. By isolating common qualities and behaviour across the interviewees, he has harnessed for the first time insights into those aspects of ourselves we must encourage to achieve breakthrough as Challengers.
Drawing on these findings, The Pirate Inside argues that being a Pirate is not being an anarchist: it has its own disciplines. Real-life pirates had a code of conduct called The Articles: a different set of rules from those of the Navy, but a binding one all the same. And in the same way, Morgan offers advice on what the new behaviours for Marketing Pirates are: where they look for opportunity, for example; how they think about small budgets and limited distribution; how they productively push back against their superiors. And how they manage That Difficult First Year - when they have committed to a new direction, but the results have yet to prove them right.
The first part of The Pirate Inside sets out these behaviours, and shows how to apply them in the most productive way to become a Marketing Pirate and create step-change for your brand. Part Two moves on to explore 'Pirates within the Navy' - brand-centred subcultures within larger organizations without a founder - and explores how these Challenger micro-climates are best created and nurtured. Along the way Morgan examines and dismantles the 'Six Excuses for the Navy': the reasons we commonly give for not being the Pirate our brand needs us to be, such as: "But I don't have a founder", "But I don't have a large advertising budget" and "But my consumer doesn't want anything new in the category".
Every organization needs a little Constructive Piracy. Including yours. Welcome to The Pirate Inside, a new manifesto for how the marketeer and marketing-led company of the future will think and behave.
Author Biography
Adam Morgan is a leading world expert on Challenger brands: his first book, Eating the Big Fish: How Challenger Brands Can Compete Against Brand Leaders, has become a definitive text on the area, and been translated into eight languages.
Adam is one of five partners in the international brand consultancy eatbigfish, which specializes in applying the thinking of Eating the Big Fish and The Pirate Inside to companies and brands who want to think like Challengers; his clients have included Lexus, IKEA, Unilever and PepsiCo. He can be contacted on adam@eatbigfish.com.
Adam lives on a plane somewhere over the Atlantic.