Crisis in Branding: Why Challenger Brands Are Starting to Look the Same

I’m going to say something controversial: there’s a crisis in brand marketing.

The rise of the “cool, quirky, Gen Z challenger” has given us a tidal wave of brands that all look… well, identical.

Big bold colours, playful graphics, modern sans-serif fonts and a cheeky tone of voice. It’s fun when you’re the only one doing it. But walk the aisles of any trade show or supermarket right now, and you’ll see it everywhere.

Did you know? Only 5% of brands are actually considered unique by consumers*, so this isn’t true differentiation - it’s a marketing trend. (source: Lippincott 2024)

The very strategies that helped early challengers like Innocent Drinks, Charlie Bigham’s, or Oatly stand out are now being recycled by dozens of others.

And here’s the danger:

• Retail buyers will start to see a blur of brands fighting for the same “funky and disruptive” corner.

• Shoppers won’t be able to recall one pack from another at the moment of truth.

• Founders will end up competing on price instead of meaning.

Don’t get me wrong, I love some of these brands and I am excited to follow their journeys but great branding isn’t about chasing trends. It’s about creating a set of distinctive assets that drive brand awareness, create an emotional connection and ensure saliency.

Brands like BrewDog, Minor Figures, or Tony’s Chocolonely didn’t just follow the playbook — they wrote their own.

Did you know? Increasing your differentiation score by 10% can drive an increase of household penetration of 2.2%. That is approximately another 640,000 households buying and consuming your product. (Source: Kantar, 2023)

So if you are thinking of launching your own brand or are looking to scale: Don’t think:

• “How do we look like a challenger?”

But:

• “What’s the truth at the heart of our brand, and how do we bring that to life in a way no one else can?”