Disruptive Marketing

“Disruption is all about risk-taking, trusting your intuition, and rejecting the way things are supposed to be. Disruption goes way beyond advertising, it forces you to think about where you want your brand to go and how to get there.” – Richard Branson

Disruptive marketing has different aspects – identifying an original business opportunity, serving an existing market in a novel way, adopting a completely unconventional approach to promotion. In all cases the traditional, tried and tested rules are cast aside and replaced with new, original ideas. In short, identifying a real world problem and turning this into a product or service opportunity that can be solved and promoted in a different, unanticipated or unexpected way, eg airbnb or Uber.

What do you need to be successful?  Creativity, courage, audacity, commitment, flexibility. For example, consider Nike, one of the dominant brands in the global sports and exercise industry. The slogan “Just Do It” says nothing at all about their products but it has become synonymous with their name and logo. You are considering purchasing one of their products, what does the packaging tell you?

However, smaller companies need to be aware of being just too creative, the image to be portrayed is very important. They should not lose sight of their core business objectives and need to be clear on what is being presented to ensure their niche is precisely articulated and understood by their audience. However this does not prevent them from adopting a disruptive approach.

So, tap into your market’s emotions or frustrations, use your imagination, discard the traditional behaviour and thought patterns, you might just be the next huge success!