Culture: The Engine That Powers Challenger Brands

If you want to build a powerful brand, don’t start with marketing. Start with culture.

That may sound counterintuitive coming from a guy who runs an advertising agency, but after decades of helping challenger brands succeed, I can tell you without hesitation: the strongest brands aren’t built on clever taglines or bigger ad budgets. They’re built from the inside out, starting with culture.

At LOOMIS, we’ve long believed in the unique power of challenger brands—companies that, by definition, aren’t category leaders, but who behave like they are. They disrupt convention. They refuse to play by the old rules. And they leverage every advantage they have to punch above their weight. But the most powerful, uncopyable advantage any company can have is a great culture.

Take, for example, the regional mattress retailer we worked with during the depths of the Great Recession. The economy was tanking, consumer spending was drying up, and his 30-store chain was struggling to stay afloat. He didn’t have the money to outspend competitors, and his advertising was indistinguishable from the rest of the category. But once we looked under the hood, we found something extraordinary.

It starts with an insight.

This company had a culture that prized customer experience above all else. Their sales process was consultative, not pushy. Their staff was trained relentlessly to help customers find the right mattress, not just the most expensive one. And because of that culture, their return rate was practically nonexistent—an unheard-of feat in an industry infamous for buyer’s remorse.

It was a bold, disruptive move that screamed challenger brand. And it worked. Sales jumped 30% in the first month, then climbed even higher in the months that followed. When the category leader tried to copy the offer, they were swamped with returns. Why? Because they hadn’t earned it. They didn’t have the culture to back it up.

This wasn’t about advertising. It was about alignment

Culture enabled a policy that no one else could match, and that policy became the foundation of the brand’s differentiation.

This is what so many companies get wrong. They treat culture like it’s an HR function and brand like it’s Marketing’s problem. But the best companies—especially the best challenger companies—understand that culture is brand. One is internal, the other external. But they’re two sides of the same coin.

Great culture drives consistency. It creates alignment between what a company says and what it does. That integrity builds trust. And trust builds brands.

That’s why we argue that Human Resources and Marketing should be sharing an office.

Culture and brand aren’t just connected—they’re co-dependent. One fuels the other. When your employees believe in what they’re doing and how they’re doing it, your brand becomes magnetic—from the inside out.

But you can’t deliver on a brand promise without a culture that supports it. So if you’re running a company—especially a company trying to compete with bigger, better-funded rivals—your most important job isn’t writing the next campaign. It’s building a culture so strong and intentional that your brand becomes undeniable.

Because in the end, brands with the best culture win.

MIKE SULLIVAN is president and CEO at LOOMIS, the country’s leading challenger brand advertising agency and a top Dallas advertising agency for digital, social, mobile and user experience. For more about challenger branding, advertising, and marketing, leadership, culture, and other inspirations that will drive your success, visit our blog BARK! The Voice of the Underdog and catch up on all of our posts.

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