Strong brands stand for something, and against something
Salesforce fought installed software with a "No Software" campaign. Patagonia fought throwaway consumerism with a "Don't buy this jacket" ad. Find your brand's enemy and desire.
Get the tool >When every supplier sounds the same, buyers compare on price.
Quality, innovation, partnership. Most B2B websites promise the same three things, and buyers can't see the difference.
A brand that names its enemy gives buyers a side to pick. Conflict hooks the brain, a shared enemy builds loyalty, and defeating a threat motivates more than gaining something.
The enemy is never a person or a competitor. It's a root problem: a bad habit, confusion, waste, an unfair industry standard, the outdated way of doing things.
Four steps to your line
- Name the changeWhat changes for the customer after using the product.
- Pick the desireFive desires from the SCARF model: status, certainty, autonomy, relatedness, fairness.
- Choose one enemyIt only works if it passes all five checks, so the brand never badmouths anyone.
- Take it to every touchpointOne line, repeated in sales talks, proposals, service replies and the product itself.
Pick the fight your brand can win.
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Brands that picked a fight, and won
Dove
Salesforce
Wise
Work with someone who sees the whole picture.
Ajna Csoma is a brand strategist, brand marketer, and keynote speaker with a track record of helping businesses build brands that work, not just look good on paper.
She bridges classical brand strategy (positioning, brand personality, storytelling, differentiation) with AI-first execution and MarCom, MarTech expertise across European B2B markets. Not just strategy. Not just activation. Both, built to work together.
Most brand consultants deliver strategy. Most marketers execute tactics. Most AI specialists build tools. Ajna does all three, and builds the systems that connect them.
She is the builder of OnBrandi, the AI brand brain, and the author of A brand earns you twice. She speaks at AI and brand conferences.
Frequently asked questions
A brand enemy is the root problem a brand fights on behalf of its buyers: a systemic issue, a bad habit, confusion, waste, an unfair industry standard or the outdated way of doing things. It is never a person or a named competitor. Donald Miller calls it the villain in Building a StoryBrand, Marty Neumeier calls it the enemy in ZAG.
A brand stands for a desire its buyers have, and against the enemy that blocks it. Patagonia stands for protecting the planet, and against throwaway consumerism. Salesforce stood for freedom from IT burden, and against installed on-premises software. One desire and one enemy, repeated at every touchpoint, is how a brand becomes more than a product.
When B2B buyers can't see the difference between suppliers, they compare on price. A named enemy shows the difference in one sentence. Conflict hooks the brain, a shared enemy builds loyalty and a mission people join, and defeating a threat is more motivating for the human brain than gaining something (loss aversion).
Only when the enemy is a person, a named rival or the buyer. A good enemy passes five checks: it blocks the desire, buyers already feel it, the brand can prove the opposite, it's not a person or a named rival, and the buyer isn't the villain.
SCARF is a model by David Rock that names five fundamental needs driving how people react in any interaction: status, certainty, autonomy, relatedness and fairness. In brand experience, when a brand provides them, people experience them as rewards; when a brand takes them away, it is a punishment. The tool uses these five needs as the starting point for the brand desire.
No. You can work with your own brand, a well known brand with public information available, or an imagined one.
Repeat it, at every touchpoint, not only in content: sales talks, proposals, the website, customer service replies, even invoices. The key idea stays the same, the expression follows what people talk about. If the brand says something different in every channel, that's what Brand Fix finds and fixes, across 21 areas, in 2 to 4 weeks. OnBrandi, the AI brand brain, keeps the line consistent wherever the team and its AI tools write.