While Australian consumers see supermarket stalwarts Coles and Woolies locked in tit-for-tat combat, they’re essentially viewed as variations on an oh-so-familiar theme. They each reinforce existing conventions in the market by battling for primacy on the same buying factors. 

In contrast, Aldi is seen by customers as a significant departure from convention in terms of product range, store format, merchandise mix and marketing. Its brand personality, encapsulated by its “Good Different” promise is assertively alternative. And this is registering, in a positive way, with consumers.

For the past 13 years, Principals has conducted the Brand Alpha study, research that gauges the attitudes of consumers towards brands in the Australian market. In the most recent Brand Alpha study, an attribute the Aldi brand was especially associated with was, “feels free to be original”.

Aldi’s free spirit lends it confidence as a brand that’s far greater than its market share. It feels like a serious contender because it’s running its own confident race. While the brand welcomes direct comparison with the majors on price and value, it seeks to defy comparison with them on practically everything else.

It’s a strategy clever third-way challengers are embracing. Other brands strongly associated with the “free to be original” trait include iiNet, the lovable tech nerd versus Telstra and Optus. Then there’s airline Jetstar, the colourful value leader versus Qantas and Virgin. Netflix is the personalised entertainment leader versus Foxtel and free-to-air and Bank Australia fearlessly asserts its ‘clean money’ beliefs versus the big four and last century ‘friendlies’.

These third-way challengers are brands with an almost irrepressible personality. They really know themselves and where they stand, so they convey a self-confident feeling that’s different, compared to brand leaders who are much more restrained and predictable in their behaviour. Third-way challengers are also skilled at taking the friction out of the brand experience, carving out a role in people’s lives with a real sense of ease and positivity. 

It’s a clever approach for retailers looking to take on incumbents in their category. To best leverage the tactic, start by identifying the two category leaders and the buying factors they choose to emphasise that define the category status quo. What have people come to expect from those brands and how can you subvert expectations to forge your path?

If, as a challenger brand, you break all the rules that ‘loudmouths’ in your sector reinforce and choose instead to offer customers a refreshing, different experience built around one or two striking points of difference, then that rule book might just start to be rewritten on terms more favourable to your brand.