I once reported to a CEO who urged me to “copy insurgent brands” because, he claimed, they launch products with bold claims, generate attention from influencers, and their campaigns effortlessly go viral (He wished!).
Insurgents seem to defy convention. They convert devoted communities and achieve extraordinary visibility with modest resources.
But it’s false to assume their success comes from marketing techniques that can be imitated by more established brands, because it comes from structural conditions that cannot.
My first reaction was undiplomatic—though in my defense, he was a rather annoying CEO. “A mature brand trying to behave like an insurgent is like people like us trying to pass as twentysomethings by borrowing clothes,” I said.
Eventually, the CEO told me what he truly had in mind: “Couldn’t we be more agile, creative…and cheaper?”
Later, I regretted my patronizing pushback. The real question we should have discussed is: What can mature brands learn from insurgent brands, without pretending they are one?
An insurgent is not just a large company at an earlier stage of life: it is a different kind of business, where patient capital and flexible small-scale manufacturing can support losses, long payback, and low volumes.
Mature brands can’t just wish away their own nature and the complexity of their businesses.
A different model, not merely a different style
I saw that difference firsthand during market visits alongside the Sipsmith Gin team, which had one brand.
At the time, I was the CMO of the large company that had acquired them, managing a wide portfolio. The Sipsmith marketing team travelled with their founders and embodied Sipsmith in every conversation with local teams. That intensity was real and made possible because it was so focused.
But because I had many brands to grow profitably and investments to allocate, I had to make trade-offs between multiple competing priorities. A team that manages a brand portfolio simply cannot identify with every brand with that same level of intensity.
The marketing logic is also different.
Insurgents often begin with a polarizing proposition aimed at a narrow, culturally consistent group of consumers. They want intense relevance in a niche, so they can optimize their marketing for depth rather than breadth.
By contrast, mainstream brands need distinctiveness, but must remain relevant to a broad population, and sustain repeat purchases. For these companies, owning a niche may barely move the P&L.
And insurgent brands have the luxury of finding that niche.
