Enemies Are Important: Branding Your Website With the Right Villains
Villains are the perfect foil for heroes in movies. Their actions provide stark contrast and add depth to the hero’s character. This enemy usually takes the form of a human persona or a situation.
You cringe and fear for the heroine when the enemy hurts her. When she overcomes the enemy, you feel happy or relieved that order is restored. Hollywood movies usually end at this point: closure is secured by the elimination of the villain.
Films, businesses and websites are similar in the sense that they each have their own enemies. The weight-loss blog’s No.1 enemy is fat. The productivity guru’s enemy is clutter or poor time-management. The web designer’s enemy is ugly and non-user friendly site architecture.
Enemies sculpt your product or service focus. They help to define your goals. Remind your readers or buyers of the common enemy you face. Just as the movie-goer empathizes with the hero and admires her passion in the face of adversity, you want to connect with your audience in the same way.
Enemies provide fuel for collective action. They legitimate and make you relevant.
Emphasize Your Enemies and Refine Your Mission Statement
Political websites are good examples of sites which define their purpose via oppositional factors. Let’s take the example of Think Progress, a liberal political blog. It is a site that has unambiguously outlined its enemies:
When you subscribe to or read Think Progress, you get a liberal perspective on world issues and U.S politics. Bloggers on that site emphasize specific sound-bites from news reports and use them to frame their arguments against an opposing enemy, be it corruption or a extreme right-winger.
Conservative websites do exactly the same thing. They protest or fight against what they deem to be the wrong policy or way to interpret a specific event. When you read a conservative political blog, you acquire a different perspective.
All websites and businesses are defined by what they believe in and what they oppose. I’ve mentioned that what you don’t publish, defines your blog. I’ve also suggested that ideals/promises are important to attract and maintain an audience.
Now what you need to do is to emphasis your enemies. What are you fighting against and why? Make sure your audience knows what is your business’s purpose.
This is not about mud-slinging or insults. This is not about creating a straw-man. This is all about refining your mission statement and accentuating your perspective.
When people know what you’re fighting against, they know where you stand. And that matters when you want to gain both empathy and their patronage.
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I ran out of enemies to fight. Now I have to create new ones.
Bad blog designs are my enemy. It’s good that you aren’t one of them or I would have to sling some mud. Good article. Sometimes nothing brings people together better than having a common enemy to fight against. Then all other things they were fighting with between each other disappears so they can focus on the common enemy.
A bad tactic is a enemy….
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Great article.. Find your villain if you want to be a hero.
I noticed recently that I had been getting subtly political on my blog. My readers were picking up on it and I had inadvertently isolated a lot of readers. However, I had also gained a whole lot more with the strong opinions.
I wonder if there is a balance?
The Daily Minder
Creating a viilion or a hook is a greate way to write any article or blog.
I really try to live without enemies, life is more wonderful like this! I think there is no need to give energy to enemy-thinking.
Interesting point Sikantis. You are a rare breed.
TDM
Great observation I never realised that great blogs help fight demons..especially personal demons. They make us stronger and wiser. That knowledge will be a big help for writing my blog. I wasn’t aware my goal was to fight demons.
This is very insightful.
Sharing your advocacy in your webpage will give you more targetted readers and consequently, by having these people with the same beliefs and principles - you increase your chances of being linked organically to their blogs (if they have one).
Thank you for sharing this one.
Maki, once again you hit the nail right on the head, and see things so clearly that I am surprised and wonder why I did not see it myself. This will certainly help me refine my writing and my goals. Thanks!
Enjoyed your article - more “food for thought” on how to craft better web content.
Just about everyone is my enemy these days.
which means that not all enemy can be bad at all because they can serve us an inspiration.. Thanks for sharing
What great writing tips!!!
Super blog.
JJ
Great article. As they say . . . keep your friends close and YOUR enemies closer.
Very stimulating idea. Of course people who hate your enemy also become your friends. So try to make sure that your enemy is someone who many people also find is their enemy. That sounds like a recipe for success.
Great post, Maki. Very few marketers are savvy enough to think of - or understand - a straw man argument.
I love this post. Having an enemy also makes it easier to polarize your audience and get them to pick a side. A great force for creating user generated content.
My site focuses on our biggest enemy, the pharmaceutical industry, or what we refer to as Big Pharma. They are the perfect target.
Maki, great point. I’d guess your blog’s main topical enemies might be sites/tools that don’t make money online (but may claim that they do).
At Visionary Blogging, I write about honing the blog improvement and blogger self-improvement processes using skills that have to do with a sense of vision. So my enemies are things that obscure vision - ignorance, lack of focus, distraction, lack of creativity, information overload, poor time management, laziness, apathy, etc.
So I should probably make that more clear in the design of my blog as well as its content. Thanks for the motivation!
This actually fits in so well with a video I’m trying to create. I’ve been trying to define exactly the story I want to tell, for this key defining video for the business. I realize that it needs a good villain that everybody (well, not everybody — just everybody in our target audience) can be against. It helps bond your audience with you and with each other.
Thanks for the clarifying thoughts! (-:
As written in Primal Branding: Create Zealots for Your Brand, Your Company, and Your Future by Patrick Hanlon, every brand/product/idea/community has Pagans, or as they were called here: enemies. Along with brand loyalists, come those that don’t support the brand.
All of this talk about enemies helps define your company or whatever–it is just as important to know what you are not, as to know what you are. Once you identify that, you may discover new opportunities and reach people you never could have otherwise.
originally posted on sphinn however it seems the real conversation is happening here -
1. enemies = competition?
2. while enemies can define you/your business is that how your really want to define yourself? At the end of the day, I firmly believe you must watch your enemies but never over-react to them. Stay on your own path and continue doing what you feel is right - don’t lose yourself in the battle… you will most defn lose your way in the long run.
Wow, this is such a good idea! Thank you very much, and the timing was excellent too!
@Vinh Le
Absolutely, nothing unites an audience like a common enemy or cause.
@ The Daily Mind
It’s never good to go into politics on your blog unless of course you’re a political blog or you know how to use politics as a bait to get traffic. It don’t think it matters that much that you alienate some readers. Blogging is after all, an expression of your opinions. It is good to be authentic but of course, try to be civil and open to criticism as well.
@ Fitz , What is, Deanna
You’re welcome!
@ Easton
Those sound like good enemies to me!
@ Deborah
That sounds like an interesting book to read. Great points as well… thanks for sharing!
@ Matt
I think there’s nothing really wrong with defining yourself via established enemies, like you said, as long as you don’t lose yourself in the battle. The example I gave in my post (Think Progress) was the perfect way of how a site unite its readers towards common enemies. It’s quite positive because they are all passionate about what they do.
@ Everyone else
Thanks for the comments!
This is an excellent post! And a great way to establish yourself and your branding by the power of your enemies and what they are doing. Many people miss this, thanks for the post!
Maria
Thanks for the tip. I’ll definitely take your advice!
Well said!! could not have agreed more!! and this is not true just on the internet it applies to almost everything.
http://www.gadgetgyan.com
Thanks for the great post. I am my own worst enemy though.
Interesting post.
Thanks for sharing.
Thanks for the tip, this isn’t something I really thought about in this magnitude.
A recent issue by Jay Abraham and Rich Schefren, (Maven Matrix Manifesto) said that to create yourself as a market leader, you needed to be polarizing. Essentially, set yourself apart from the rest by your strong opinions.
This seems to follow what you are saying here. A discussion of that manifesto is found in five parts beginning at http://slideshare.net/worstellr/maven-matrix-exposed01
There’s a decent review of Rich Shefren and this manifesto at http://marketerreview.wordpress.com/2008/03/05/the-maven-matrix-manifesto-a-guide-to-self-branding/
Very interesting mindset. Thanks for a unique way to look at the thing. Charrrrrrrrrrrrge!!
Good reading. Helped me a lot and brought some new ideas to my head on how to advertise my blog
I’d have to agree with Matt McGowan further up here in the comments. Although, I believe that sharing a common “cause” with your readers can be a powerful motivator to action.
great post! i’ve always felt that it’s as important to know what you aren’t going to do as much as it is about what you do. when you’ve set your boundaries, then you know exactly where you’re headed!
Yet another great post Maki.
Just wanted to add that in my view, focusing on your enemies is only really useful if the idea is to improve yourself. I think you appreciate this and sum it up perfectly when you write…”This is not about mud-slinging or insults. This is not about creating a straw-man. This is all about refining your mission statement and accentuating your perspective.”
Spread betting
Yet another great post Maki.
Just wanted to add that in my view, focusing on your enemies is only really useful if the idea is to improve yourself. I think you appreciate this and sum it up perfectly when you write…”This is not about mud-slinging or insults. This is not about creating a straw-man. This is all about refining your mission statement and accentuating your perspective.”