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a little controversy. In a sense their enemy is
not Goliath, Inc. but Vanilla, Inc.: they use wit
and humour to challenge complacency and the apparent comfort of the bland and middle-of-the- road, with all the safe corporate speak that can come with that. Their currencies are salience, talkability, the media spotlight – and perhaps an amused gasp of disbelief. Think of South Africa’s Nando’s, Ireland’s Paddy Power, or Australia’s
V Energy marketing – and indeed the entire category of energy drinks, perhaps.
How close to the wind the Irreverent Maverick chooses to sail defines whether they are genuinely happy to polarise the world, at least at the outset, or whether they appeal to a little of the irreverent in everybody. But they exude the kind of energy and character most of us would, inside, like more of. This culture often starts very early with the brand. Robbie Brozin, co-founder of Nando’s, talks of how when they started they could only afford
to run every ad once, so they needed it to have the same impact from running once as if it had run 10 times. Which meant that each ad needed to create its own fame. Being an Irreverent Maverick was not, for them, a casual choice of personality, but a strategic necessity to make their limited budget work 10 times harder.
118 Irreverent Maverick