Finding the Edge Cases for Your Brand

Image credit: iD Mobile​

Every brand wants to go BIG.

Big ideas. Big awareness. Big results.

Which is why, as an industry, we often default to chasing “mass appeal”, because if 90% of people are using the product or a service for a particular context, it might be seen as risky not to strengthen that association. But here’s a thought: what if your most memorable and conversation-starting ideas aren’t found at the centre of the bell curve… but on the edges?

Take our recent campaign for iD Mobile: Date-a-Roaming.

Yes, our creative team is very pleased with that pun.

But it’s more than just wordplay. It’s a campaign built on an unexpected finding - that a growing number of Brits are using dating apps while abroad to meet locals and make romantic connections on holiday. Sounds niche, right? Except it turns out that journalists find it a far more interesting use case for inclusive data roaming, compared to wayfinding and checking Tripadvisor for the best coffee shops. It’s culturally sticky, and bang on brand for a network with the UK’s most inclusive roaming destinations across all plans (50) 💅.

Edge Cases: The Real Power Users

How many times have we started a strategy document or an audience analysis with “the average user”?

But as Harvard professor Todd Rose argues in The Myth of Average, designing for the middle rarely works. Rose uses the example of the U.S. Air Force, which built its fighter jet cockpits to suit the ‘average pilot’. The result? A seat that didn’t quite fit anyone. It wasn’t until they redesigned for the extremes - the shortest, tallest, heaviest and lightest, that they built something that worked for everyone.

The lesson? The edge isn’t a fringe. It’s often where the magic happens. And in advertising, it’s where campaigns stop being wallpaper and start being watercooler conversation.

Three Great Edge Case Examples

We're not the first to fall in love with the weird and wonderful. Here are three other edge-case strategies that broke their categories wide open:

1. Mastercard – Priceless

From a kid’s signed baseball to a man buying a jar of sour gherkins for his son, Mastercard’s “Priceless” wasn’t built on everyday purchases, it was built on emotionally-charged, highly-specific moments that told bigger truths about what matters.

2. Crunchy Nut – The Trouble Is They Taste Too Good

Nominally a breakfast cereal. Actually a midnight snack. Or a post-coital craving. Or a guilty car binge. Crunchy Nut has spent decades advertising edge-case scenarios, all to hammer home one simple truth: they taste too good to save for breakfast.

3. Gatorade – Replay

Isotonic drinks are for elite athletes, right? Wrong. In their ‘Replay’ campaign, Gatorade trained up ageing former athletes to recreate high-school grudge matches decades later. It was unexpected, human, and completely irresistible - drawing packed-out stadiums, CNN headlines, and a 63% sales bump.

Why Edges Work

An edge case approach is worth considering if your brand is a bit stuck in the mud. They are especially helpful when your category has a formulaic approach to communicating. When everyone else is using the same tropes, the same media buys, the same tone, targeting the same usage occasions. Showing up differently isn’t just different for different’s sake, it’s a competitive advantage.

They’re also perfect for earned media. Journalists don’t write about what everyone’s seen before. Commentators don’t jump on the obvious. The stranger, stickier, more thought-provoking your edge cases, the more oxygen it gets from culture.

And in the best cases, edge thinking creates longer-term platforms. Mastercard’s “Priceless” and Crunchy Nut’s “They Taste Too Good” have fueled decades worth of fresh advertising.

So Is Edge Thinking Right for You?

Ask yourself:

Are you stuck in a formulaic, same-same category?

Do you need something ownable, talkable, and culturally fresh?

Could a niche, surprising, even provocative story be the thing that gets your brand talked about again?

If so, starting at the edge might be the most helpful place to begin. At Trouble Maker we have a Challenger Mapping process that we go through with all clients to find these hidden opportunities, blind spots and hypotheses. 

So go forth, step out onto the edge, find your weird, wonderful and inspirational uses of your product or service. Bring them to the surface. And ignore the naysayers who argue it's too niche or not relevant enough. Not everyone will replay a high school grudge match, or buy a jar of gherkins for their son, or meet a man in Naples through data roaming, but the storytelling and intrigue can connect with many more people than the well-trodden path ever could.