Challengers is for seekers of the less obvious – who long for original brand thinking. A space that celebrates minds that see differently, challenge convention and invent the unexpected. We share bold and brave brand thinking that excites the imagination and inspires creativity.
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What the Rebranding Process Actually Requires
Rebranding is not a creative exercise. It is a business investment with a creative dimension. Done in the right sequence, with the right commitment at each phase, it produces brands that earn pricing power, create real distinction, and compound in value over time.
Natsai Audrey Chieza Is Designing Alongside The Living World
Natsai Audrey Chieza founded Faber Futures on a proposition that remains genuinely radical: that design, applied to living systems rather than objects, can reshape not just what things are made of, but how, where, and for whom they are made.
The Inseparable Halves: Tomos Parry on Craft and Commerce
The chef-owner of Brat and Mountain on Welsh identity, elemental cooking, and why business and creativity are inseparable halves of the same ambition.
Queena Wong on Founding Curious Vines for Women in Wine
Queena Wong on founding Curious Vines after a decade in the City, the gaps she found in the wine trade, and what champagne taught her about feeling.
SURI: Disrupting Oral Care with Design and Sustainability
Billions of toothbrushes end up in landfill every year, yet innovation in oral care has long stalled. Former P&G colleagues Gyve Safavi and Mark Rushmore set out to change the story with SURI — elevating the toothbrush into a stylish, sustainable, and high-performing daily ritual.
What London Wine Fair 2026 Revealed About Wine’s Identity Crisis
Wine has become highly skilled at building mechanisms and far less skilled at building emotional meaning. From labour standards and English wine to the no-and-low boom, an industry full of frameworks, categories and technical solutions still struggles to articulate why any of it should matter to the consumer.
On the Limits of Scale in Challenger Brand Strategy
Challenger is a mindset, not a size — or so the theory goes. In truth every challenger works inside a narrow corridor: below it the challenge can't be heard, above it it won't be believed. Here's how to find yours before you hit the wall.
Branding for the Luxury Brand Mindset Means Finding, Protecting and Living Your Signals
Brands with a luxury mindset think and act like custodians of meaning. They use heritage, scarcity, storytelling and distinctive assets to create desire, loyalty and long-term value.
Beyond the Aesthetic: What Actually Makes Wellness Brands Work
The wellness category has learned to look authentic without being so. Here's what actually separates brands that earn loyalty from those that just photograph well.
As Co-founder of SevenRooms, Allison Page is Rewriting The Rules of Hospitality
Allison Page is reimagining hospitality for the digital age. As Co-Founder of SevenRooms — the platform recently acquired by DoorDash in a $1.2 billion deal – she has helped shift the industry from transactional service to personalised connection.
How Champagne Turned Artist Collaborations Into Cultural Strategy
Progressive champagne houses are turning artist collaborations into cultural strategy. From Ruinart’s contemporary installations to Krug’s engagement with sound and music, art is increasingly how champagne can tell its story.
The Body Knows: Botis Seva and the Discipline of an Original
Choreographer and artistic director at Far From the Norm, Botis Seva, on movement, memory, winning the Olivier Award, and making work that tells the truth
Pauline Vicard is Curating the Divergence with Areni Global
Co-founder and executive director of Areni Global, Pauline Vicard is building a research and action institute for fine wine, a convening space where unlike minds meet. We meet the founder.
Jaime Hayon on Craft, Storytelling and Redefining Luxury with Baccarat, Cartier and Fortnum & Mason
Jaime Hayon blurs the line between designer and artist, fusing craftsmanship, emotion and narrative into everything he creates. From bold collaborations with Baccarat and Cartier to his joyful window installation at Fortnum & Mason, Hayon challenges conventional definitions of luxury, reminding us that true design is about curiosity, integrity and storytelling.
The Most Wasted Asset in Wine: Why Label Design Is a Billion-Pound Missed Opportunity
The wine label is the industry's most powerful commercial asset, and its most wasted. While premium producers follow century-old codes that make them indistinguishable, brands like 19 Crimes have built hundreds of millions by breaking every rule. The problem isn't design quality. It's five words: “We would never do that”.
How Distinctive Assets and Memory Structures Drive Brand Choice
We explore how drinks brands use distinctive assets to build lasting memory structures — the cues that keep them front of mind and make choosing them feel almost effortless. From Aperol’s orange to Veuve Clicquot’s yellow label, the pop of a champagne cork to the ritual of a lemon zest in a Martini, these signals become shortcuts in the split-second decisions of drinking culture.
The Weight of the Door Handle: Why brand strategy and investment compounds, and how to measure what matters
Most brand measurement tracks the wrong things entirely. Brand ROI is real. The question is whether you're willing to invest on the timescales that allow it to compound.
Champagne’s Occasion Trap: Has Champagne Boxed Itself Into Celebration
The most successful positioning in beverage history has become a ceiling. Champagne's own customers are leading the rebellion.
Finding and Defining Brand DNA That Builds Lasting Value
How the world’s most successful luxury and lifestyle brands uncover, articulate and embed their DNA – the origin, values, personality and codes that keep them distinctive and desirable over decades.
Loïc Le Gaillard on Building Ladbroke Hall Where Culture Meets Community
The founder of Ladbroke Hall discusses moving beyond the traditional gallery model to create a space where art, design, performance, and hospitality converge, and how the Sunbeam Project is making culture accessible to everyone.
Hennessy, Baccarat and Jean-Michel Othoniel are Crafting Time
When brands commission artists, the most compelling collaborations transcend decoration – they become conversations about craft itself, where Baccarat crystal meets hand-carved oak meets contemporary sculpture.
Frieze Director Eva Langret Is Steering The Global Arts Fair Through a Time of Change
Since 2019, Eva Langret has been instrumental in defining Frieze’s European identity – first leading Frieze London, and now as director for Europe, the Middle East and Africa – guiding the brand toward greater openness, diversity and cultural dialogue at a moment when the arts feel more vital than ever.
Why Charging for Bread is a Missed Opportunity
Charge for bread and you may balance the books, but you bankrupt the brand. Bread is never just bread; it is hospitality’s opening act, the cue that says you belong. Strip it away and you turn generosity into accountancy, loyalty into indifference.
From White Cube to World Stage, How Luxury Spaces Are Transforming Culture
Art is moving beyond the white cube into luxurious, unconventional spaces that blend culture, hospitality and lifestyle. From Menorca to west London, these galleries offer immersive experiences where art, design, and fine dining meet — inviting audiences to connect with culture in richer, more memorable ways.
Jasper Smith on Arksen, Adventure Yachts and Redefining Luxury Through Purpose
Jasper Smith doesn’t build yachts for show. With Arksen, the entrepreneur and former PlayJam founder is reimagining luxury adventure through sustainable design, science-led expeditions, and real-world impact. He speaks candidly about the climate crisis, the role of tech, and how exploring the wild with his children helped inspire it all.
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