Sometimes differentiation needs no new feature. Boldly take the opposite side of a “given” that everyone in the industry treats as good—and that alone can make you the voice of what customers really feel. In 2026, Back Market showed it by going against “upgrade culture.”
Back Market, which sells used and refurbished smartphones, ran a campaign called “Downgrade Now” across five Western countries in spring 2026. It took a head-on stance against the industry’s ingrained belief that “you should always upgrade to the newest model.” It dropped spec-based pitches entirely, and instead connected its products to the mood of the times—the “fatigue” with the flood of AI-generated images (“slop”) and with overblown tech jargon. Outdoor ads carried an AI-generated image of a muscular frog with “Scroll past the slop, for less,” while the iPad version read “Do hand stuff”—a lineup of irony-laced copy.
Why it worked
What it targeted was the honest feeling everyone quietly shares. “Do I really need the newest model?” “I’m sick of AI images”—by voicing this mood, customers received it as “a brand that stands on my side.” The clever part was setting the enemy not as a rival company but as “the mood of the times (fatigue with optimization and homogenization).” Because it does not attack any specific company, it does not ruffle feathers, and yet its stance becomes crystal clear.
How a small business can use this
Write down one thing your industry treats as an “obvious good.” Fast, cheap, multifunctional, newest, high-volume—is there, in any of them, a fatigue or excess that customers quietly feel? If so, boldly take the opposite side of it. For example, ask “Aren’t you tired of flimsy, AI-mass-produced websites?” and stand on the side of the real thing, the thing with texture. Against “the uniform response of big companies,” raise the flag of “one company with a human face.” Put the enemy not in a competitor but in “the mood of the times,” and you get to be the one who voices what customers really feel. Going against the grain works best precisely for a small company that cannot win on features.
“In our industry, which ‘given’ could we go against?”—ASTER keeps a stock of reusable structures drawn from hundreds of cases, and translates them into your products and hiring challenges to turn them into concrete plans. Feel free to get in touch.
