Listen to this episode on Spotify:
https://creators.spotify.com/pod/profile/1152937886/episodes/Your-brand-needs-an-enemy-e3p693mImagine a story about a kid who discovers he has magical powers. He gets an invitation to a school for magic, attends his classes, finishes his years and heads home to live happily ever after.
https://creators.spotify.com/pod/profile/1152937886/episodes/Your-brand-needs-an-enemy-e3p693mImagine a story about a kid who discovers he has magical powers. He gets an invitation to a school for magic, attends his classes, finishes his years and heads home to live happily ever after.
It boring.
The original story works because of Voldemort. Without an antagonist, the protagonist has no reason to grow, change, or take action.
In B2B marketing, you want your potential customers to take action. Right now, they are sitting in a painful spot that your product or service is built to solve. Your marketing exists to bridge that gap, and introducing a villain is what brings that friction into sharp focus.
Stop Playing the Hero
Most corporate advertising makes the mistake of talking exclusively about itself. Brands position themselves as the hero, roll out a list of features, and declare how great they are. Audiences naturally push back against that.
People already do not want to watch your ad. Bragging about your software will not change their minds. Giving them an enemy, on the other hand, gives them something to actively root against.
As Donald Miller points out in Building a StoryBrand, your business is not Luke Skywalker. Your customer is Luke Skywalker. You are simply Yoda, showing up with the guidance to help them succeed.
Turning Pain into a Character
In an ad campaign I worked on for Athelas, the core message was built around the strapline: “Stop getting nickel and dimed”.
Their competitors were charging customers for every single add-on, whether it was an AI scribe module or a minor new feature, while Athelas offered all-in-one pricing. Instead of making a dry video explaining a pricing tier, we took the literal pain point, an annoying bill, and personified it as a physical man named “Bill”.
Bill hung around physical therapy clinics, getting in the way of staff and disrupting patients. Throughout the spot, Bill grew larger and larger until he took up the entire room, physically restricting the clinic from expanding.
That simple shift replaced a flat claim (“we have all-in-one pricing”) with a shared understanding: We know how frustrating this fee structure is, and we see how it holds your clinic back. Athelas was naturally positioned as the fix without having to shout.
Friction, Humor, and Better Ads
Bringing an enemy into your creative strategy does three key things:
- It proves you understand the frustration: When you accurately spotlight the villain, audiences connect the dots themselves and recognise you have the remedy.
- It hooks attention fast: Human psychology is wired to spot friction, nuisance, and danger quicker than pleasantries. But rather than running a bleak, heavy ad, pair that pain with humour. Laughing at a shared problem lets you stand alongside your customer against the common enemy.
- It makes the creative work: Abstract software benefits are tough to visualise. Personified villains—like a literal guy named Bill—give you immediate comedic tension and memorable visual hooks.