In this presentation Kevin Simpson introduces the "Phoenix Effect," a storytelling and marketing technique that deliberately portrays a brand, product, or protagonist as an underdog who is knocked down and then rebuilt, thereby earning audience sympathy and loyalty. He illustrates the concept with the typical Tom Cruise movie opening where the hero is quickly destroyed, forcing viewers to root for his comeback. Simpson then applies the same principle to business, describing how his company Hedgehog Leather Works uses a flawed logo (a wolverine instead of a hedgehog) to reveal its struggle and invite customers to become champions. He cites historical examples such as Microsoft’s early battle against IBM and Apple’s comeback after Steve Jobs’ return, showing how audiences naturally support entities that appear to be fighting for a top spot rather than already being number one. The talk argues that brands should avoid claiming to be the best and instead position themselves as the underdog on a path to greatness, turning customers into raving fans who actively promote the brand.
Chapters
Movies. It's a great lesson to learn from movies. It's called the Phoenix Effect. This is how it works. You go see a movie, Tom Cruise comes out, opening scene for all these movies the same way. Tom comes strutting out like this. He's got a beautiful wife with him. He's kind of walking, talking, he's. And within a second, all of a sudden, you hear a ball comes flying by, rips a little bit of his lip, hits his wife square in the forehead. She's dead. Guys come, they start beating him up. The dog gets raped somehow. Machine guns, house burned down. He's destroyed. Within five minutes, Tom Cruise is sitting down there and he is dead. The rest of the movie is the build back up the Phoenix. It is one of the most magnetic effects for us as viewers and for our clients. We don't like number one. We don't like the best. We don't root for the best. And when Tom comes out, he's like, oh, my God, this guy's so handsome. He's a total stud. He's like number one. We don't like him. The only way we can get the audience to like Tom Cruise is if he's destroyed the Lois envy. Someone's better than us. Makes us want to pull them down. When they're here, we want to pull them up. So the movie intentionally knocks down Tom. So far, we're like, God, that's the most patient human being I've seen in my life. I gotta help them. And now you become a champion for Tom Cruise. I'm a part owner in a company in Missouri called Hedgehog Leather Works. We make sheaths and we use the Phoenix Effect to great effect. We make a sheath, and all of our competitors say they make the world's best leather sheath in the world. They're all saying they're number one. No one roots for number one. We root for the underdog. So we say we pride ourselves. We're trying to make the number one sheath in the world. And we want customer feedback. We said, but we're small and we need your help. And then we share a story. And I encourage you to check out the website about our logo. If you see the logo, which is stamped on every sheath we make of Hedgehog Leather Works, the graphic is not a hedgehog, It's a wolverine. Because we couldn't afford the hedgehog graphic. When customers learn that little secret about us, they learn of the struggles and how far down we were that we couldn't afford the right graphic. They become champions for us. If you meet one of our customers and they pull off a sheet and they show the logo, they'll say, you know, that's not a hedgehog. And I'll go through the whole story of how we're trying to be a Phoenix and how they're supporting us. If you say your business is number one, customers aren't going to like you. Microsoft, we loved when they were coming up beating IBM. They suck. Now, Apple was awesome, especially when they did the perfect Phoenix effect. They fired Steve Jobs, comes back, they're almost destroyed. Like, go, Apple. Go, Apple. And now we're hitting the cusp. They're becoming number one. Apple's kind of starting to suck a little bit now. We don't like number one. We like the guy that's trying to take over the spot. The Phoenix effect. It.
