Why Every Brand Needs a Nemesis

Arch rivalries—like McD's and BK, Coke vs. Pepsi—help rally customers

As humans, we love to dislike something together. It gives us a sense of belonging, a reason to pick sides and something worth being passionate about.

It’s probably how you ended up best friends with someone you met five minutes ago because you both feel way too strongly about Diet Coke. Suddenly, you’re 30 minutes deep into a conversation, you’ve missed your 1:1 with your manager and you’ve somehow landed on the conclusion that Aspartame-maxxing is fine for your health.

Coca-Cola has given me nothing financially for this kind of loyalty. But what actually defines my love for Diet Coke is my ability to dislike Pepsi with equal passion. Which raises the question: Why do I need to hate Pepsi in order to love Diet Coke?

Sociologist Georg Simmel said it best: “nothing unites people quite like a common enemy.” The moment something gets named, people take sides. And the act of choosing a side is often more powerful than the thing itself.

That instinct is exactly why the idea of a “brand enemy” is so relevant right now.

Pepsi played with the Coke bear and let people connected the dots. Burger King and Wendy’s never had to name McDonald’s to tap into the CEO burger moment. Anthropic simply said, “You hate ads too? Great, we’re the ones who don’t have them.”

The indirect approach is the point. Instead of saying, “I prefer Wendy’s over McDonald’s,” the choice becomes something bigger than a meal. It carries cultural weight because it’s shared with so many other people, all using the same language to explain their selections on our favorite battleground, the internet.

Pepsi has never wronged me personally. But the shared language I have with other Diet Coke loyalists becomes a way to express why we love it, and maybe convince someone to have a “fridge cigarette” once in a while.

This isn’t a new tactic. Ries and Trout developed the term “positioning” around a simple truth: consumers rank brands in their heads. There’s always a No. 1. If you’re not in first place, you win by defining yourself against the leader.

Apple made us question what it means to own a PC. Oatly took a swing at the entire dairy industry, despite our mothers saying our bones would crumble without it. Over time, those brands became recognizable far beyond their product category because of what they stood against. The approaches were more direct then, but the same principle holds: choosing the right enemy works when you’re creating a side worth picking, around the right thing, at the right time.

It’s easier to stand with these brands when you’re disliking the same things as part of a community of fans who also “get it.” Now they’re no longer a brand saying, “We are the best, buy us.” Now a brand can say, “Hey, want to dislike this thing with me?”

And suddenly, we’re rallying around something together and becoming advocates because we have shared context to understand why we love the brand. Not necessarily because it’s better, cheaper or faster, but because we can stand beside it in disliking the enemy.

Defining a narrow enemy doesn’t pigeonhole a brand. You can pick a fight for a moment with a single campaign, or build an entire identity around a larger cultural tension.

Either way, the fundamentals haven’t changed. Repetition builds recognition, clarity drives preference and having an enemy helps you achieve both.