How Challenger Brands Break Through the Growth Ceiling: The 5 Levers That Matter
- Laura Derbyshire
- Dec 1, 2025
- 2 min read
Updated: Jan 12
Why Challenger Brand Growth Stalls at Scale
Challenger brands grow fast - until they don’t.
At some point, the early momentum that once felt effortless begins to stall. Performance channels become more expensive. Creative stops cutting through. Sales plateau, despite the team working harder than ever.
This isn’t a failure of effort - it’s a failure of join-up.
In our work at OSER advising founders across FMCG, wellness, hospitality and lifestyle brands, we see the same pattern repeat itself. Growth slows not because the business is wrong, but because the system around the brand becomes fragmented.
Many challenger brands hit a growth ceiling not because of product or performance marketing, but because they haven’t built the brand foundations required for long-term scale. Challenger brand growth depends on more than short-term acquisition; it requires distinctive brand assets, clear positioning, and a strategy that compounds recognition over time.
This article breaks down the five levers that help challenger brands move from “plateau” to “next phase,” based on the strategy work we deliver with founders and CEOs every week.
1. Sharpening Brand Positioning
Brands often evolve faster than their positioning. If the brand story becomes fuzzy or stretched across new products, channels, or audiences, growth stalls.
Customers need a reason to care, not just a reason to buy. We help founders distil their brand into a clear, resonant, distinctive position that drives everything from creative to sales strategy.
2. Building a Connected Growth Strategy
Many teams operate in silos: Brand does one thing. Marketing another. Sales another. Without alignment, the output looks busy, but it's ineffective.
The most scalable brands have one joined-up plan:
brand direction
growth levers
commercial priorities
marketing activity
retail expansion
performance channels, all pointing in one direction.
This is where most brands unlock the biggest gains.
3. Creative That Cuts Through
Great brands grow through ideas, not just ads. We run creative workshops and strategy sessions that help in-house teams unlock bold, distinctive ideas that create emotional memory, not just impressions.
Creativity is a growth multiplier. -not “the fluffy stuff.”
4. Understanding Brand Effectiveness
Performance channels get brands off the ground, but brand effectiveness sustains growth.
We partner with Diego Chicharro (ex-Head of Effectiveness at Publicis) to help founders understand what’s driving real long-term commercial impact, and what’s simply creating short-term noise.
Our work usually reveals surprising gaps (and savings).
5. Fractional CMO-Level Partnership (Without Full-Time Headcount)
Most founders don’t need a full-time CMO. They need high-calibre strategic thinking, clarity, and senior challenge - someone to pressure-test direction, align teams, and guide creative + commercial decisions.
This is exactly where OSER sits: A senior strategic partner you can plug in when needed, without the overhead.
Every challenger brand reaches a point where the next level requires more than hustle. It requires clarity and a joined-up approach to brand, creative and growth.
If you’re scaling and sense you're close to that ceiling, let’s talk. A clarity session or brand audit can quickly reveal where the next phase of growth will actually come from.
