Challenger Brand Marketing with John Gumas | How to Win Without a Big Budget

In this episode, Reed Hansen sits down with John Gumas, President of Commit Agency and the marketing strategist who literally trademarked the term Challenger Brand Marketing.

With over 40 years of experience, John has helped brands competing against much larger, better-funded “gorilla” competitors discover and defend positions no one else can own. From financial institutions to highly regulated industries, his methodology is built on one principle:

👉 You don’t win by being slightly better.
 👉 You win by being meaningfully different.

🎯 What You’ll Learn in This Episode:

• What “Challenger Brand Marketing” really means
• Why most marketing campaigns fail before they start
• The 5-step challenger brand framework
• Why discovery is the most important (and skipped) step in marketing
• How to compete against brands with 10x your budget
• Why niche positioning beats trying to be everything to everyone
• A real-world credit union case study that transformed growth
• How to turn customers into loyal brand advocates

🧠 Key Takeaway

Most companies start marketing at step 3 or 4 (creative or media spend).

John explains why real growth starts with deep discovery — uncovering the true emotional reason customers choose you over competitors.

When you know that?

Your strategy becomes obvious.
 Your messaging becomes clear.
 Your growth becomes predictable.

📖 About John Gumas

John Gumas is the President of Commit Agency, formerly founder of Gumas Advertising (est. 1984), and the author of two books on Challenger Brand Marketing.

He has advised brands across financial services, regulated industries, and competitive markets — helping them shift from commoditized players to meaningful, differentiated brands.

Learn more about Challenger Brand Marketing:
 👉 https://commitagency.com/challenger-brand-marketing/

Connect with John on LinkedIn:
 👉 https://www.linkedin.com/in/john-gumas-08046/

🎙️ About the Show

Inside Marketing with MarketSurge is your front row seat to bold business insights, marketing breakthroughs, and entrepreneurial real talk.

Hosted by Reed Hansen, Chief Growth Officer at MarketSurge, this podcast dives deep into what’s actually moving the needle in today’s marketing world.

🔥 Want to Grow Smarter, Faster, and Louder?

Head over to:
 👉 https://marketsurge.io

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• SEO & Organic Growth
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Creators and Guests

Host

Reed Hansen

Reed Hansen is a seasoned digital marketing executive with a proven track record of driving business growth through innovative strategies. As the Chief Growth Officer at MarketSurge, he focuses on leveraging AI-powered marketing tools to help businesses scale efficiently. Reed's expertise spans from leading startups to Fortune 500 companies, making him a recognized authority in the digital marketing space. His unique ability to combine data-driven insights with creative solutions has been instrumental in achieving remarkable sales growth for his clients. ​

What is Inside Marketing with MarketSurge?

Welcome to Inside Marketing with MarketSurge — your front-row seat to the boldest business insights, marketing breakthroughs, and entrepreneurial real talk.

Hosted by Reed Hansen, Chief Growth Officer at MarketSurge and a digital marketing veteran who's helped scale everything from scrappy startups to Fortune 500 giants, this podcast dives deep into what’s really moving the needle in today’s marketing world. Find us at Marketsurge.io

Each week, we’ll break down the latest marketing and business news (minus the fluff), explore tech trends you actually need to know, and feature unfiltered conversations with the most interesting minds in entrepreneurship and marketing.

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Subscribe, tune in, and let’s scale something legendary. 🚀

Speaker: Welcome to Inside
Marketing With Market Surge.

Your front row seat to the
boldest ideas and smartest

strategies in the marketing game.

Your host is Reed Hansen, chief
Growth Officer at Market Surge.

Reed Hansen, MarketSurge: Hello
and welcome back to Inside

Marketing with Market Surge.

Really excited to have you here
because today we have John Gummas,

who is the president of Commit
Agency and the marketing strategist

who literally trademarked the
term Challenger brand marketing.

He spent decades helping brands,
especially those competing against much

larger players to discover claim and
defend positions that no one else can own.

John's work goes beyond clever campaigns.

His philosophy is about bold discovery,
authentic differentiation, and

turning customers into advocates.

By telling stories that
actually mean something.

He's advised financial institutions
and brands in highly regulated,

crowded markets, and he's the author
of two books that give marketers

practical frameworks, not just theory.

John, I'm so excited to
have you here on the show.

John Gumas: Oh, thank you, Reid.

It's my pleasure.

Reed Hansen, MarketSurge: tell us a little
bit about your background and how did

Challenger Brand Marketing come to be?

John Gumas: Sure.

Well a little over 41 years ago I started
a, an advertising agency called Gummas.

You'd be surprised where
that name came from.

And just to give you a kind of fast
forward before I go back, is, is recently

we we merged into Commit Agency, and
that was our sister agency for years.

And now we're we're merged together.

But when I started the my agency
originally back in 1984 it just, the

way it started out was just a lot
of companies that we were working

with were, were not so much smaller
companies, but there were companies

that were, that were strategically
challenged from a resource perspective.

And what I mean by that is their
competitors were significantly resourced.

And resources we typically
think of as advertising budgets.

And I would say that's
at the top of the list.

But resources can
include retail locations.

They can re include, you know a number
of sales people out in the market.

They could include brand recognition,
but it's typically, it comes down to

so how much money they have to spend
and this whole concept that, that

for, for challenger brands to compete
against gorilla brands that have

significantly greater resources and try
to go head to head, which is typical.

Usually ends up the same way.

And it, and that's not good
for the Challenger brand.

So that was, that was really the beginning
of, of the, the, the, you know, what,

what the, the agency positioned itself as.

And, and over the years we've just
developed this, this methodology

called Challenger Brand Marketing
that's designed to help challenger

brands effectively compete and win.

In, in these very, very complex markets
against much larger competitors.

And it doesn't, I'm not talking
small companies, you know, Pepsi

is a challenger brand to Coke.

Her Avis is a challenger brand, the Hertz.

It goes on and on and
on, and our marketplace.

Now you look around, there are
challenger brands everywhere.

Some, you know, do it right, some
probably don't do it as well as others.

But the whole challenge of brand concept
is designed for these companies to

have a very structured a systematic
strategy and, and marketing programs

that effectively build their company.

Reed Hansen, MarketSurge: So, you
know, I wanna drill into that.

you've said that challenger brands
don't win by being a little bit better,

but by being meaningfully different.

you know, we've got some
crowded markets today.

a lot of small businesses are
playing in those crowded markets.

what happens?

so first I guess, I
don't wanna jump ahead.

What are some examples of a
challenger brand being meaningfully

different that maybe that you've
worked with or helped Shepherd?

John Gumas: Yeah, so it, it's,
every challenger brand is unique.

Every single one.

It doesn't matter what
industry they're in.

It doesn't matter how big they are,
how small they are, it does not matter.

They are unique and that
uniqueness is like a personality.

You know?

You have a personality,
I have a personality.

Everyone watching this has a
personality and it's unique.

What challenger brand marketing is
about is not creating a personality.

We're not because we think
it's cool and different.

It's truly getting to the.

Bottom of who we are, what makes
us unique from everything else.

And then taking that uniqueness and
articulating it in a way that is unique

to all the competition out there is
relevant to your, to your target audience.

And that becomes the basis of,
of your marketing programs.

Whereas the biggest mistake that
challenger brands make is they assume

and they make educated guesses and.

That is probably the most dangerous
thing any marketer can do.

And it's extremely dangerous for
challenger brands because challenger

brands have to approach marketing
as if they get one shot at success.

So they sh they cannot fail.

So, you know, it, it's, it's how you
set up a campaign, how you, how you.

You, you get the, you do the right
research, the discovery, we refer

to it, and make sure that you are
right and make sure that ultimately

you want to own a niche that
nobody else can take away from you.

And you become famous for
owning that one niche and making

that relevant to the market.

And when Challenger Brands can do that,
that's when they start to see success.

Reed Hansen, MarketSurge: So, you know,
the uniqueness of this I, I think,

makes this tricky because, you know,
you'll say like the uniqueness is.

I mean, if I'm summing up what
you're saying, it's like each

brand is unique in a unique way.

Like it's not, it's not, they're
unique in the color scheme that

they pick, or unique in the physical
appearances of the employees.

It's, it's, it varies
from company to company.

So given that, how, how do you
do this over and over again?

Where do you start?

Where, where does that
process start for you?

John Gumas: Sure.

It's a great question.

'cause that's the most
important part of all this.

Excuse me.

we call it the, the Challenger
brand discovery process.

And it's really where
the strategy is born.

It's, it's, you know, where
clarity is created and, and.

Differentiation is refined
and defined, right?

That's where it is.

Without 'cause, without this, this
rigorous discovery, marketing is just

nothing more than educated, guessing
and educated guessing is probably

the most expensive thing anybody
can do because, you know, I've been

doing this for, for over 40 years.

Not once, Reid, not one time, and I
swear to you I say this not one time

has what our clients, when they tell us,
oh, this is why we're different, and we

go through the process of discovery and
we start talking to their customers.

Not once is their reason.

What they think is what their
customers tell us is the real reason.

Sometimes it's a big difference.

Sometimes it's a tiny difference, but
it always has to be perfectly aligned.

So it's, it's amazing what happens.

There's this phenomena that
that happens in all of us.

When you work in a company day in
and day out, you know it so well.

It's impossible for you to step
outside and look at it objectively

like a prospective new customer would,
who has all these other options?

By the way, all these, you
know, competitors to choose,

why are they gonna pick you?

And for you to just assume, you know,
that is really, really dangerous.

So that's why we go through this
very, very structured discovery and

it's very unique discovery that's
designed to eliminate the guessing,

eliminate to assumption, and get us
to a point where we know exactly why.

Prospective customers will want us
and what we have to say to those

customers um, in a unique way to the
competition to get them to choose us.

So, uh, we make sure
we don't guess at that.

Reed Hansen, MarketSurge: how
long does the process take?

Just you know, as you're doing discovery,
is it months or is it weeks or what, what.

John Gumas: Our process takes anywhere
from about eight to 12, 14 ish weeks,

somewhere in there depending on the
client, depending on how mar, how large

the audience is, et cetera, et cetera.

But it, it's designed
to, to not take long.

It's designed to be.

Cost effective.

It's designed to be very, very impactful.

And at the end it really changes how, how
clients move forward with their marketing

and it dramatically affects the results.

'cause most, most companies,
organizations, it doesn't matter what

industry they're in, think that marketing
is about, you know, digital marketing or

traditional marketing is, we would argue
you could spend all the money you want.

Pick the vehicle, right?

Digital, traditional.

If you're not saying the right thing
and your position is not right, it

doesn't matter how much money you
spend because it's never gonna work

at at, at the levels or the efficiency
that it's capable of working at.

Reed Hansen, MarketSurge: So now once
you know, once this process is in, you

know, has been completed, you've got
your discovery and you present your

findings, then what, like, what you know.

Know, you know, like,
well, okay, I'm different.

Like, so where do I start reprioritizing?

Do I start changing my
social media messaging?

Do I start changing my ads?

What, what, what, how does that
manifest into actual action?

John Gumas: Yeah, you, well,
think of it this way, right?

So when we're done, what we will
have uncovered is the true human

reason why people choose your brand.

Okay?

Imagine having that knowledge,
and I'm gonna answer your

question in a moment, right?

So imagine having that knowledge, right?

It reveal, it kind of reveals the.

The emotions that quietly drive these
decisions because it's about emotion.

It also exposes your customer's feelings,
their fears or desires, what they

believe, you know, not what just they say.

And it kind of replaces all
these assumptions that you might

have with insight that you could
act on with confidence, right?

So that's that.

When you have that.

It's like having all the answers to
the exam before you take the exam.

You're not assuming it, it just, uh, um,
it, it, you don't wanna accept kind of

surface answers or you, you wanna dig
deep and, uh, and get that information.

And that's uncomfortable
for a lot of people.

It's uncomfortable, but, but because
when you do talk to customers and

we, what, who we do talk to is we'll
talk to our customer's customers.

We will talk to our customers themselves
and we'll analyze the competition.

Those three points of main points of
data is where we come up with this and,

and what we're ultimately trying to come
out of with all of this is a message.

Okay, a message.

What is that message that you can
say, you know, that tells people who

you are, what you do, what makes you
different from all the competition

and the most important part of it all?

What's in it for them?

The, your customer, what's in it for them?

And you know, on a website you have about
seven seconds, by the way, to get that

message across or, or they're leaving.

And, um, so, how do you do that
and how do you make that happen?

Reed Hansen, MarketSurge: Are
there any risks to taking this

approach to like, just positioning
yourself as very different?

Like is, is there a risk to
like the, I I don't know.

I mean, you're, you're, you're
not typically, it sounds like

you're not typically a company
in pole position or first place.

And, and, you know, do they, do
they stand to lose ground further

from the first place doing this is

John Gumas: No, I would
argue the opposite.

And, and you think of the gorilla, right?

First place.

People think of that as,
as the, the total industry.

But I would, I would, what we try
to get our clients to think about

is not the total industry, but
think about the niche you're in.

Because any challenger brand, if
you can own a niche, you, your

success will come extremely quickly.

you will be, you'll be very,
very happy with the results.

So think about owning the niche.

Right.

Whatever that niche might
be, um, versus the industry.

And I think that's the mindset change
that challenger brands need to have,

and they need to have this mindset
of growth is a ladder and every.

Every point you're taking
one step up the ladder.

And if you look at it like that, each
step up the ladder is a very doable, very

attainable, uh, a very realistic goal.

And then after a short while,
you're near the top of that ladder

and that ladder continues to
go as far as you want it to go.

But.

You're doing it in a very systematic,
you're, you're doing that growth in a

very structured way, and you're doing
it in, in, with the least amount of risk

as possible, but you're also doing it
in, in, in a very um, efficient way.

that's fairly quick actually, because
you're taking these bite-sized.

Reed Hansen, MarketSurge: Mm-hmm.

John Gumas: versus these would,
most companies think, I just

need to spend a lot of money.

I need to be everything to everyone.

Or we would argue, if you're
everything to everyone, you're,

you're nothing to no one.

And but that's why you look at
that, but again, you can't guess.

It all has to be based in fact and data.

Reed Hansen, MarketSurge: so you work
with a lot of different industries,

but financial institutions are one
of those big, pillars you work with.

I guess I'd be wondering how this
works in the financial industry,

because financial industry, I kind of
picture is they want to, know, they're

playing with their customers, their
client's money, and they wanna portray

a safe, conservative image generally.

I, you know, I'm guessing,
and, and, you know, coming in,

being, trying to differentiate
what, how does that manifest?

John Gumas: I, how about
if I give you an example?

I'll give you an example and, I'm
gonna leave the, um, the company's name

out, but I'm gonna tell you, they are
a credit union and they are a credit

union in the San Francisco Bay Area.

Okay?

So I'll give you that and, and, and, and
what I'm telling this credit union is

applicable for every Challenger brand.

In the financial industry.

And this, this, what I'm describing
works with every industry, but

I'm gonna just focus so I can
be more specific with detail.

And I'll tell you about
this credit union, right?

So, so they're essentially, you know,
fighting for attention in, in, um, you

know, in probably one of the most crowded
markets, uh, in the United States.

But with that said, any financial
market in the United States

is crowded because you have.

Big budget banks.

You have, you know, all these, all these
other, uh, uh, institutions, right?

So they're competing, uh, um, not
against the credit union down the

street, but they're competing against.

B of A, they're competing
against Chase, Wells Fargo.

They're also competing against Apple Card,
SoFi, all of the other FinTech disruptors.

So think about that competition
and think about the consumer and

all the choices that they have.

And then now think about this credit
union who had multiple locations, right?

They weren't a small credit
union, but they were still up

against these, these gorillas with
multi-million, multi-billion dollar.

Budgets and national brand awareness and
massive digital ecosystems and you know,

and on and on and on, you know, so trying
to out advertise them is, is unwinnable.

So how does this credit
union make a change?

So they, I.

Our advice to them and really
convincing them is it's not a

process of being louder, it's a
process of being more meaningful.

Because most financial
institutions, we think about it,

they all sell the same thing.

They're in a regulated industry.

They all have car loans, home
loans, refl, all the bank products

you need, and they're regulated.

So they all sell 'em at the same rate.

So, so, um, trying to say
that you're different because

of your products is really.

Not realistic.

And um, so, you know, having the same
language doesn't really differentiate

you, it just commoditizes you more so,
and, and commoditized brands, especially

challenger brands, tend to go away and
tend to just get completely squashed.

So what we were, we were telling.

Our credit union client, all our credit
union clients is stop competing in

products and start competing on identity.

Start competing on, on brand
because you know, it, it's,

it's what makes you unique.

This particular client had a, you
know, they had some hidden strengths

that they didn't realize they
had, you know, that were critical.

This is, this is now having gone through
some, some discovery and, and learning

some, some i, some, some of these things.

I'm telling you, they had
deep roots in the area.

They had, you know, real personal
service versus cold, kind of cold banks.

They had, you know, they had trust
that they built, uh, over decades

and, uh, um, so right now, you
know, those are, those are great.

But those are facts.

You know, it's then, and they're
not a market position, so the

role of challenger brand marketing
is to turn those facts into.

A market position, right?

Because again, you don't wanna
try to be everything to everyone,

but you gotta find that true
differentiator that connects you, right?

You wanna define a specific audience,
you wanna define what you really stand

out, uh, and stand for, stand against.

The, and you can't think
the obvious, right?

You gotta have to find what you
own, what you can truly own.

That's the hardest thing for most
challenger brands is understanding that.

Because once you do that you
build recognition faster.

You build growth faster, loyalty
faster, everything starts to happen.

And the next thing I would say that this
credit union, and almost every client

we have, probably their biggest um.

Consistency and, and, and
what they don't do right is.

They assume, they guess,
they think they know.

And, um, that, like I said earlier, a
hundred percent of the time what they

think and what their customers think.

Never line up.

So understanding what that is, and you
don't wanna, you know, uh, make your

decision based on opinions or personal
preferences or, you know, tactics

without strategy or random campaigns.

It all starts with a deep
discovery, so you understand that

market truth and market audience.

So it turned out.

At this particular credit union,
you know, that was one of many

in a crowded financial market.

Really needed to stop being another
bank and really needed to be

something different, and they needed
to, to what we challenged them on.

And what we were looking for is.

With the members they have and
they call their customers members.

What's the belief they have in you?

What's the position?

what's their point of view?

Um, why did they pick you
over all the other options?

And you'd be surprised.

What it was, and when we talked to our
clients before we started this, they

were absolutely convinced it's because
they had great rates that they had, their

people were the best, most friendly,
best customer service people, you

know, they'd work with their clients.

You know what?

At the end of the day when we
went through our discovery, their

customers didn't care about those.

Those are all wonderful
reasons to believe, but they

were expectations, right?

It's like going into a restaurant and
saying, well, I hope, I sure hope this

food is fresh and doesn't get me sick.

Right?

I mean, it's, there were certain
expectations, and those expectations

are not brand positions, so.

We took them through this whole process,
we found out what it was, what was

their impact in the community, right?

And we dug much deeper into that.

But it was their impact
in the community and.

What they needed to do was to become
a movement ver, you know, for the

community versus a financial institution.

Because when people would come to
them because they had a cheap car

loan, those are transactional members.

Those transactional members wouldn't
buy anything else from them.

They'd go away once
their car loan was done.

But if people came to them because of
this movement, because of what they do

in the community, because how they make
their kids' lives better because of what

they truly do and how they support what's
going on in the area around all of 'em.

People now became kind of indebted.

they became brand loyalists for them.

Reed Hansen, MarketSurge: Okay.

John Gumas: So that's kind
of what challenger brand

marketing is designed to do.

Right.

It's not, it's, you know, you're, you're.

Once you understand that you're not
playing, or in this case, playing against

the big banks directly and understanding
that you don't need to be bigger, you

don't need to be brave, you need to
be braver, clear and more meaningful.

Right?

And it's that meaningful, it's that
connection that is exactly what

challenge your brand marketing does.

So this credit union went from.

Very mediocre growth to where they're
considering um, merging or selling their

credit union because their growth wasn't
there to now being one of the largest

um, in the area because of this simple
position change, this simple messaging

change, which I would argue the messaging.

Is the most important part of the entire
challenger brand process and getting

that right and using the discovery
and the learnings and making sure that

the learnings are true and accurate.

And taking that and then turning
that into the messaging you need.

Because the messaging, if you
do the discovery right, the

messaging becomes so obvious.

The strategy becomes so obvious because
the discovery writes it and uh, um.

I always love, you know, and I watch
movies and there's an advertising person

in there and they have a great idea.

Like, and I just scream, I drive my wife
nuts 'cause I'm screaming at the tv.

I go show me the data.

where did that idea come from?

Yeah, it's a great idea,
but will it resonate?

Will it work?

Will it so, uh, so that, you know,
that that's kind of the basis

of challenger brand marketing.

But it's, again, it's, if you
think about challenger brand

marketing, there's five steps.

The first step is the discovery
that we're talking about.

The second step is taking the learnings
from that discovery and creating

the strategy and and the messaging.

Then the third step is the creative.

The fourth step is, is the go to
market plan, and the fifth step

is the ongoing optimization.

Most campaigns start
at steps three or four.

Reed Hansen, MarketSurge: Right.

John Gumas: Especially for challenger
brands 'cause they think they can't either

can't afford to do a discovery, right?

Like, like the, like the, the

Reed Hansen, MarketSurge: Mm-hmm.

John Gumas: gorillas can, or they
just don't understand the value of it.

So with, you know, starting a
campaigns, you know, without

this discovery is, is critical.

I mean, how do you, I
don't know how you do it.

Be honest.

Reed Hansen, MarketSurge: Well, that,
no, that's, that's very insightful.

I you know, I think there's a lot
of great takeaways in, in what

you're describing and, Yeah, I
mean, I think we all, as marketers,

we all fantasize about having that
brilliant idea, that stroke of genius.

And but the reality is, is that
know, the, it's, it's in the data,

the answer's in the data and,
and, the rest is just assumption.

So, you know, I'd love, I'd
love that summary and that, that

credit union example is fantastic.

John, if people would like to learn more
from you, work with you or even read your

book, where can, where can they find you?

John Gumas: Sure they my email is,
uh, Jay [e-mail].

Commit Agency, uh, dot com is our website.

And, uh, um, if the book's there, if
they're, they can look, the book is

called Challenger Brand Marketing.

If, if they're interested,
it's available online.

But if they have questions shoot me
an email and just mention your name,

Reid, and I'll be happy to answer any
question that they have and, and help

'em get their get their companies
pointed in the right direction.

Reed Hansen, MarketSurge: John.

It's been a pleasure to have you on
and I, I think there's just a lot to

absorb here and, and I think we can
all learn a lot from you, so thank you.

John Gumas: Thanks Reid.

It was a pleasure.

Speaker 2: Want to stay ahead of what's
actually working in marketing right now.

Head over to Market surge.io

and see how we're helping businesses
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That's market surge.io

because your next breakthrough
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