Disrupting the Disruptive

I recently read an article in The Marketer on disruptive brands to place Amazon as a disruptive brand, along with Apple and Virgin, and praise their marketing and development strategies as being ones of the most cunning of our times. Brands like Expedia, Airbnb and Skyscanner have introduced the concept of tailored services over the internet. Etsy is exclusively aimed at customers looking for unique, handmade - personalised even - products and it puts them in contact with the manufacturers directly. Uber connects customers via mobile apps with their drivers and makes feedback very transparent and a decisive factor in choosing one driver over another. Similarly to Amazon which allows posting reviews to sellers profiles and product descriptions, websites like Expedia, Etsy, Uber - all rely on transparency and the customers' desire to share their experiences. Likewise, people return to these websites for a share of other people's experiences in helping them make purchase decisions.

So, in an era of disruptives, how easy is it to become one? Maintaining the status quo for some companies could be just as hard as coming up with a distruptive marketing strategy. In the digital field of marketing, everything is still fresh, so plenty of potential for disruption here, or shall we dare say that the digital field is continuum of initiatives with the intent of being disruptive? In in increasingly digitalised market where everything moves in-the-cloud, technology could just be the major enabler of disruptive brands.

Smart insights blog advises on 5 capabilities needed to create a mindset for marketers willing to become disruptive. Firstly, marketers need to push their desire of creating something unique to delivering something that is ahead of everything else - to make that leap forward and push your boundaries. Marketers should know the data and interpret it from a marketing perspective - use all that is available, including gut feeling. As with anything else, planning is essential  however, make flexible plans that adapt as you go and calibrate them constantly to the ever changing market. Finally, embrace the element of surprise and work the surprise to suit your disruptive strategy.

So, even with the 5 capabilities switched on, and with the creative marketer hat in place, how easy is it today to become a disruptor in a market where every marketer aims at innovation, disruptive strategies and cunning plans? How can companies become disruptive in a market of disruptives?