Big Moves: Why Your Brand Doesn’t Need Another Campaign – It Needs a Change of Gear
Most high-tech brands and advanced manufacturers aren’t stuck because of “capability”. They’re stuck because they’re thinking too small.
New website. New tagline. Another LinkedIn campaign that “performs well” and changes nothing in the P&L.
Meanwhile, the companies that actually rip market share off competitors aren’t running “optimisations”. They’re making big, lopsided moves – decisions that change the odds in their favour and make life harder for everyone else.
They change how people buy.
They change what “normal” looks like in their category.
They change the rules just enough that playing the old game becomes a disadvantage.
That’s the whole point of Battle Lab and the Big Moves work we’ve been building at BBT: stop polishing the pitch deck and start looking for the one or two moves that actually tilt the field.
Let’s start with a few brands that did exactly that – Dropbox, Salesforce, Rolls-Royce, Adobe – then I’ll show you the pattern underneath, and how Battle Lab helps you find your version of a big move instead of another forgettable campaign.
1. Dropbox: Turn Users into a Free Salesforce
Problem: Cloud storage was invisible and boring. No one woke up thinking, “I’d love to configure a sync client today.”
The move: Instead of burning cash on ads, Dropbox bribed users with the only currency that mattered: more space. Refer a friend, both of you get extra gigabytes. No vouchers. No points. Just more of what you’re already here for.
Results?
From 100k to 4 million users in 15 months – 3,900% growth, with up to 35% of daily signups from referrals.
Referred users stuck around longer and spent more.
They’re estimated to have saved around US$48m in marketing costs by letting the product and incentive do the heavy lifting.
What kind of move is this?
Rewire the channel: users became the media.
Move the money: budget shifted from ads into product value.
Lock in memory: the simple “invite friends, get space” mechanic became part of how people talk about Dropbox.
For an industrial brand, this is the equivalent of:
“Bring us a qualified customer, both of you get a bundled install, training, and support upgrade – on us.”
Not a campaign. A growth engine.
2. Salesforce: Declare War on Your Own Category
In 2000, Salesforce was another tiny CRM company up against Siebel and Oracle. They could have run earnest “better CRM” ads like everyone else.
Instead they launched with “The End of Software” – a full-blown anti-software protest outside Siebel’s conference, complete with fake protestors, “NO SOFTWARE” signs and a logo slashing through the word “software”.
This did three brutal, clever things at once:
Reframed the game
It wasn’t “which CRM is best?”
It was “old world (on-premise software) vs new world (cloud)”. Salesforce owned the new world.Owned a simple, sticky idea
“No Software” made a complex SaaS model emotionally obvious. You didn’t need a whitepaper; you got it in one second.Created insane mental availability
Fake protests + a provocative logo + a clear enemy = everyone talked about them for free.
This is Battle Lab’s “Reframe the Game + Lock in Memory” combo in its purest form.
For a high-tech manufacturer, that might look like:
“The End of Downtime.”
“No More Unplanned Stops.”
“Zero-Guesswork Maintenance.”
Big, simple, emotionally loaded lines that re-draw the map instead of adding another bullet point.
3. Rolls-Royce: Stop Selling Engines, Sell Flight Hours
Old model: sell a jet engine, wish the customer luck, send invoices for parts and repairs.
Big move: “Power by the Hour” – instead of buying engines and then paying to maintain them, airlines pay Rolls-Royce per hour of engine operation. Roll-Royce owns the risk, data, and service.
Outcome:
Huge, predictable service revenue; by 2017, services were around 53% of Rolls-Royce revenue.
Deeper customer lock-in, because the engine is now part of a long-term performance contract, not a one-off purchase.
A business model competitors had to chase for years.
Battle Lab lens:
Change the odds: shift who carries the risk.
Move the money: from capex to opex; from product sale to lifetime value.
Control the choke point: whoever controls uptime & data becomes very hard to dislodge.
Manufacturing version?
“Pay per tonne reliably delivered, not per conveyor component.”
“Power by the pallet / by the uptime hour / by defect-free unit.”
Harder to copy than “we’re innovative and customer-centric”.
4. Adobe: Burn the Boats Behind You
For years Adobe sold boxed software with perpetual licences. Then they set fire to the whole model and pushed customers into Creative Cloud subscriptions.
Painful? Very. Clever? Extremely.
They went from roughly 5% recurring revenue to about 70% in a few years, with revenue growth lifting from low single digits to double digits and the share price more than tripling.
This was a classic “Big Move, Not a Tweak”:
Change how people pay.
Change how often they see you.
Change how quickly you can add value.
For an advanced manufacturer, that might be:
Moving from “sell machine + expensive service call-outs” to “continuous monitoring + guaranteed throughput for a flat monthly fee”.
Or bundling software, training, analytics, and support into one subscription that wraps around your physical kit.
So What Actually Makes a “Big Move”?
From the Big Moves whitepaper and the Battle Lab system, the common thread isn’t “be crazy”. It’s this: you deliberately change the conditions of the game so growth gets easier for you and harder for everyone else.
Most “Big Moves” fall into a few repeatable patterns:
Reframe the game
Make the old way look stupid or risky (Salesforce vs “software”).
Define a new standard (zero downtime, pay per hour, no capex).
Move the money
Turn ad money into product incentives (Dropbox).
Shift from one-off sales to recurring value (Adobe, Rolls-Royce).
Rewire access & risk
Make it easier to try you than ignore you.
Take on a risk your competitors are scared of (uptime guarantees, performance-linked pricing).
Lock in memory and salience
Own a phrase, symbol, stunt, or promise no one else can use without looking like a knock-off (“No Software”, “Power by the Hour”).
Glue it to everything you do – assets, channels, sales, service.
Or, in IGNITE language without the jargon:
Make your brand unmissable (mental availability).
Make you ridiculously easy to buy and stay with (physical availability).
Wrap both in a move that competitors can’t quietly copy in next quarter’s tender deck.
Where Battle Lab Fits
The uncomfortable truth:
Most high-tech and manufacturing brands are capable of a big move – but they don’t have a systematic way to find one that isn’t suicidal.
Battle Lab exists to fix that:
We map your current position: who really has the power today – spec writers, integrators, distributors, regulators, OEMs?
We run your brand, model, channels and proof through the Big Moves taxonomy – reframe, move the money, control the choke-point, own the spec, lock in memory, and so on.
We stress-test candidate moves against the brand science:
Will this actually increase how often you’re noticed and recalled in real buying situations?
Does it make you easier to find, specify, buy or justify?
Can you execute it without blowing up the factory?
You don’t walk out with “a new campaign”.
You walk out with 1–3 real plays that change something structural: business model, channel, standard, promise, or proof.
What This Means If You “Make Things”
If you’re a high-tech brand or advanced manufacturer, your problem is almost never “capability”.
You already know how to build world-class stuff.
Your problem is that you’re playing tiny chess moves in a market that’s being won by people willing to flip the board.
Still arguing over which shade of blue your logo should be?
Still pitching “innovation, quality, service” like everyone else?
Still running performance campaigns to the same tiny sliver of buyers already in-market?
Then your next step isn’t another ad. It’s a Big Move.
Factory of the future? We’ve got plenty of those.
What we’re missing are brands of the future – the ones willing to reframe the game, move the money, and make themselves impossible to ignore.
That’s what Battle Lab is for.
References
Dropbox referral growth case study – QueueForm (2025). queueform.com
Salesforce “No Software” launch and protest stunts – UX Collective; SalesforceBen; Entrepreneur. UX Collective+2Salesforce Ben+2
Adobe Creative Cloud transition interview – McKinsey (2015). McKinsey & Company
Rolls-Royce “Power by the Hour” aftermarket services case – ICMR (2019). icmrindia.org
Big Moves and Battle Lab taxonomy – internal BBT whitepaper “Big Moves to Dominate” and MARCOM OPS & Battle Lab System.
