Unleash Your Inner Devil: Why More Brands Need to Think Like Founders

We are living through a decade of disruption. AI, shifting consumer habits, sustainability demands, and evolving categories. The conditions are ripe for brands willing to take risks, yet many established players are still defending rather than attacking.

"Brands need to think more like entrepreneurs," says Chris Baker, strategist and founder. "They need to see opportunity rather than risk, to out-compete their rivals by doing something unexpected."

With over 100 strategic and creative awards from his agency days working with household names, Chris now operates as both founder and strategist, running Serious Tissues and the Change Brands Collective, while advising disruptive brands like Fussy, Oddbox, and Pack’d and big companies like Arla Foods.

Following his recent collaboration with Another on Fussy's devilishly clever campaign, we sat down with Chris to explore how founder thinking is reshaping brand strategy and why the next wave of breakthrough work won’t always come with bigger budgets.

Turning Constraints Into Creative Advantage

“As a founder, you’ve got to make your limited resources go further,” Chris explains. “Having sat on both sides of the fence, it was clear that the agency landscape wasn’t really working for founders. So we created Change Brands as a way of getting access to top talent for these brilliant brands.”

Their recent strategic work for Fussy demonstrates this perfectly. Ali Dickinson, previously of Saatchi and Saatchi, both wrote and directed the spot. The campaign flipped traditional market research on its head and gave it a twist for Halloween: instead of testing the sustainable deodorant with its normal target audience, it was tested with people who would be the hardest to convince, actual devils.

Every feature they despised became a proof point the real audience would love: Not tested on animals? Disgusting. Refillable and compostable? Revolting. Smells like a luxury spa? Awful.

"Turning positive proof points into something they absolutely hate works amazingly well," Chris says. "You know a good idea when you think, 'Why has no one done this before?'"
The idea grew directly out of constraints. "Change Brands do not have the budget of big FMCG companies, so you need to think creatively about how you do things," Chris notes. "Thinking within constraints naturally means you do things differently and often better, taking a few creative risks along the way"

The Emotion Gap

Chris specialises in helping purpose-driven businesses shift consumer spending toward more sustainable or ethical alternatives. When asked about the biggest strategic mistake these brands make as they scale, he does not hesitate: they become too rational.
"Behavioural economics tells us people act emotionally and then post-rationalise," he explains. "We do not make decisions based purely on facts. We make them based on how we feel, and then justify them later."

It is a trap he has seen many Change Brands fall into in the battle to drive more online sales. They start by winning over the 10 percent of consumers who genuinely care about sustainability, the ones who read ingredient lists and research supply chains. But when they try to reach the next 40 percent, they double down on proof points and lose the emotional spark.

"If you are just pumping out a list of reasons to believe, you will lose people," Chris warns. "You need to be a brand people love, something they connect with emotionally and aspire to buy."

Fussy's campaign shows how emotion can lead. The facts, effective, refillable, compostable, cruelty-free, are all there, but they are delivered with humour and charm. The concept makes you smile and want to share it. The emotion comes first; the rationality follows.

Why Production Partners Are Now Strategic Partners

Chris's dual perspective as strategist and founder gives him an unusually grounded view of what actually works. "It is very different when it is your own money you are spending," he admits.

The Fussy project exemplifies this thinking. The Change Brands team developed a concept that turned a modest budget into a creative advantage, while Another brought it to life with production decisions that served the idea, shooting in an authentically unglamorous research setting that made the humour hit harder.

"The kind of content that really moves the needle for small brands is often out of reach in terms of cost," Chris says. "But smart partnerships change that. Everyone is trying to make budgets work harder, no matter the scale."

Reflecting on his partnership with Another, Chris adds: "We have collaborated many times, and they have such an interesting, forward-facing business model that really works in the current climate."

The Real Opportunity

For Chris, the next few years represent a moment of extraordinary potential. Disruption is not slowing down. It is accelerating.

"A founder mentality combined with the resources of a bigger company, that is the perfect set of conditions to seize the opportunities out there," he says.
In an industry often paralysed by risk aversion, that might be the most valuable insight of all. The brands that win in the next decade will not be the ones with the biggest budgets. They will be the ones who fully embrace the founder mindset.

Chris is the founder of the Change Brands Collective, a way for small brands to access top-tier creative and design talent without the hefty price tag.