The Underdog Story: David and Goliath

David and Goliath is the clas­sic under­dog story.

Stories about unex­pec­ted cham­pi­ons beat­ing the odds (and power­ful enemies) are almost always fascinating.

Here we go:

The Underdog Story: David and Goliath

We know the story:

The story of David and Goliath, ori­gin­at­ing from the bib­lic­al Book of 1 Samuel 17, unfolds in ancient Israel dur­ing a war between the Israelites and their long-stand­ing adversar­ies, the Philistines. The Philistine army, seek­ing to dom­in­ate the Israelites, had set up camp in the val­ley of Elah, where they posi­tioned them­selves on one hill. 

At the same time, King Saul and the Israelite forces occu­pied anoth­er. Between them lay an open bat­tle­field. To break the stale­mate, the Philistines put for­ward their ulti­mate weapon: Goliath of Gath, a tower­ing war­ri­or, described as over nine feet tall (based on some bib­lic­al trans­la­tions), clad in bronze armor, wield­ing an enorm­ous spear with an iron tip and a massive sword. 

Goliath, brim­ming with arrog­ance and dis­dain for the Israelites, issued a chal­lenge — rather than a full-scale battle, the con­flict would be settled by single com­bat: an Israelite cham­pi­on would face him in a duel, and the fate of both nations would rest on the out­come. For forty days, Goliath strode onto the bat­tle­field, mock­ing the Israelites and their God, dar­ing any man to chal­lenge him. But Saul’s war­ri­ors, para­lysed by fear, saw no hope against such an indom­it­able force.

Enter David, the young­est son of Jesse, a mere shep­herd boy from Bethlehem who had been sent to the bat­tle­field to deliv­er food to his older broth­ers serving in Saul’s army. Unlike the sol­diers, David did not see Goliath’s size as an insur­mount­able threat but as an affront to Israel and God. He volun­teered to fight, much to the aston­ish­ment of Saul and his men. 

Though ini­tially dis­missed due to his youth and inex­per­i­ence, David con­vinced Saul by recount­ing how, as a shep­herd, he had slain both lions and bears to pro­tect his flock. Rejecting the heavy armor offered to him, David took his simple sling and five smooth stones from a nearby stream. Facing Goliath, David remained undaun­ted by the giant’s taunts, declar­ing that he fought not with weapons but in the name of the Lord. With a single, per­fectly aimed stone, David struck Goliath in the fore­head, caus­ing the mighty war­ri­or to crash face-first to the ground. 

Swiftly, David seized Goliath’s sword and beheaded him, seal­ing vic­tory for Israel. Upon wit­ness­ing their champion’s defeat, the Philistines fled in ter­ror, while David’s tri­umph marked the begin­ning of his rise to prom­in­ence, even­tu­ally lead­ing him to become King of Israel. 

Underdogs, Misfits, and Giants

The tale of David and Goliath has become a uni­ver­sal meta­phor for the under­dog over­com­ing impossible odds through cour­age, faith, and skill.

In David and Goliath: Underdogs, Misfits and the Art of Battling Giants, Malcolm Gladwell out­lines the dynam­ic between map­ping your and your oppon­ent’s strengths and weak­nesses. He goes on to sug­gest that under­dogs have sig­ni­fic­ant advantages:

Instead of fight­ing Goliath on his terms (strength and power), David used his advant­ages (speed and accur­acy). One could argue that David’s dis­ad­vant­ages (being more neg­li­gible and less exper­i­enced) forced him to out­smart his opponent.

If David had been an exper­i­enced war­ri­or with the phys­ic­al size to match Goliath’s prowess, David would prob­ably have decided to fight him on equal terms, right?

The Obstacle is the Way

The legend of David and Goliath endures as we find com­fort in know­ing that the strongest does­n’t always win. The under­dog approach isn’t just help­ful in fight­ing; it has a proven track record of being highly use­ful in pub­lic relations.

In The Obstacle Is the Way: The Timeless Art of Turning Trials into Triumph, Ryan Holiday describes how choos­ing the path of the most res­ist­ance max­im­ises our growth as both indi­vidu­als and organisations:

Having the odds stacked against you might not be as bad as it seems at first glance. If noth­ing else, it’s the start of a great story.

Play To Strength, Exploit Weakness

Yes, David exploits Goliath’s weak­nesses (not being fast or accur­ate enough to beat David from a dis­tance). However, David still chooses to fight Goliath on “his” grounds — to steal away “his” audi­ence. It’s safe to say that only a minor­ity thought that David would beat Goliath before the actu­al fight. 

From a PR per­spect­ive, David could emerge from nowhere and beat the mar­ket lead­er by exploit­ing an inter­est­ing social phe­nomen­on: the major­ity is some­times just wrong.

Stupid, even.

The fact that a stag­ger­ing major­ity of bystand­ers — includ­ing one con­fid­ent Goliath — nev­er expec­ted David to stand a chance gave him the upper hand.

We cel­eb­rate that David chose a bet­ter weapon when we should instead cel­eb­rate his suc­cess­ful manip­u­la­tion of the stu­pid major­ity; from nowhere, David inser­ted him­self into the top spot in just one bold move.

In the fight against Goliath, we admire David not only for his wits but also for his guts. After all, David did bring a sling­shot to a sword fight.

The Classic Underdog Story

Leveraging an under­dog pub­lic rela­tions strategy to beat a major­ity lead­er is not about bring­ing bet­ter weapons; it’s about hav­ing guts and tak­ing on a major­ity that is stu­pid, incom­pet­ent, dead wrong — and more power­ful than you.

Some major­it­ies of today are destined to be gone tomorrow.

The more sig­ni­fic­ant and dom­in­ant the major­ity, the more likely it is to con­sist of a sub­stan­tial silent major­ity who are just along for the ride, mainly because every­one else seems to be. 

Seeing a minor­ity defeat a major­ity makes for good enter­tain­ment — when the major­ity is also stu­pid. From a PR per­spect­ive, the big bad is about to beat the under­dog against all the odds.

Now that’s a great story, just beg­ging to be told!

Learn more: The Underdog Story: David and Goliath

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