Despite the growing presence of activist investors and increasing research on the outcomes that arise from their involvement, research in strategy has not studied the nature of strategies that attract attention from these investors. We examine the characteristics of strategies that make them more difficult to evaluate and heighten information asymmetries, focusing on how a firm’s extent of “strategic incongruence” influences its relative valuation and proactive investor attention. Using hand-collected proprietary data on SEC 13D filings, we find that the more that firms’ diversification strategies differ from peers, the lower their relative market valuations and the greater the likelihood they will attract proactive investors. Our work contributes to understanding important drivers of equity market pressures.