Refresh your brand, don't reposition it

I have been having multiple dental surgeries over the last few months (don’t knock out your teeth on goalposts, kids) and have realised that, for some reason, dentists think they need to show you nature documentaries. I'm not sure they know that most of the content isn't calming and doesn’t drown out the dulcet tones of the drill. Attenborough aside, I now know that if you see a dead whale anywhere...run, that plastic is literally in everything, and in classic British understatement (from a man that literally could tell you that an asteroid is about to hit Earth without your heart rate rising) natural ecosystems start to get sick as soon as they become less diverse.

We see this in US politics where Grampy Joe and Creepy Uncle Don were leading a turtle parade of old folks only a gerontologist or J.D. Vance could find interesting. To be honest, when the troubled young man failed to fell Deadwood Don and Kamala got a promotion, my thoughts on both occasions were, ‘Well at least someone under the age of retirement will get a shot at this now,’ pardon the pun, of course.

Our stock markets also lack variety. In the US, seven stocks now make up thirty percent of the S&P 500 index, and here at home twenty stocks make up forty percent of the value of the ASX. Poor industry super funds actually cost themselves return by investing in the infrastructure and fabric of Australia, whereas index funds overdelivered last fiscal year thanks to everyone’s new best friend, Nvidia.

We are entering a world that is more heterogeneous and as a result it is more dangerous. Declining diversity in our economic and political worlds is matching the decline we are seeing in the natural world. As the saying now goes, ‘Big eats strategy for breakfast'. Small meanwhile is facing life in the blender. Recent data from MYOB shows that businesses under nineteen people are underperforming economic growth that is already less than one percent.

For those who are as gifted at math as I am, what it really says is small business is in recession, squeezed between higher bills and less income. You only have to stroll your local shopping strip to see this at play. It is local restaurant you loved but probably don’t eat at anymore cause the bank ate your Friday night meal out, or the local bookshop gone the way of Booktopia thanks to industry dynamics that make MMA look sedate in comparison. Life has become brutal in the middle. Those running a business know that while the accountant tells you that Cashflow is King a real advisor tells you that recovering your fixed costs and making money from them is the only way to make your way in this world. Cashflow is vanity. Free cash flow is actually the Queen.

Lack of diversity stems from less competition

I do worry about what this portends for the future. Our Australian design codes have disappeared. No wonder the kids are reaching for Gorman in the vintage aisles. It had an idea and a sensibility that could only have been Australian. I have even started to miss the old days – we’ll-save-you advertisements, and Godfrey’s approach to door-to-door vacuum sales done in a shop, ‘Everything must go!’ Now we have Mecca and Kmart that, quite frankly, could come from anywhere and were designed to look as such. Bunnings’ handwritten signs and Chemist Warehouse’s, ‘More shelf pricing please,’ are the last holdouts fighting a tide.

There was a recent Fast Company article that tried to unpack why brand repositioning has been rebranded as the 'brand refresh'. It is the kind of exercise in naval gazing that marketing specialises in – trying to justify a change in terminology when the market has moved on. The real question is why?

The pointy end of it all

In the world of markets and competition there is now a different dynamic at play. Brand is always a game of triangulation. What you can do as a company, what your competitors win on, and most importantly what your customers want. It is now what the consumer wants that is the most important point on the triangle.

Traditional brand repositioning, which involves changing the brand’s market position and image, is required less because the brands we do have are bigger or smaller. The small ones are always positioned in juxtaposition to the big ones and the bigger the brand the better articulated it is and the more equity it carries. Unless they spill crude oil into the ocean, give dodgy advice to government or hold on too long to an outdated business model, there is often very little need to reposition, but plenty of need to refresh.

The main challenge is in striking the right balance between maintaining the brand’s heritage and introducing more modern elements. Brands like Coca-Cola and McDonald’s are the masters of this. Coca-Cola periodically updates its packaging and communication idea while maintaining its iconic logo and brand colours. Maccas creates different series or worlds of packaging and in-store comms that code play with everything from the arches to the product forms themselves.

The real challenge for big brands is that the ever-increasing digital age has accelerated the pace at which cultural shifts occur, hollowing out the middle which was easier for bigger brands to reach and speak to. Big brands need to keep pace with these changes to stay relevant. Brand refreshes provide a way to incorporate modern design trends and new communication channels without changing the foundations upon which the brand stands.

How small fights big

With the middle of most categories holed out, this only leaves smaller or challenger brands. Luckily they have a natural positioning. They are not the big one. Challenger brands come in all shapes and sizes, but nothing has changed since Adam Morgan wrote, Eating Big Fish (1999). You take on big by taking shortcuts. In my experience there are six broad strategies you can follow to take on big:

1. Devalue existing value. Think brands like Jetstar, Aussie Broadband and MCoBeauty who offer a cheaper alternative to something that already exists.

2. Enhance existing value. Think how brands like Vrbo took on Airbnb or how Airbnb took on the hotels to begin with.

3. Create new value. Think brands like Square, Afterpay or Liquid Death who added value to a staid category.

4. Reinvent existing value. Think brands like Koala, Yeti or Nespresso who recombined existing things to create something new.

5. Aggregation. Consolidate existing value. Think brands like Amazon at a mass scale or Appliances Online at a micro scale that make it easy to find everything in one place.

6. Reduce friction to value. Think brands like Netflix, Sephora or Expedia who make it easier to find what you are looking for.

The future of branding lies in the ability to evolve while staying true to the essence that makes a brand unique.

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Be better to each other.