In an ever-changing world brands must keep up or risk losing relevance
There are three things that are changing everything when it comes to the world of brand strategy. These shifts risk making a lot of brand strategy look old world. Here’s what’s shaping the new world of brand strategy, and how you can make sure your brand is in it.
First things first, let’s get the ‘p’ word out of the way quickly. One seemingly lasting effect of the pandemic is that more of our brand interactions happen digitally. Digital interactions with brands differ, because a brand can put everything it does in one place and customers can easily navigate to what’s right for them, without needing sub-brands to point the way.
In the old world of brand strategy, fewer brands were generally considered a good thing – creating greater efficiency and making each brand stronger. The increased digitalisation of our brand interactions might seem like a continuation of that old world trend. But in the old world, the focus on fewer, stronger, brands, was usually accompanied by greater standardisation of experiences: the same thing for everyone. In the new world, it’s more about a brand offering something for everyone.
Look at any ‘strongest brand’ list. Tech brands feature prominently. It’s no accident and not only because tech companies deploy fewer, stronger brands, or even because the tech sector is so culturally significant. It’s also because tech brands digitalised interactions earlier. They got away from same thing for everyone first, and they’ve reaped the benefit in brand strength.
In the new world, it’s time to look at your brand portfolio and ask yourself, do you need those sub-brands or are they getting in the way? And if your brand architecture is less multi and more mono, have you unnecessarily standardised your experience?
The second thing that’s changing everything is versioning. In the old world, a brand sought to stamp its own version of the world on its experience. Branding was about control, delivering a coordinated, concerted message to the masses.
Brand success in the new world will increasingly look like ‘your’ brand becoming more and more versionable by your customers, to the extent that it may look and feel more like ‘their’ brand.
James Withey, Executive Director, Strategy & Innovation, EMEA, Landor & Fitch
In the new world, people increasingly expect that they can create their own version of how they interact with brands, and how they connect those brands up into their own personal portfolios. Look at your app screen. It’s different to other peoples. It might even be unique. That’s because you versioned your experience, even though you might not have thought about it like that.
In the new world, you can trade off the delivery of a highly controlled mass media approach to build closer relationships with customers. For example, serving up ‘right place, right time, right for you’ content to customers scanning a QR code – content that would differ in a different place or time or for a different customer. This a win-win – more rewarding experiences for customers in exchange for a more relevant and data-informed brand – and it’s also a form of versioning.
Brand success in the new world will increasingly look like ‘your’ brand becoming more and more versionable by your customers, to the extent that it may look and feel more like ‘their’ brand. This is how to maximise relevance. But how do you do that without sacrificing difference? When the symbols of your difference are in your customers’ hands, you need to bond them to you with the ultimate intangible – ideology. Your ideology is the idea and belief system that your customers buy into, bonding them to you and to one-another as a community. In the new world, a differentiating and deeply held ideology is the most important, enduring aspect of your brand.
Even more so because of the third thing that’s changing everything – individualisation. This differs from versioning because versioning personalises the experience around a product, whereas individualisation is about the product itself differing on an individual basis.
We call this one-for-one branding.
In the old world, this approach was restricted to luxury brands. In the new world, thanks to technology, it’s becoming democratised. Our recently launched {access}ories platform takes this approach. When creating a solution to the accessibility challenges many people with, for example, arthritis face when using a toothbrush, we discovered that these challenges are so individually specific that they can’t be segmented into typologies – the only solution that will really work is a one-for-one solution. This has far-reaching implications – not only does brand experience become ever-more versionable, the products and services the experience is built around are specific to the individual customer, and the brand is a representation of this commitment.
In the new world of brand strategy, think about yours through these criteria: is your brand strategy an ideology, a system of belief? Can it transcend standardisation? Can it withstand and inspire experience versioning? And can it embrace one for one? Because in this new non-standard, versioned, individualised world, your brand strategy might just be the most enduring thing you’ve got.
James is Executive Director, Strategy & Innovation, at Landor & Fitch. His role encompasses running the Strategy team of the London studio, as well as leading the development of Landor & Fitch’s innovation practice in EMEA. James has almost 25 years’ experience in brand consultancy and insight. He joined Landor & Fitch in 2021, prior to which he was Executive Director running the business of Siegel & Gale. James has also had stints at FutureBrand, Circus, Landor and Interbrand among others. His sector experience is hugely varied, ranging from automotive to FMCG and technology to financial services. Over the years, his clients have included bp, M&S, Aston Martin, Coutts, Nestlé and Lenovo.
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