Branding Strategy Insider

The Wall Street Journal reported recently that, in the desire to control their narratives, companies are “desperately seeking storytellers.” While many writers who have labored in the realm of marketing communications are probably using their head-exploding and head-slapping emojis in texts crossing the globe, it should be reassuring that companies seem to believe that a well-planned story, expertly told, can create value. This is why, however, merely dusting off liberal arts diplomas and providing writing...

Every December, leaders everywhere sit down with the same familiar ritual: drafting resolutions. Lose the waste. Grow the revenue. Fix the culture. Get more focused, more organized, more intentional. And every March, most of those resolutions are quietly… forgotten. So this year, let’s try something far more powerful and memorable. Write your six-word story. If that phrase rings a bell, thank Ernest Hemingway. Legend has it that Hemingway once accepted a barroom challenge to write...

As 2025 draws to a close, several brands are focusing on revitalization. Why? Poor strategies, sour executions, ignoring basic, evergreen, brand principles, and other given reasons like the weather, tariffs, and, sigh, still COVID. Kohl’s, Cracker Barrel, Macy’s, and Bath & Body Works are redesigning themselves for enduring profitable growth. At the center of these brand rejuvenations are desires to improve brand experiences. As the CEO of Bath & Body Works told The Wall Street...

For twenty years, the CPG innovation failure rate has remained between 70% and 90%. During that same period, the industry adopted many frameworks – Design Thinking, Jobs To Be Done, Blue Ocean Strategy, and Horizon Mapping. Each framework was positioned as a way to make organizations more effective in translating consumer opportunity. Each was implemented with training, toolkits, and ceremony. But the failure rate has held steady. The problem is not with the frameworks themselves....

There may be no more important function within a brand-centric company than marketing to influence future financial (cash flow) success. Financial results are routinely explained by four drivers: volume, price, mix, and cost. Marketing’s effect on volume and price is well understood. Expressed most simply in economic terms, effective marketing increases brand preference, pushing the demand curve upward and to the right. The brand owner can then choose to capture this improvement as an increase in volume, an increase...

If you have spent any time dealing with AI digital entities to solve your brand problem, you will not be surprised to learn that we, customers, are totally frustrated with customer service. The Wall Street Journal recently wrote about our unhappiness with customer service. The title of the article is “American Customers Are Madder Than Ever.” After all, we can buy things and hold them in our hands on the same day of purchase. But...

Branding Strategy Insider helps marketing-oriented leaders and professionals define, strengthen, and grow brand value. One way we do that is by answering real questions from readers navigating real challenges inside their organizations. Today, we’re hearing from Jennifer, a VP of Marketing in Boston, Massachusetts, who has a timely question about building an internal innovation incubator. We are exploring the creation of an innovation incubator inside my organization, what guiding principles should shape my approach? Thanks...

Amid all the issues surrounding air travel over the holidays, one thing that makes flying worth considering is safety. We do not need to place safety on our list of holiday air travel woes, a list that is already extensive. Yet, just before Thanksgiving, the press reported on new and improved safety elements from Boeing. If you recall, and who possibly wants to while actually sitting on a Boeing-manufactured plane, Boeing had several serious –...

From all my years in research and consulting, I think I’ve learned a thing or two about marketing worth sharing. Enduring fundamentals, mostly yet often overlooked. So, this year, I’m sharing some for your consideration. I hope they’re helpful. This week’s thought: Marketing turns ideas into business. Ideas are the heart and soul of marketing. It’s all about intangibles—lightbulb moments of inventive strategic inspiration. It’s a lot of brainwork, and thus, marketing is easily mocked....

This month, Starbucks announced that its coffee delivery business is now a $1.0 billion business. Yes, that’s right, $1.0 billion. With a “B.” And, even more striking, in its most recent quarter, Starbucks also announced that said delivery business grew by almost 30%. Now, some out there might be thinking, “Okay, that’s interesting, but what’s the big deal?” Well, the big deal is that the implications of this statistic go far beyond just selling coffee. The Experience...

One of the things that makes marketing advice sound so specious, at times, is when the marketing advice dished up is considered newly insightful, but is, in reality, just a description of the eternal obvious, the “greens fees,” the “table stakes.” When The Wall Street Journal ran an article titled, “Restaurant Executives Tell Us How They Get Customers When Times Are Hard,” you might have been expecting some real insights. You might have expected some...

It is axiomatic that marketers should know their customers. In many firms, it is the role of marketing to speak for the customer – to represent the needs of and advocate for customers, and to build and maintain relationships with customers. These activities are essential to the long-term survival of the firm because customers are the ultimate source of revenue and other resources necessary for the firm. Without customers, a firm does not last long....

Brands constantly speak of innovation. They celebrate transformation, responsibility, customer-centricity, and long-term value. Yet every November, many return to one of the oldest commercial reflexes: the mass-discount ritual known as Black Friday. This article is part of Branding Strategy Insider’s newsletter. You can sign up here to get thought pieces like this sent to your inbox. A practice wrapped in modern packaging, but rooted in a logic from another era. A practice that once emerged...

Probably no surprise to those who chronicle our fractured behaviors, we have become unwilling to compromise. As uncompromising consumers, we want benefits that contradict and complement at the same time. We want brands to consistently deliver a paradox promise. A paradox promise is when a brand offers and delivers the optimization of two contradictory benefits. Success today requires brands to address needs-driven, occasion-based conflicts by developing compelling, trustworthy branded paradox promises that deliver relevant, differentiated...

Branding is a business strategy. It can justify higher margin because customers trust the brand based on their prior experience or because the brand is the best match for their preferences with respect to one or more product characteristics. The value of the brand to the firm is the price premium it commands. Successful branding can increase loyalty among customers, making them less likely to switch from purchase occasion to purchase occasion, even when competitors...

Seminal research demonstrates that companies who underinvest in branding potentially face an extinction event as diminishing share of market and declining price support make profitability elusive. Even in the best market conditions, brand investments play a key role in deciding outcomes among competitors. This article is part of Branding Strategy Insider’s newsletter. You can sign up here to get thought pieces like this sent to your inbox. A classic case study is that of Duracell...

The news from YUM! is that Pizza Hut may be sliced. The other two big brands in the YUM! portfolio – KFC and Taco Bell – are managing. Sadly, Pizza Hut is not hot. There are several reasons why Pizza Hut is experiencing difficulties operating in today’s restaurant environment. Late last year, QSR magazine wrote an in-depth story about Pizza Hut and its tribulations. The article cited the various Pizza Hut evolutions: from a dine-in...

The world of marketing has evolved, and today the companies that supply marketing communications and brand strategy are very different. There was a time when ad agencies were also the chief brand builders for their clients. It was called the 20th century. But that era is over and even big and brilliant agencies are no longer qualified to work on brand strategy. Ad agencies should do what it says on their tin – be agents...

In those times when maximum effort is not enough, and this happens to everyone and every enterprise, what heartens first is observing others — partners and competitors — who have endured the same condition and prevailed. In the cases where redemption eludes, the second point of heartening is the comfort found in venerating the one element that adheres to every vestige of an endeavor: values. Enterprise values typically express the core beliefs, principles, and ethical...

Not to beat this Cracker Barrel fiasco into the ground anymore, but there is a problem when brand marketers use age as a definer of relevant values. When Cracker Barrel and its crack consultants decided that modernizing the Cracker Barrel brand meant jettisoning the totems of Cracker Barrel’s provenance, those involved made a mistake. It is possible to be old and new at the same time. This article is part of Branding Strategy Insider’s newsletter....