How to keep your brand world fascinating over time
Can a brand world ever get boring? And what can you do about it if it does? Here’s how to keep your brand world fascinating and endlessly relevant.
A brand world is the interconnected universe your brand has created and is inhabiting right now – a web constantly being spun across your multiple channels. It’s the sum of all your brand’s distinctive assets, campaigns, comms, strategic thinking, company values, consumer experiences and diverse touchpoints. It’s how your audience and buyers see you, think of you and emotionally connect with you. So every piece of it must fascinate and resonate now and into the future – if any part of that world fragments, looks tired or lacks relevance then you’ve lost the chance to make an impact of consequence with your consumer.
But how do you keep a brand world fascinating over time? Do brand worlds get boring? And can fascination dwindle?
It’s a very real worry for a lot of brands – how to balance longer-term brand building with shorter-term commercial objectives and cultural relevance. Do they stick or twist? To root the response in insight, two key sources were used: System1: Power of Compound Creativity (that uses the IPA Effectiveness Databank) and WARC The Effectiveness Code by James Hurman with Peter Field.
What the combined data is overwhelmingly saying is that long-term brand consistency matters more than ever… So while marketers might be seduced by a bold repositioning or a shiny new logo every few years, the real magic might lie in repetition not reinvention.
1. Brands need fascinating foundations
The most effective brands have powerful, memorable and meaningful foundations. That they use consistently over time. Think golden arches icon or the ‘have a break, have a KitKat’ platform. The Effectiveness Code calls them ‘enduring icons’ and puts them at the top of the effectiveness ladder.
The best foundations capture the brand’s strategic difference, are rooted in historical truth or are culturally relevant. When there’s real depth, potency or fascination behind a DBA, it can become a timeless advantage for a brand. We created the logo for WRC – World Rally Championship – in 2001 and it’s still going strong today despite the sport undergoing radical change. We think it’s because the fascinating truth at the heart of it is still true today, it depicts the racing line and all the epic, unexpected and continuous flowing corners that are the centrepiece of every race (unlike F1’s endless circling). There are hundreds of examples, from cars to confectionary, of how a logo or DBA grows in power over time rather than diminishes. They seep into people’s consciousness whether they like it or not. System1 talk about them being neurological fast tracks to attention, memory and emotion. In fact, brands that consistently reuse these assets over prolonged periods of time saw emotional response ratings increase from an average of 2.6 to 4.0 (out of 5) over five years.
So whether you’re creating foundational assets from scratch or evolving older ones, root them in something fascinating – then use them ruthlessly across your entire brand world.
2. Brands need to evolve constantly
A good brand world should never be static. It’s never ‘done’. There will always be new commercial challenges and opportunities. Different channels, formats or audiences. And they will all be showcased and reflected in your wider brand world.
A brand world can get tired, so needs attention to keep it fascinating. We’ve undertaken two brand world refreshes for Kozel, the world’s favourite Czech beer, over the last 10 years. Nothing fundamental. Just gentle enhancements, refinements and simplifications to keep up with consumer trends, shifting strategies and to improve NPS scores.
So, of course, a brand world needs to constantly evolve – it should always be optimising or diversifying or modernising. That doesn’t mean everything has to change. Far from it. It just means continually ensuring your brand world is relevant, iconic and meaningful to your target audience everywhere.
3. Brands need consistent design brilliance
A great brand world should be fascinating not formulaic. If you force the same hero design everywhere (the cookie-cutter approach) you’ll get creative wear-out quicker than you imagine – and it won’t stand the test of time.
Every channel is different, and often has a different audience or shopper mindset, so the design and messages need to be relevant and appealing at each touchpoint. Yes, of course, it should all come from the same brand – built from proposition, using the same DBAs etc – but there should be endless brilliantly creative ways to remix it to keep comms fresh and fascinating over many years. It means your brand shows up recognisably, no matter where or how it's encountered. The message is always familiar but never stale. And will last long into the future.
So how can brands keep their brand world fascinating over time?
The overwhelming evidence points to consistency – use the same fascinating foundational assets across every channel, integrate them in fresh new ways depending on concept, campaign and touchpoint and be dedicated to keeping them relevant for your audience. The WARC The Effectiveness Code sums it up well. Stay creatively committed… the effectiveness and longevity of a brand world strongly correlates with duration (be consistent over years not months), omnichannel presence (be across all media but show up in a relevant way) and invest consistently (don’t be short-sighted – invest in the long-term health of your brand world). Even low-budget brands can outperform if they commit to long-term duration and channel diversity.
Sources
> “The Power of Compound Creativity,” System1 & IPA Effectiveness Databank, presented at Cannes 2024
> WARC by Ascential The Effectiveness Code by James Hurman with Peter Field