On July 19, 2024, a routine CrowdStrike software update crashed roughly 8.5 million Windows computers worldwide. Airports went dark. Hospitals scrambled. Delta alone canceled about 7,000 flights over five days. Plenty of observers expected customers to walk.
They didn’t. CrowdStrike reported gross retention of about 97%, and by July 2026 it was adding record new annual recurring revenue. The recovery wasn’t free. CrowdStrike offered affected customers discounts, extra modules, and flexible terms. Security systems are also difficult to replace once they’re woven into an organization. Some customers had good reasons to stay that had little to do with how they felt about the brand.
Still, think about what happened. An update from a company trusted to protect critical systems brought many of those systems down. Yet the overwhelming majority of customers remained. Years of performance and customer relationships almost certainly played a part. How large a part? The numbers can’t tell us. And that gets to the question at the heart of brand insistence: When customers are free to choose an alternative, how many still believe there is no substitute?
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That is the paradox leaders face. The brand is often a company’s largest asset, yet it is routinely managed as a marketing expense. It gets budgeted for campaigns instead of measured for return.
The brands that break this pattern treat brand equity as something to build and measure, not something to spend. They move customers past awareness, past preference and past loyalty, all the way to insistence. Preference says, “I’ll choose you if it’s easy.” Insistence says, “I’ll wait, search, or pay more, because there is No Substitute.”
In light of this, every leader should be able to answer three questions. What is insistence worth? Where does it come from? And how do you build it before a crisis tests whether you have it?
The Return On Insistence
Ask most executive teams where the brand lives, and they will point to the marketing budget. That is where it gets funded. It is not where it pays off. The business case for building brands runs through the entire company. A strong brand influences how much you can charge, what it costs to win and keep customers, how well you absorb a crisis, and how long you keep earning. The consequences show up in the P&L, and eventually in what someone is willing to pay for the business.
It Changes How You Earn
1. Revenue you don’t have to win twice. In 1985, Coca-Cola replaced its formula with one that had beaten the original in blind taste tests. Customers revolted, and 79 days later the original was back on shelves. They weren’t defending a flavor. They were defending a brand. The product can be copied. A century of memories, rituals, and associations living in customers’ heads cannot. Strong brands keep more of the customers they have, and customer lifetime value compounds.
2. The right to charge more. Nobody hires McKinsey or Goldman Sachs because they are the cheapest bid. Clients are buying confidence in a consequential decision, and that confidence commands a premium. If a discount is the only way your business can close a deal, take a hard look at whether your customer sees a meaningful difference. You most likely need a brand strategy that changes the economics of choice.
Here’s why the question belongs in the boardroom. For a company with $100 million in revenue, a one-percent improvement in realized pricing produces another $1 million in sales. If volume and costs hold, that can mean roughly $1 million more in EBITDA. At an illustrative eight-times multiple, the difference could be worth $8 million in enterprise value. Price changes can affect demand, of course, and valuation multiples aren’t guaranteed. But it puts a useful number on something leaders too often leave in the marketing department.
3. A head start at the moment of choice. The brand that comes to mind first, tied to the benefit that matters most, enters the buying decision with an advantage. Share follows salience. And the advantage is worth more when your sales team isn’t spending the first half of every conversation explaining why the company belongs on the shortlist.
It Changes What You Spend
4. Customers who do your marketing. Trader Joe’s has built a national following with little traditional advertising. Its customers swap product finds with each other. Patagonia owners tell repair stories about jackets older than their kids. Brand advocates who drive word of mouth can accomplish what another round of paid messages cannot. Their recommendations carry the credibility of experience.
5. People who want to work for you. Talent is one of the hardest advantages for a competitor to copy, and a strong employer brand helps attract it. Costco’s approach to employees helps explain why customers experience the brand the way they do. People who believe in a brand protect it without being told.
It Changes How You Survive
6. A moat made of memory. Customers don’t switch from a brand they trust just because something new shows up. The newcomer has to be superior to justify the uncertainty. Many companies make sneakers, building bricks and enterprise software. Far fewer occupy the place Nike, Lego or IBM hold in customers’ minds.
But there is a difference between a moat and a locked gate. Contract terms, complex integrations and switching costs can keep customers in place long after affection for the brand has faded. Those protections have economic value. They can also conceal trouble. The renewal rate may look healthy right up to the moment a credible alternative makes leaving easier.
7. Forgiveness in the bank. CrowdStrike isn’t the only example. Toyota, Nike and Harley-Davidson have all stumbled and recovered. When customers have years of good experiences to draw on, a failure may look out of character rather than a revelation of character. The brand crisis still has to be addressed, of course, but trust buys a company a chance to earn forgiveness.
8. A compass for hard decisions. A clear brand tells the organization what to fund, what to fix and, just as important, what to walk away from. A business that tries to stand for everything soon finds itself competing on whatever is easiest to compare. Usually that’s price.
It Changes How Long You Last
9. Permission to grow. Apple took one brand from desktop computers to music players, phones, watches and services. Oracle carried its brand into the cloud. Through extensions and brand licensing, strong brands can make new categories less costly and risky to enter, but only where the brand’s meaning travels. Whirlpool became bigger but not better, a reminder of what happens when scale outruns meaning.
10. Better partners on better terms. Mastercard became part of Apple Pay. Louis Vuitton designed luggage for BMW. Brands with clear meaning and devoted customers get invited into co-branding alliances that can open revenue opportunities neither partner could pursue as effectively on its own.
11. A life beyond the product. In 2007, Apple Computer dropped “Computer” from its name. The products had moved on, and the brand could move with them. Companies whose identity is tied too tightly to what they sell today can struggle to explain why they matter tomorrow.
12. A higher price tag on the whole company. Wanda Group paid about $650 million for Ironman, a brand built around a race so punishing that finishers tattoo the logo on their bodies. An acquirer ultimately pays for future earnings, but that kind of commitment gives it reason to believe the demand will last.
Whan Park, Deborah MacInnis and Andreas Eisingerich make the point that ties these together in Brand Admiration. None of this value reaches the company until the brand delivers real value to customers. The returns are the effect. The customer is the cause.
Where Insistence Comes From
Most brands don’t fail at awareness. They stall somewhere between “I’ve heard of you” and “I won’t buy anything else.” Customers climb a ladder:
- They know you.
- They try you.
- They prefer you.
- They stay with you.
- They insist on you.
The Blake Project’s brand insistence model identifies five drivers that move customers up that ladder. They behave like links in a chain. Your brand climbs only as far as its weakest driver allows.
1. Awareness: Be the first name, for the right reason
Being known isn’t enough. Customers have to think of you in the moment they need what you sell, and connect you to the benefit that decides the purchase. They need to know what you offer and where to find it. A brand people recognize but never recall is decoration.
Ask yourself: When the need arises, do customers think of us first? Do they know why we’re the right choice, or only that we exist?
2. Relevant Differentiation: Be the one thing they can’t get elsewhere
This driver matters most. Today’s relevant brand differentiation is tomorrow’s margin and market share. The difference has to matter to customers, not just to your product team, and it has to be believable. Trader Joe’s proves there are more ways to differentiate your brand than features and price. It doesn’t try to stock everything. It sells discovery, with shelves full of things you won’t find anywhere else, and people plan trips around it.
In a B2B sale, the difference may have less to do with product specifications than with confidence in execution. A buyer who believes your team will get a difficult job done has a reason to defend your price. That’s worth testing against competitive win rates and the discounts required to close deals.
Ask yourself: Does our brand positioning rest on benefits that are relevant, compelling, unique, and credible? If we vanished tomorrow, what would customers struggle to replace?
3. Value: Be worth it, at any price
Costco charges people a fee just to walk through the door, and they renew year after year. Rolex charges many times what it costs to tell accurate time, and buyers feel no regret. Neither brand is cheap. Both are convincingly worth it. Value is a verdict customers reach, not a slot on the price ladder.
What customers say about value matters. What they pay tells you more. If preference disappears the moment a competitor offers a modest discount, the brand may be liked more than it’s valued.
Ask yourself: Do customers think we’re worth what we charge? Where are we leaning on promotions to cover a value story we haven’t told well?
4. Accessibility: Be there when they reach for you
Preference doesn’t count if customers can’t act on it. Coca-Cola built its distribution around the idea of being within arm’s reach of desire. Today that reach includes search results, marketplaces, checkout flows, sales channels, and service. When a brand is easy to buy, even mild preference is enough to win. When it isn’t, strong preference goes to waste.
Ask yourself: Where are customers who like us buying someone else because we weren’t there or weren’t easy?
5. Emotional Connection: Be part of who they are
The path runs from familiarity to liking to trust, and then to a genuine emotional connection. Riders join Harley Owners Group for the people as much as the bikes. Patagonia customers wear the brand as a statement of what they value. Leaders can ignite brand growth through emotional connections at every touchpoint, from frontline service to communities and owned events.
Don’t assume this is only for consumer brands. Even rational B2B decisions are emotional, no matter what the spreadsheets say. A senior executive making a major vendor choice is putting a reputation on the line. Confidence in the people behind the offer can matter as much as confidence in the offer itself.
Ask yourself: Would customers defend us without being asked? Beyond the product, what would they miss if we were gone?
The Test Behind The Retention Number
This brings us back to CrowdStrike. Three customers can renew for three very different reasons. One can’t face the disruption of changing providers. Another is satisfied and sees no reason to shop around. A third has examined the alternatives and wouldn’t trade the relationship. All three show up as retained revenue.
A high renewal rate is good news. I’d still want to know how many customers are staying by choice. Look at renewals when contracts expire, and switching is practical. Study competitive bids where the customer had real options. Find out whether buyers accept your price, wait for your product, or refer you without being asked. Ask lost customers what finally made a substitute acceptable.
Then look for evidence in the business. Is differentiation helping win rates? Are customers paying a premium? Has stronger preference reduced the need to discount? The relationship won’t be the same in every category, and a good brand score doesn’t prove causation. But leaders should know where their brand creates a financial advantage, and where they’re relying on habit, friction, or inertia.
Nine Moves For Monday Morning
Everyone agrees strong brands are valuable. Fewer organizations manage them that way. Here is where to start.
- Put the brand on the scorecard. Report the five drivers next to revenue, margin, pricing, and retention. If the board sees the brand only as a marketing line item, it will be cut like one.
- Find out where customers are stuck. Measure how many are aware, buying, preferring, loyal, and insistent. Brand tracking for brand insistence can show where the climb breaks down. Look closely at customers who stay because leaving is difficult.
- Fix the weakest link first. Plenty of awareness but little conversion may signal weak differentiation or value. Strong preference with disappointing sales may point to accessibility. Put your money where the chain breaks, once you’ve understood why.
- Pick one difference and own it. Choose the benefit your best customers value most and that you can credibly deliver. Then align product, operations, and communications behind it. Growth comes from focus, not expansion.
- Stop paying customers to like you. Discounts have their place. Chronic discounting can be a positioning problem disguised as a pricing problem. Leave it alone long enough, and the deal becomes the brand.
- Walk the path your customers walk. Search for yourself, buy from yourself, and call your own service line. Every obstacle you find is a door left open for a competitor.
- Earn trust in person, not just in media. Frontline behavior, community, and shared values build connection. Advertising can amplify it, but it can’t create it.
- Guard the brand’s coherence. Make sure your identity, values, promise, and positioning reinforce one another, then align every function around them. Close the say-do gap between what your brand promises and what customers actually experience. Every interaction either strengthens their reasons to choose you or gives them a reason to look elsewhere.
- Measure, learn, repeat. Watch the five drivers and the financial results together. Test what changes customer behavior and shift investment based on what you learn. Brand equity compounds over years. So does neglect.
The Bottom Line
CrowdStrike’s retention figures tell us that most customers stayed after a massive failure. They don’t tell us how many would have stayed if leaving had been easy. That is a question every leadership team should ask about its own customers.
Brand insistence is visible when people have options and still choose you. They may pay more, go out of their way, wait longer, or recommend you to someone they care about. Those choices have consequences for margins, future revenue, and the value of the business.
Awareness gets you considered. Insistence makes you the only option. Build for the second.
Dr. Derrick Daye is Managing Partner of The Blake Project and Publisher of Branding Strategy Insider.
At The Blake Project, we help leaders turn brand into a disciplined driver of financial performance—strengthening pricing power, competitive position and enterprise value. Email us to start a conversation about enduring profitable growth. For The EBITDA.
