When an iconic brand begins to fade, the decline is rarely dramatic. In iconic brands, financial performance often lags changes in cultural relevance and brand meaning. Revenue may hold steady. Market share may appear stable. Awareness remains high. Yet competitors begin shaping the future while the incumbent defends the past. For leadership teams, restoring an iconic brand is not a communications exercise. It is a strategic mandate.
Brands that lead today do three things exceptionally well. They create an emotional advantage that customers cannot get elsewhere. They establish a distinctive advantage that customers recognize as meaningfully different. They build a connective advantage that keeps the brand relevant over time. These are not communications outcomes. They are strategic decisions.
Last week, I discussed the new brick-and-mortar Amazon entry: a big box store with a large helping of Amazon logistics, data mining, and merchandise expertise. As part of that Amazon discussion, two brand stumbling blocks came under scrutiny. One: Amazon’s continued lack of understanding of customers in brick-and-mortar grocery stores. Two, Amazon’s lack of designing and articulating brand-relevant differentiation.
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.
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.
