Want your brand to survive? It needs to be more flexible and agile, and less linear in attitude. Create an array of connections with consumers based on deeper intrinsic values.

By Dennis Furniss

As the global economy begins to pull out of recession, how will you win back consumers who have embraced private-label products and become skeptical of brands? Brands might consider embracing a new strategy based on analytical thinking and micro-markets, and identifying smaller segments that will quickly increase brand velocity.

Some argue that private-label retailers are out of control; not only are they expanding, but also the expansion itself is accelerating. Such thinking goes that this expansion can lead to but one single end: total darkness for brands. Those same pessimists also say brands should start responding.

For once, I agree with the pessimists, and I say we should listen. If we do, we may begin to reverse the trend in private-label expansion, and in the process, perhaps redefine the very essence of our brands.

For too many years, brand managers have been scrambling to their whiteboards, seduced by that word “innovation.” Yet, the harder and faster brands try to innovate, the smaller their universe becomes. As a result, innovation has become an increasingly mysterious world embroiled by an experience that revolves around white coats, creative clichés, and failure.

As brands plunge their energy into this universe and void of innovation, new stars are illuminating another universe, which contains exciting experiences and somewhat-less-than-ordinary products. And rather than creating white-space opportunities, they are creating black holes for brands. The most advanced and biggest stars in this universe are the retailers themselves, and many are in supernova mode, exhausting the last flickering embers of brands before finally imploding into a pending dark star—disappearing perhaps forever.

Think small once again

The greatest challenge for these brands will be to figure out how to not be there when the star implodes! Brands will have to find a way to create a new journey, perhaps by leaving one universe for the other. To take this journey, many brands need to stop acting big and learn to think small again. Such a plan may sound absurd to a conglomerate brand owner with billions of dollars in shareholder value, but there is nothing that forbids such thoughts for the smaller brand with everything to gain from a new journey.

I’d look to the genius behind the theory of relativity: Albert Einstein allows for the existence of bridges that connect parallel universes, and as a metaphor, one can adopt a similar theory for brands. This theory holds that brands coexist in a parallel universe to private label, a second universe, differentiated not by emotion and innovation, but by need and practicality. These parallel universes are not science fiction; they are, in fact, very real, and the notion that we are in the throes of a private-label Big Bang is consistent with the idea.

Consider what has happened at Whole Foods, Target, and Walmart. Are they not like mega-stars in an expanding universe? Do they not shine more luminescent than the brands they represent? Inconceivably fast and intriguingly smart, these retailers have mastered the mysteries of branding.

Some other retailers have taken the notion of a twin universe a step further by creating their very own “baby universes” for fostering new stars and new ideas, creating nurseries for new brands within their very own stores.

So as private-label and brands coexist, why does flourish and expand while the other shrinks and implodes seemingly uncontrollably? The answer is not simple or straightforward but might be more apparent than imagined. If embracing the idea that both universes exist, it is possible to begin rationalizing an approach, thus beginning a journey.

Creating ‘market-energy’

At Kaleidoscope, we reference this approach as the creation of market-energy, a self-replicating strategy that is infinitely more powerful than conventional brand-think. Forget pillar branding, pyramids, and the blah behind so-so branding. It’s time to move on to bigger and more meaningful ways to create and empower brands.

In the past, where you lived equated to what you bought. In the future, physical and virtual shopping patterns will change everything. A revolution is taking place, and it’s a consumer-led revolution. Today, brands need to be more flexible, more open to opportunity, and less linear in attitude. They need to be agile, swift, and smart in creating an array of connections based on deeper intrinsic values that travel well beyond iconic stature. Through globalization, we now know what’s happening, as it happens. Through new media, many consumers are fully switched on to the digital age. In addition, online purchase trends have driven change into every area of retail.

Here are several examples of how this is playing out in the U.K.

At Tesco, more of the retailer’s customers are turning to the Web. In doing so, they are dropping impulse product purchases in favor of upgrading to more premium private-label products. So while it’s not about price, they are in favor of value. These customers may spend the same amount, but the emphasis has shifted to other values like ethical and organic over traditional processed foods. This trend suggests that consumers are turning their backs on once-popular brands and placing more emphasis on quality and health benefits than ever before.

Boots, the U.K.’s leading pharmacy chain, has been a pioneer in private label for more than 15 years. In the 1980s, Boots faced increased competition from virtually all segments of the marketplace. It responded by restructuring its values and products, which enabled it to take market share across many grocery and beauty segments.

Its philosophy of targeting smaller segments with more premium products at reasonable prices has enabled Boots to become the most respected retailer in the U.K. and one of the more envied brands around the world. At Boots, “brand” is synonymous with “experience” in that the brand is a cumulative proposition balancing product performance with consumer value.

One notable retailer has taken the Boots’ idea even further, and that’s Booths, the U.K.’s well-known family-owned grocery chain. Booths’ philosophy of “sell the best goods available, in attractive stores, staffed with first-class assistants” infuses through to its own brands. It creates an atmosphere and look that breathes playfulness, a touch of nostalgia, and most important, a strong mastery of design.

Strive to achieve balance

Not surprisingly, the largest determinant of your brand’s future success may lie in similarly balancing the logic and emotion of your brand proposition. Remember, brands are stored in the mind, not the heart. Brands are logic-based. Over time, our brands become embedded in long-term memory by attaching themselves to sensorial associations connected to other brands with commonalities, each controlled by logic.

To challenge this belief is to risk lost brand equity and sales. Take the example of Tropicana’s design changes in its orange-juice package. While the goal of this effort was to make the brand more relevant to consumers, Tropicana delivered something consumers simply didn’t want.

The lesson is that brand owners must respect that the consumer owns the brand. Think about that for a moment… How else could Apple have succeeded? Apple was the genius of Steve Jobs; however, Mac (the real brand) is the love child of a generation of designers. Likewise, Yahoo, Google, Twitter, and an array of emergent brands have the consumer to thank for the same enviable success. And while many of you may choose to believe Apple (or Mac) is a brand built on lifestyle, as a “disciple,” I’d argue Apple is actually a brand based on its values.

So as brands relentlessly hunger for ways to innovate (innovation has become a term in the lexicon of every brand), I sense they should instead be thinking about value-management and creating strategies based on genuine and authentic connections. Develop values that motivate brand success. As many brands have discovered, the flip side to innovation is a discovery that consumers naturally resist change. When that happens, we are reminded that all brands are ultimately constrained by time.

In truth, time defines how we feel about our brands, and it is over time that we establish physical brand connections. For Apple, Coca-Cola, Boots, and Tesco, the right mix of emotional and physical branding evolved over time has enabled them to extend their brands in every direction imaginable.

Take note from these brands and retailers; determine first and foremost the function of what your brand aspires to improve for the consumer. More often than not, the real path forward lies within your ability to manifest change in ways that lead you to leveraging existing attributes over time.

If you take the time to appraise your brands, you may be surprised to find four main dimensions around which you will define your values: experience, engagement, expertise, and expression. The experience defines your ability to deliver familiarity across many touch-points. Engagement will define your appeal. Expertise will focus your premise, and expression will deliver the desired personality. Establishing such a framework will help you understand how to engage, when to challenge, and where you can win.

The author, Dennis Furniss, is a Partner at Kaleidoscope, a branding and design company. Contact him at dfurniss@thinkkaleidoscope.com.