New York Magazine has a story about David Ellison and what Mr. Ellison may or may not do with Paramount and Warner Bros. once the Warner Bros. purchase finalizes. If you are interested in brands, skip the juicy parts of the New York Magazine story and hone in on this paragraph:
“Ellison now has $79 billion in debt and a boatload of problems to solve. How do CBS and CNN coexist? Nickelodeon and Cartoon Network? The 65-acre Paramount studio lot in Hollywood and the 100-acre Warner Bros. lot up the 101 in Burbank? And how do you operate two movie studios under one corporate roof? Last year, Paramount announced a version of A Christmas Carol starring Johnny Depp – his first major American film since the trial with Amber Heard – while Warner Bros. announced its own version of Dickens ’ tale directed by Robert Eggers with Willem Dafoe as a potential lead. Is there room in one company for two Scrooges?”
These highlighted problems are not just in the bailiwick of financial engineering. Brand management is front and center. If you know brand architecture principles and the available options, figuring out how to manage a situation such as the Paramount-Warner Bros. marriage provides extraordinary clarity and a blueprint for resource allocation, communications, and brand value.
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Take Marriott, the largest hotel operator. Marriott owns many brands and has segmented them into different groups. Marriott is considered an outstanding hotel operator. Not every hotel carries the Marriott name. This is because Marriott has a clear brand architecture understanding and framework. In their luxury hotel grouping, only one brand has the Marriott moniker, JW Marriott. The Ritz Carlton and The St. Regis are not labeled Marriott. Yet, if you stay at a Ritz Carlton or The St. Regis, you do gain Marriott’s Bonvoy loyalty program points.
Fairfield Inn & Suites by Marriott does carry the Marriott connection in its name, as does Courtyard by Marriott and Residence Inn by Marriott. Marriott provides authority and hotel management excellence to these brands. Which do not have the same sort of pedigree as St. Regis and Ritz Carlton.
The reasons for naming and connecting portfolio brands are not haphazard choices. Marriott has a clear brand architecture.
So does Toyota. Toyota does not brand Lexus as a Toyota brand. Yet Lexus owners know that behind every Lexus is Toyota excellence, reliability, quality and innovation. Hyundai leadership wanted to follow the Toyota-Lexus approach with the entry of Genesis, but Hyundai dealers wanted to be able to sell this high-end Genesis brand.
HBO made a brand architecture mess, confusing customers with the initial HBO Max relationship and naming. HBO still keeps customers in the dark about HBO versus Max. The brand architecture has been mismanaged from the get-go. Confused customers is not what a brand needs. The indecision of which brand was the authority and for what each brand stood was and still is bewildering.
Scope Mouthwash used to be a stand-alone brand. Now, it carries the Crest brand name on bottles. Scope is now part of the Crest dental health brand promise.
In the early 1990’s, my business partner and I worked with IBM. ThinkPad, the laptop, developed by IBM engineers, was created by a skunk-works group in Boca Raton, FL., far away from Westchester, NY. The belief, at the time, was that those immersed in the mainframe business would not be able to visualize and actualize a laptop. When Lou Gerstner arrived as CEO, he made it very clear to the ThinkPad team: this is an IBM product. If you cannot live with ThinkPad branded as IBM, you might consider working elsewhere. The power of IBM’s reputation in computing supported ThinkPad’s reliability, quality, and performance, so much so that ThinkPads were part of the NASA space vehicles.
I consulted for Electrolux AB for 9 years. Electrolux AB owns many well-known brands globally, such as AEG, Zanussi, Molteni, and Frigidaire. One of our first tasks was a brand architecture for Electrolux. Would each brand be Electrolux AEG or AEG by Electrolux or AEG, for example? These are not simple choices. Each approach reflects a particular brand architecture, which affects customer perceptions and resource allocations.
At the time, Electrolux owned Husqvarna, the manufacturer of outdoor equipment (bought in 1978; spun off in 2006). Husqvarna management was so aghast at the possibility that the Husqvarna brand would carry the Electrolux name, that management refused paychecks that carried Electrolux as the payor.
The purpose of brand management is to achieve enduring, profitable growth for the business. Having a clear, actionable, agreed-upon brand architecture is absolutely essential.
Here is a Brand Architecture Primer. There are five basic brand architecture approaches: Hallmark, Solo, Extension, Family, and Combination. Although each management consulting firm and ad agency has its own names for the approaches, these are the available options.
Hallmark
A Hallmark brand stands for familiarity, quality, leadership, trustworthiness, area of excellence, shared values, heritage, and brand character. IBM, for example. GE before it broke into 3 businesses.
A Hallmark brand tends to be a corporate brand. Especially in industrial brands, the brand that really matters is that which carries the company name. In industrial companies, brand values are very closely linked to company goals. The Hallmark approach to brand architecture is efficient, durable and flexible. The Hallmark brand reduces costs, gives customers a sense of community, provides a seal of approval and creates common ground.
With a Hallmark brand, the portfolio brands are generic descriptors, such as GE Jet Engines or GE appliances, prior to its reorganization, or IBM mainframes.
When I first arrived at Electrolux, the generic divisions were wet (washers, dishwashers), dry (dryers), hot (cookers) and cold (refrigerators). At the time, as a manufacturing enterprise, Electrolux saw itself as a Hallmark brand with a portfolio of generically defined motorized products.
Solo
Solo branding began in earnest with P&G. Under the Solo branding approach, each product has its own design and a relevant, differentiated benefit.
P&G treated Crest as a solo brand – it was toothpaste. Tide was powder laundry detergent. If you wanted a liquid laundry detergent, you bought Era.
Originally, Mars took this Solo approach . There was 3 Musketeers (chocolate and nougat); Milky Way (chocolate nougat and caramel), Snickers (chocolate, nougat, caramel and peanuts). This was way before Mars had brand varieties and extensions such as Snickers Almond or Snickers Ice Cream. M&Ms had two offerings: plain and peanut.
Solo branding as an approach is also quite effective, highly focused and provides accountability.
Extension
Extended brands are brands that deliver a relevant differentiated benefit across multiple product designs allowing customers different ways to interact with the brand. Advantages of a brand extension approach is that it is efficient, flexible, dynamic, strengthens the customers’ convictions in the brand promise and increases customer share.
When Samsung started to sell its appliances in the US, it was helpful that many people owned Samsung mobile phones. The Samsung mobile phones create a link to the Samsung brand, which supports innovation, reliability, and quality.
P&G took Tide in this direction. You now can buy Tide in powder, liquid, Pods, Tide Free Tide with Bleach and so forth.
Arm & Hammer has an extension brand architecture. You can buy Arm & Hammer Baking Soda, toothpaste, deodorant, liquid hand soap, laundry detergent, dryer sheets, cat litter deodorizer, carpet and room deodorizer, for example.
Family
There is a tendency today to use the Family branding brand architecture approach as brands buy other brands or introduce new ones. Family branding is the approach for Paramount-Warner Bros. But, there are two ways to manage family branding.
With family branding, there is an authority brand delivering innovation and QLT – quality, leadership, and trustworthiness. Underneath the authority brand is a parent brand that delivers relevance and each relevant brand parent has a group of differentiated brands.
General Motors is the authority. General Motors has Cadillac, GMC and Buick as parent brands. Cadillac has a group of differentiated brands such as Escalade and Lyriq. GMC has Yukon, Denali. Buick has Enclave and Envista.
Kimberly-Clark has Kleenex and Huggies. Huggies has diapers in a variety of offerings, such as Pull-Ups and baby wipes. Kimberly-Clark is the authority with innovative expertise in paper goods, while Huggies is a relevant baby care brand with a group of differentiated brands.
Family branding comes in two flavors. There is Endorsement branding and Master branding.
With endorsement branding, the relevant brands, such as Cadillac or Huggies, are emphasized, while the authority brand, General Motors, reinforces QLT. Fairfield Inn by Marriott lets a guest know that Fairfield Inn is supported by the authority (QLT) of Marriott. It is Embassy Suites by Hilton.
With Master branding, the authority brand is emphasized. Hilton Garden Inn; Hilton Grand Vacations. BMW uses a master brand approach.
With brand architecture, no single approach may be the ONE for a brand portfolio. Marriott and Hilton use endorsement branding, master branding, and solo branding.
Electrolux first instituted the Master brand approach, but then switched to an Endorsement brand approach as the established European brands believed in their own power. Now, the branding is more flexible.
Combination
As for combination branding, there are two distinct options: co-branding and component branding.
Co-branding is basically a brand-with-a-brand. Both brands share a common identity with the brand promise. Taco Bell Doritos Locos Tacos; Citi AAvantage Card.
Component branding is a brand-within-a-brand. Most famously, Intel inside (your computer). Pop-Tarts with Smuckers. Karastan carpets with Scotchgard. Timberland boots with Gore-Tex. Frying pans with Teflon.
Brand Architecture is not a save-all. However, a portfolio of Paramount-Warner Bros.’ size requires a lot of strategic brand management thinking. Both Paramount and Warner Bros. must be understood in terms of authority, area of expertise, trustworthiness, quality, leadership, innovation and heritage. Is there an authority brand to cover both Paramount and Warner Bros.? Or is either Paramount or Warner Bros. the authority brand? Where do the other pieces in the two portfolios fit? What are the brand promises for each of these entities? How do these entities interact? How do these brand relate to each other within the portfolio? Are there any brands that are the same? What is the plan to build a brand when there is a merger of two brands?
As a marketer, your job is to compete. Compete differently with The Blake Project.
Again, this is not easy. And, yes, there will be people who are not happy. But having a framework, such as a brand architecture approach, will be critical. Paramount and Warner Bros. are two great brands. Financial engineering will undoubtedly happen. To generate enduring, profitable growth, it is worth implementing a brand-architecture approach to managing these brands.
Brand management is business management.
Contributed to Branding Strategy Insider by Joan Kiddon, Partner, The Blake Project, Author of The Paradox Planet: Creating Brand Experiences For The Age Of I
At The Blake Project, we help clients create meaningful differences that increase value and underpin competitive advantage. Please email us to learn how we can help you compete differently.
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In its most basic form, advertising is a promise. Effective advertising communicates why a product matters, how it solves a problem, and why it is better than alternatives. If the product provides no basis for such a promise, or the advertising makes a promise that the product cannot deliver, no amount of creative messaging and media spending will compensate. As is the case in most of life, no amount of spending will turn a poor decision into a good one.
Examples of this problem are not difficult to find, but to protect the guilty, we will not name the offenders. One example comes from the early days of many direct-to-consumer startups. Some firms invested heavily in digital advertising—polished social media campaigns, influencer partnerships, and efforts at “branding”—only to see customer acquisition costs skyrocket without corresponding retention. In many of these cases, the issue was not poor advertising messaging but weak product-market fit. Customers would try the product once in response to compelling ads, but they did not repurchase because the product failed to deliver sufficient value. Advertising created awareness and trial, but it could not manufacture value and satisfaction. In such cases, the advertising was actually successful.
The history of consumer technology offers similar lessons. Consider the launch of early tablet devices before the widespread success of modern tablets. Several companies introduced tablet-like products with significant advertising support, but sales did not follow. The problem was not that consumers were unaware; rather, the products were too expensive, were difficult to use, or did not solve a compelling problem. When a later entrant refined the product—improving usability, app ecosystems, and design—the same product category suddenly and miraculously bourgeoned. The differences in market response were related to meeting user needs. The advertising was better, or more effective, too, but that was because it delivered a compelling message about things customers value.
Consider the automotive industry. When a car model receives heavy advertising but suffers from reliability issues or uninspired design, sales often disappoint. Creativity may also be a problem, but it is creativity focused on the product that is the problem. If a product fails on key attributes that consumers value, advertising may drive initial showroom visits, but it cannot close the sale. Conversely, vehicles that excel in quality and value often benefit from strong organic demand, with advertising serving to reinforce rather than drive demand.
The basic principle transcends industries. Restaurants and packaged food brands may invest heavily in promotion, offering discounts and running high-frequency ads. Yet if the taste, quality, or consistency of the product is lacking, customers do not return. In contrast, brands with exceptional products often grow through word-of-mouth and customer loyalty, requiring less aggressive advertising over time. In these cases, the product itself becomes a powerful marketing tool, and advertising becomes effective by communicating the value and benefit of the product.
From a strategic perspective, this principle aligns with the concept of product-market fit. When a product truly satisfies a well-defined customer need, marketing becomes easier, more efficient, and more authentic. Messaging resonates because it communicates genuine value. When there is a clear basis for preferring the product over others, consumers are given a basis for choice. Customer acquisition costs decline as word-of-mouth increases. On the other hand, when product-market fit is weak, or there is no compelling product difference to inform consumer choice, companies often try to compensate by increasing advertising spending or by experimenting with creative advertising executions. This rarely works; it treats symptoms rather than addresses the root cause. The money spent on advertising might have greater impact, or any impact, if it were devoted to product innovation.
This is not to say that advertising never fails due to execution issues. Poor targeting, unclear messaging, or ineffective creative can certainly undermine performance. However, when multiple campaigns, channels, and messages fail to produce results, it is a strong signal that the problem may lie deeper. In such cases, organizations should shift focus from “How do we say this better?” to “Do we have something worth saying?”
As a marketer, your job is to compete. Compete differently with The Blake Project.
Creative advertising, even advertising that wins creative awards, cannot compensate for a bad product, but a great product can make advertising almost effortless. Companies that recognize this distinction are better positioned to allocate resources wisely—investing first in creating real value for customers, and then in communicating that value effectively. When advertising is not working, the most productive question may not be about advertising and other marketing tactics, but about whether the product itself is worthy of marketing investments.
Contributed to Branding Strategy Insider by Dr. David Stewart, Emeritus Professor of Marketing and Business Law, Loyola Marymount University, Author, Financial Dimensions Of Marketing Decisions, and Chairman of the Marketing Accountability Standard Board.
At The Blake Project, we help clients worldwide, in all stages of development, define and articulate what makes them competitive and valuable at pivotal moments of change. Please email us to learn how we can help you compete differently.
Branding Strategy Insider is a service of The Blake Project: A strategic brand consultancy specializing in Brand Research, Brand Strategy, Brand Growth and Brand Education
]]>But this headline-grabbing factoid leaves the follow-up question hanging: 36% of what?
Bain notes that U.S. FMCG grew less than 2% in aggregate in 2025. Let’s work with that. To make the math easier, let’s call it an even 2%. Thirty-six percent of that is 0.72 percentage points. Mind you, that’s not the average growth rate of insurgent brands — that’s different multiplication. This figure is the chunk of aggregate growth accounted for by insurgent brands.
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We can put this chunk in perspective by comparing it to other chunks. In particular, the chunk of aggregate FMCG growth that occurs naturally as a function of household growth (or alternatively, population growth).
From an analysis of ten years of global FMCG data that was published in 2022, Worldpanel found that half of annual FMCG brand growth comes from household growth. In other words, brands can get a lot of “money for nothing,” to paraphrase Dire Straits, merely by getting their fair share of the new buying that happens because there are more people in the category each year. That’s growth, but not real growth.
Let’s push this illustrative parsing a bit further. My reverse engineering of the math gets kind of stretchy at this point, but it’s close enough. If only half of the 2% aggregate FMCG growth reported by Bain is real growth, or growth not accounted for by population growth, that 2% gets chunked up into a 1.0 chunk for household growth, a 0.36 chunk for insurgent brands growth, and a 0.64 chunk for established brands growth.
The takeaway is telling. Household growth, not insurgent brand innovation, is the dominant driver of FMCG growth.
Innovative insurgent brands may enjoy outsized growth relative to their market share, but real growth for both insurgent and established brands is much weaker than the growth from more households. This is a treacherous demographic dependency, which is playing out already.
Certainly, there is a lot that established brands can learn from insurgent brands. Insurgents are innovating more quickly and using social commerce channels more effectively. They are tapping into high-interest health benefits more convincingly — especially things like clean, organic, natural, high-protein, and low-alcohol. And they are adapting to AI search and discovery at warp speed.
But as big a threat as insurgent brands represent, established FMCG brands have a bigger challenge on their hands. Their categories are either barely ahead of or falling behind household growth, as detailed analyses continue to show.
Simply put, their categories are flat or declining. Established FMCG brands face scale risks that many Cassandras say are existential. At the very least, they are locked into a spiraling and commoditizing share battle with insurgent brands.
The best way to win a share battle is to grow the category, not to try to tighten a death grip on competitors. This is what established brands need to do — grow their categories. The lessons to take away from insurgent brands should be lessons that benefit the entire category.
It’s not about outspending insurgent brands at what they do better. That’s a hard row to hoe. Nor are they outracing household growth either. Rather, it’s about the simple truth that a rising tide lifts all boats.
Too many established brands are chasing their tails trying to match or outwit tiny insurgent brands when instead they should be investing in the kind of big picture strategic work it takes to find new spaces in which to grow their categories, and thereby themselves, too.
Not that this is easy. Three headwinds are working against FMCG categories these days.
The first is AI. Consumers are using AI to hack brands and brand value. But AI is the future. As others have noted, side-by-side with figuring out future new spaces is figuring out the future of marketing.
The second challenge is affordability — it doesn’t matter how consumers discover or get to brands if they can’t afford them to begin with. Affordability is more than price. It’s share of wallet. Affordability is mostly a share-of-wallet issue occasioned by skyrocketing housing and healthcare costs.
On an inflation-adjusted basis, FMCG prices are largely unchanged. There is just less left over once housing and healthcare have taken an ever-bigger bite each month. It is not too unfair to say that the biggest competitor of FMCG brands these days is housing and healthcare. It’s those expenses that put the squeeze on everything else. Hypervigilant spending is the result.
Finally, household structure is continuing to upend the structure of consumer demand. Demographic shifts are the single most important macro force. Household needs arise from household structure, so changes in structure give rise to changes in needs. Most established FMCG brands hail from an era when household structure looked much different.
Today, households are singles or cohabitating couples, child-free marriages, or multigenerational or older mothers, not young married couples with children. It’s Gen Z on the way up, Millennials into late middle age, and Boomers on the way out. It’s young women with more education and young men in skilled trades. It’s a shift of who’s at home with the kids and who’s doing the cooking. Just to mention a few big changes.
Established FMCG brands must update their basic understanding of a marketplace that is moving away from their basic value propositions -technologically, economically, and demographically. Sure, insurgent brands are more fleet of foot in this rapidly evolving landscape of demand. But it is established brands with the heft and muscle to move categories.
As a marketer, your job is to compete. Compete differently with The Blake Project.
What insurgent brands are up to is an input into a strategic reappraisal, but not the be-all and end-all of strategy. Insurgent brands are big in some ways, but they are not that big upon closer scrutiny. A lot of a little is still not enough.
Established FMCG brands must follow big opportunities, not dash after slim pickings. The strategic imperative of this moment is growing the category.
Contributed to Branding Strategy Insider By Walker Smith, Chief Knowledge Officer, Brand & Marketing at Kantar
At The Blake Project, we help clients worldwide, in all stages of development, define and articulate what makes them competitive and valuable. Please email us to learn how we can help you compete differently.
Branding Strategy Insider is a service of The Blake Project: A strategic brand consultancy specializing in Brand Research, Brand Strategy, Brand Growth and Brand Education
]]>At the heart of branding is the question: Who are you, really? The unique way you answer that question defines your brand.
As a professional mom, I have found guiding a brand is a bit like raising a child within a family. You have existential values that are important to you. Clarifying them instills a strong sense of who you are, of what you are about. Usually, your values don’t radically change, but they do evolve as you grow over time. Each generation expresses those same values differently as culture evolves. Brands grow the exact same way.
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Defining a brand is one of the most rewarding aspects of marketing, and one of the most challenging. You are uncovering the foundational beliefs of the company. What promises does the company make? How are they different from its competitors? What is its purpose?
Defining this idea is profoundly important to a company’s activities and market impact, so this work must be done with top leadership’s direct involvement and embraced throughout the organization. Getting management aligned can be challenging. As we’ve seen with our hotel example, sometimes founders don’t recognize their own brand tenets.
When I was CMO at Babbel, the online language-learning company in Berlin, Germany, we needed to differentiate ourselves from the fast-growing, free competitor Duolingo. Gathering the executive team, I asked one of the founders why he created the app in the first place. The origin story often provides a clue to the company’s unique offering.
“I wanted to make a better mousetrap,” said the engineer.
“Better how?” I asked. “What did you want to offer?” I persisted. “Why did you feel people should learn languages?”
He didn’t answer why people should learn languages; he was motivated to invent a new online tool. Babbel was the first company to offer an online SaaS (Subscription as a Service) model for learning languages on an app. Yet being the first in a market differentiates a company only until a competitor catches up. I sought to understand how learning with Babbel differed from learning with Duolingo. First, Babbel charged a fee for its service, whereas Duolingo offered its instruction for free. (Since then, Babbel launched free trial periods and Duolingo added paid subscriptions.) In 2007, long before the rise of artificial intelligence, Babbel hired teachers to develop its online instruction, which meant each lesson was developed by human hands. Headquartered in Europe, Babbel created unique dual-language learning combinations so German customers could learn English in their native German, French customers could learn Italian in their native French, and English-speaking customers could learn Spanish from English, for example. Compared to Duolingo, which was built through crowd-sourcing its users, Babbel offered a premium learning experience. But with the rise of online translation services, would anyone still want to learn a language? After months of comparing our approach to more playful models and generic translation services, we found that learning a language with effective, teacher-crafted Babbel could transform someone’s life. Translations are simply transactional, whereas Babbel offers a premium and personal transformation.
Clarifying Babbel’s unique offering helped our teams double down on those same values internally in how we created our lessons and externally in how we crafted our message differently to the target markets.
While brand concepts are theoretical, there are practical tools to structure the discussion. People use many different names for these models, but the ideas are the same. The brand platform consists of several important features. You want to define what you’re all about (positioning or promise), how you express yourself (adjectives that illustrate the brand character), and why people can believe in this (proof points of how you deliver that promise). The promise your brand delivers has to match a consumer’s needs, so the better you know your target audience or consumer, the better you can determine how your offering will meet, or better yet, exceed their needs. As those needs change over time or from one culture to another, so too should the ways you bring these promises to life.
Branding is alchemy. Making a brand captivating, one that ignites passion, purchase, and loyalty, requires a blend of strategy and creativity. That process begins by creating a brand platform with your core team. The brand platform aligns all teams internally so they can each design products, features, and services inspired by and delivering against the promise. Kotler’s four Ps—product, price, place, and promotion—convey a brand’s positioning, also captured and communicated by the brand’s identity: its name, logo, colors, and tagline. All the owned, paid, and earned marketing—website, stores, social, CRM, advertising, and PR—bring the brand to life with engaging content in compelling and cohesive narratives that resonate with the target audience. From the sleek lines of the logo to the packaging material and carefully chosen words of a salesperson, every touchpoint reflects the brand.
As a marketer, your job is to compete. Compete differently with The Blake Project.
You can’t define your brand in a vacuum. Your offering sits in a competitive marketplace, so you want to position your brand with intention. Create a competitive grid with meaningful x and y axes, i.e. price x organic; technical x sensual etc., by asking these types of questions:
This competitive process helps clarify whether where you think your brand sits matches where the market perceives it to be. If there is a gap and you intend to shift your position for market advantage, this competitive grid helps clarify this too. In this case, you need to identify where the current market perception is versus your competitors and where you seek to shift it.
Contributed to Branding Strategy Insider by Katherine Melchior Ray and Nataly Kelly, co-authors of BRAND GLOBAL, ADAPT LOCAL: How to Build Brand Value Across Cultures
At The Blake Project, we help clients worldwide, in all stages of development, define and articulate what makes them competitive and valuable. Please email us to learn how we can help you compete differently.
Branding Strategy Insider is a service of The Blake Project: A strategic brand consultancy specializing in Brand Research, Brand Strategy, Brand Growth, and Brand Education
]]>There is just one problem.
A product is not a brand. A product is the truth of a brand’s promise. A brand is a promise of an expected, relevant, differentiated experience. The product (s) support this promise. But the product (s) are not the promise.
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All of these brands, Peloton, Kohl’s, General Mills, Macy’s, and Target, recognize that their current experiences are not driving customers to the brands. However, statements from C-suite executives do not promote efforts to define their brands’ expected, relevant, differentiated experiences. The statements focus on exercise equipment, merchandising assortments, inventories, digital access, departments, and reorgs.
We live in an experience economy. But, this is not news.
Almost 30 years ago, in 1998, B. Joseph Pine II and James H. Gilmore wrote a seminal book, The Experience Economy. The experience economy is not just for the wealthy. Every person wants to have a great, defining, problem-solving, need-satisfying, occasion-specific brand experience. Of course, these experiences must be affordable. But, again, value is more than mere price. The total brand experience matters.
Peloton has lost muscle ever since COVID-19. Peloton is now segueing to commercial exercise equipment to save the brand. This is a new strategy in a very long line of now-defunct strategies created to generate shareholder value. Do you remember the recent strategy aimed at young men? From the beginning of its communications, Peloton focused on its products: its indoor cycle, then the treadmill, which had its safety problems.
Peloton has skirted communicating the core essence of its brand. Peloton’s purpose: Empower people to live fit, strong, long, and happy lives. Peloton’s mission: Bring fitness and wellness experiences to Members anytime, anywhere. If you want to know how brand-defeating it is to not focus on your brand promise, just think about Beyond Meat. Beyond Meat never told customers what the experience would be; the brand just touted its product as a hero.
Peloton is a brand that generates a community of dedicated users who believe in Peloton’s vision of “discovering a best version of themselves through the power of sweat anytime, anywhere.” Peloton is a connected, bonded community of unique individuals, empowered and inspired to grow stronger together. Peloton also actualizes a key human driver: the maximization of inclusiveness and individuality. However, Peloton’s strategies focus on the products.
Target’s current CEO, Michael Fiddelke, reports that Target lost its brand experience. Target is no longer “a pacesetter.” Mr. Fiddelke said that Target is not an everything store, adding that Target’s brand experience has been inconsistent. Facing the facts, Mr. Fiddelke said Target lost its distinctiveness. But Target’s solution to the inconsistent, indistinct brand experience is to address out-of-stock items and the transitional encounter. In the 1990s, Target stores became purveyors of cheap-chic offerings. It became a place where stylish, well-designed products were affordable. The brand’s trendy, fashionable, modish items, from an Alessi teakettle to Mossimo Giannulli clothing, gave the brand its moniker Targét (Tar-ZHAY). Target made stylish available to the masses—affordable stylishness. Target democratized stylishness. In today’s economy, this is a powerful promise.
General Mills announced that its view of the year ahead is shaky due to the current macro uncertainties. Having said this, General Mills’ answer to revitalizing its brand portfolio is more variety, aka package sizes, more protein versions, and offers dedicated to GLP-1 users. Do you think the cereal aisle needs more SKUs?
If you are thinking that a cereal cannot have an experience, General Mills’ Wheaties proves your thinking is wrong. The idea that Wheaties was the breakfast of champions allowed consumers to believe that they could be just like the person featured on the box.
General Mills also owns Betty Crocker cake mixes. Decades ago, when cake mixes made cake-making easy, some people thought cake mixes were a sign of not being a good mom. To ease the apprehensions, Betty Crocker showed kids thanking mom for the great, delicious cake. “Thank you, mom” provided maternal appreciation.
At least General Mills is telling analysts that brand rejuvenation is not a short-term strategy. General Mills is willing to take a short-term hit in order to rebuild its brand portfolio.
Kohl’s is in a turnaround situation that The Wall Street Journal indicates has “stalled.” Of course, in a turnaround, a brand must stop the bleeding. But that does not mean ignoring the total brand experience. Kohl’s CEO, Michael Bender, said that Kohl’s tactics were to “… improve its merchandising assortment.” The goal: develop a “more curated assortment.” There is also a statement indicating that Kohl’s promotional strategy will be “retooled.”
Communications that one assumes personify the target customer, the Kohl’s mom, do not appear to deliver on a promise of a relevant, differentiated brand experience. We know she loves Kohl’s and Kohl’s cash.
Here is an interesting, ongoing story about the power of brand experience.
Pizza Hut may be just one slice away from a rumored sale. Pizza Hut reported a “3% decline in sales last quarter of 2025, its ninth consecutive quarter of decline.” Domino’s is far out-pacing Pizza Hut with a 3.7% increase in sales.
Pizza purveyors are everywhere. Pizza is the only sector in which independent restaurants have a higher market share than the largest chain. In 2022, data showed there were 44,644 independent pizza restaurants in the U.S., roughly 4,800 more than the previous year. Meanwhile, the number of U.S.-based pizza chain units counted 35,531. 2024 data indicate that 30% to 40% of the approximately 75,000 pizza restaurants (chains included) are independents.
In its rivalry with Domino’s and Papa John’s, Pizza Hut segued into price promotions as a compelling reason to frequent the brand. Pizza Hut used to be a dine-in establishment. Becoming a carryout store cut deeply into what Pizza Hut stood for, turning it into a generic takeout place.
What exactly is the Pizza Hut relevant, differentiated brand experience?
Years ago, Pizza Hut enlisted our two-person team to conduct a deep-dive into the brand to articulate the Pizza Hut brand promise, essence, and guiding principles. I wrote the Pizza Hut Brand Book and the Pizza Hut Plan to Breakthrough. At a huge convention in Las Vegas, we unveiled the Pizza Hut brand work – along with the KFC brand work, which we conducted simultaneously.
As a dine-in establishment. Pizza Hut restaurants had a relevant, differentiated vibe. The Brand Book told the Pizza Hut story.
In 1958, Dan and Frank Carney opened a 550-square-foot pizza restaurant in Wichita, Kansas. The Carneys created an innovative, high-quality, engaging, informal eating experience in a friendly neighborhood restaurant. Pizza Hut became a popular place with the teenage and college crowd. Pizza Hut attracted families who enjoyed a night out, eating meals they would not have had at home. After the families left, Pizza Hut became a hangout for college-age kids. Having a good time was essential to Pizza Hut. The idea caught on. A second Pizza Hut opened in December 1958 in downtown Wichita. By 1963, there were forty-two Pizza Hut restaurants.
Pizza Hut was always more than just the pizza. The Pizza Hut brand experience was generosity, hard work, friendships, innovation, naturalness, and fun.
Our work with Pizza Hut led us to conclude that Pizza Hut should be the most popular, informal restaurant experience, offering other casual ways to enjoy unequaled restaurant-quality foods that energize a spirit of camaraderie and good times, any time, any day of the week. Pizza Hut would offer the most contemporary, leading, and casual restaurant experience for customers. Customers can enjoy the unequaled restaurant-quality Pizza Hut food in their homes, in the office, in all kinds of places, and at a Pizza Hut restaurant.
Pizza Hut is about being happy with friends, family, or spontaneous affiliations, creating great times. Regardless of the time of day or day of the week, the Pizza Hut experience enhances any occasion because its food triggers the good times with an involving, infectious, convivial spirit.
Recently, some Pizza Hut franchisees have rediscovered this Pizza Hut relevant differentiating brand experience, bringing the content I wrote for the brand book to life in restored, dining-in restaurants.
The New York Times reported that some franchisees are “remodeling” Pizza Huts to “unlock a Portal To the Past.” This “classic” Pizza Hut, with its promised brand experience, is a hit with customers, becoming a very popular destination.
And although The New York Times writes that even Pizza Hut executives are not all clued in to the revised classic stores, the Internet, especially Reddit, is right on top of this story. Customers agree that the experience’s nostalgia element is incredibly appealing. The Times writer stated that the Pizza Hut classic restaurant “exudes a remarkable sense of place. It’s familiar. And, to walk into that space and find it exactly as I remembered was indeed like finding a portal back to my past.”
Customers feel that connecting with a fond, warm, experiential memory in a welcoming, friendly, family-friendly place that is part of lost Americana is remarkably meaningful in today’s digital, AI world.
As a marketer, your job is to compete. Compete differently with The Blake Project.
This Pizza Hut classic revisit is a testament to the power of a relevant, differentiated brand experience. Brands that are focusing on product offerings and promotions should take note ASAP. Unless you stand for something relevant and differentiated, you stand for nothing.
Brand experience – your brand’s promise – is not a theoretical concept. Please get over that hurdle.
Adam Ross Sorkin’s DealBook column reports that thriving malls are malls that have shifted to “experiences,” albeit more high-end experiences.
“This (mall) rebirth has caught the attention of the ultimate stay-at-home company, Netflix, which has launched Netflix House in Dallas and Philadelphia, locations that showcase interactive experiences related to hit shows “Stranger Things,” “Wednesday,” and “Squid Game.”
“Much of this recent success and innovation has been driven by Gen Z, which has become infatuated with IRL shopping experiences. According to the Ipsos Consumer Tracker, 58 percent of shoppers aged 18 to 34 said they shop at malls often, twice the rate of adults over 55.”
What exactly do Kohl’s, Target, General Mills, Peloton, and Macy’s want to stand for in the customers’ minds? The answer cannot be more or fewer varieties. There must be a relevant, differentiated brand experience for these brands. Brand experience is imperative.
Products are the truth of the brand promise. Now, what is your brand promise?
Contributed to Branding Strategy Insider by Joan Kiddon, Partner, The Blake Project, Author of The Paradox Planet: Creating Brand Experiences For The Age Of I
At The Blake Project, we help clients create meaningful differences that increase value and underpin competitive advantage. Please email us to learn how we can help you compete differently.
Branding Strategy Insider is a service of The Blake Project: A strategic brand consultancy specializing in Brand Research, Brand Strategy, Brand Growth, and Brand Education
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