Shelley Atkinson, CEO of Murmur, says in today’s rapidly evolving markets, brands must grow, adapt, pivot and innovate at an unprecedented pace. So, how can brands achieve long-term growth while minimising risk, time and cost?
Periodically, brands embark on brand refresh journeys, from simple repositioning to complete overhauls. These endeavours pose significant challenges no matter the size of the organisation, requiring substantial investments of time, resources and capital. This process can be time-consuming, especially for multinational corporations demanding extensive stakeholder buy-in, team alignment, and well-informed decision-making.
Yet, some brands manage to navigate this terrain successfully. Consider MTN, a remarkable local example. Despite the challenges and risks of large-scale brand refreshes, MTN has been repositioning itself from a telecommunications company to a digital enabler while maintaining its top spot as South Africa’s most valuable brand on Brand Finance’s South Africa 100 list. Achieving such a feat amidst the challenges and risks of large-scale brand refreshes is truly remarkable.
Brands can achieve long-term growth while minimising risk, time and cost by embracing agile brand management practices. Drawing inspiration from radical optionality, a strategic approach that develops future advantages while performing in the present, agile brand management is essential for sustained success. It enables brands to continuously innovate, effectively navigate challenges, seize opportunities, and maintain relevance.
Radical optionality introduces a new way to think of brand challenges. One that goes from a stringent and strict linear approach, to one that is much more flexible, and iterative. In order to help foster this approach, we’ve looked at some principles that can help guide the shift:
• Think like a scientist: it is important to note that brand building is still a long-term game. Your brand strategy is your north star, but it should be treated as a hypothesis, rather than a stake in the ground. This allows for constant testing, examining and assessing its effectiveness, and ultimately, being able to adapt if the ship goes off course.
• Foster collaboration: encourage collaboration across teams and agencies. In his book Emotion by Design, former Nike CMO Greg Hoffman emphasises that competitive work environments often hinder sharing, especially across creative agencies, where a focus on individual ownership undermines collaboration and stifles innovation. To overcome this, Hoffman introduced a practice inspired by the football style known as ‘tiki taka’, characterised by short passes that maintain possession and create gaps in the defence. At Nike, this approach ensured that no one player ‘owned’ an idea, allowing the company to build upon existing concepts while continuously implementing new ones, driving innovation.
• Create an agile culture: streamline internal approval processes to encourage innovation and experimentation. Implement new ideas on a smaller scale, enabling faster decision-making and seizing emerging opportunities. Amazon’s ‘Just Do It’ (JDI) process empowers employees to implement ideas without excessive approval, fostering a culture of experimentation and fast-paced innovation.
• Embrace feedback loops: in South Africa especially, brand management is generally a fairly linear process, where input-feedback-revert-repeat is a standard process. In our experience, brands that prioritise two-way communication from stakeholders, customers and employees come out stronger, and more relevant. These ‘listening’ strategies help align branding efforts with customer expectations and market trends.
• Harness low-cost experiments: conduct cost-effective experiments to test strategies, messaging and creative approaches. Learn, iterate, and refine brand initiatives to drive continuous improvement and growth. Slack’s iterative experimentation, where they gather user feedback and continuously iterate to enhance user satisfaction, serves as a prime example of this.
• Optimise for continuous learning: cultivate a culture of ongoing education, industry research, and staying up-to-date with market trends. Equip your teams with the necessary tools and knowledge to adapt and thrive.
Building a successful brand is a long-term endeavour, as Sir John Hegarty sagely observed, ‘Great brands are built over time, not overnight’. However, by skilfully managing your brand and embracing agile practices, you can strategically navigate the long game with speed and effectiveness.
MURMUR
www.murmuroriginals.com
