Growing Brands and Slowing Brands:

Why investing in your brand is essential for growth, stability and future-proofing.

In an era where brand narratives, image and associations play pivotal roles in influencing everyone from consumers to investors, the importance of understanding and forcibly positioning your brand cannot be overstated. 

Both emerging startups and established brands find themselves at distinct crossroads, necessitating unique brands that fight tooth and nail to separate themselves from the rest of the pack. At Cohesion Labs, we focus our attention on helping two kinds of client, growing brands, or slowing brands. 

As we delve deep into the challenges faced by "growing brands" and "slowing brands," we draw upon our innovative methodology to offer insights that cater to their exclusive needs.

1. Growing Brands: Building brands for startups in their ascendancy

How we define the Growing Brand:

Poised at a significant inflection point, post-seed startups are driven by innovation and ambition. Recognizing the need for a coherent brand persona, they strive to resonate with investors, early adopters, and potential team members alike. We are sector agnostic, but our demonstrable experience includes; SaaS, tech, bio and med tech, consumer tech, platforms and charities.

Why invest in your brand presence, now?

1. Clearly Defined Positioning:
   In a crowded marketplace, differentiation is the key. Through rigorous analysis and strategic thinking, we sculpt a distinct niche, accentuating your unique value proposition in a way that is authentically own-able, and easy to articulate.
   
   
   

2. Securing your next round of funding from Investors:
   In an increasingly competitive startup ecosystem, your brand narrative is instrumental in garnering investor attention. With our specialised skill-set and experience in building presentations and investor stories, we meticulously craft a compelling narrative that accentuates your strengths and vision, ensuring a notable presence during investor engagements1.
   
   
   

3. Scaling Your Team:
   A brand's culture is intrinsic to its growth. By crystallizing your brand's tone and identity, we ensure that you attract talent whose aspirations align with your organizational ethos2.
   
   
   

4. Converting Early Adopters with simple and effective messaging:
   Harnessing the nuances of behavioural economics, we build your messaging platform, value proposition and more to curate messages that appeal to the intrinsic motivations of your target customers, making your product an irresistible proposition3.
   
   
   

5. It’s good to look good:
   In the early days, it’s perfectly fine to be unrefined and “slapdash” with how you look to people. In those days - people aren’t always buying from your brand, they’re buying into you, the founder or the founding team. As you grow, or change, or pivot this stops being the reason to take notice and your company needs to stand on its own two feet.

2. Slowing Brands: Stoking the embers of legacy & brand equity

Defining the Slowing Brand:

Having carved out a market over decades, your brand might be seen as an industry pillar. Yet, the flux of the modern market demands that you re-evaluate and reinvent to stay in the game, let alone ahead of it.

Today, your brand and your product is often only as good as your people allow it to be. If they are hamstrung by legacy systems and old-hat behaviours, they will simply leave. Taking all that knowledge and value with them, often to competitors.

Legacy brands often need to work harder internally than externally. Ensuring that your best people continue to offer their best work and not take all that knowledge somewhere else, building contemporary, relevant values, purpose and vision statements that are built around them is essential. Without a guiding framework, your brand will wane in the high pressure winds of the business landscape.

So how do you avoid this? Why should you? 

Challenges & Solutions:

1. Decreasing Churn/Attrition:
   Brand stagnation can inadvertently affect internal morale. We breathe fresh life into your brand, making it a beacon of pride for your team, fortifying loyalty, and curtailing staff turnover4.

2. Maintaining Market Share:
   In a rapidly evolving consumer landscape, brand relevance is paramount. By rejuvenating your brand's visuals and messaging and incorporating current trends, we ensure you remain a preferred choice, safeguarding your market share.

3. Adapting to Trends & Technologies:
   Remaining avant-garde is essential. Our team, well-versed with the zeitgeist, ensures your brand not only adapts but also pioneers trends and technologies5.

4. Preserving Brand Equity:
   Your legacy is your treasure. Merging contemporary brand strategy and design techniques with a nod to your brand's storied past, we ensure an enhancement of your brand equity.
   
   

So, what does this mean to you, the client?

Whether setting out on an exhilarating startup journey or steering an established brand through the intricacies of change, our methodology offers bespoke solutions. 

We don't merely create brand stories; we enrich them, ensuring that regardless of their stage, they're destined for continued success.

We work with businesses like this because we pride ourselves on positive, immediate value impact across different silos and use cases.

We chose to focus on brands who are looking to change the whole world, or looking to change their own. 

We’re probably not a good fit for large companies with deep marketing budgets and departments. We’re not set up for four deep stakeholder engagement for a brochure for example. (if you’re a brand like that, and you want a recommendation on the right fit - definitely get in touch all the same.)

If you’re a CEO, CMO, CCO, MD, Marketing Director or similar of a company who is looking to transform, reinvent or create from scratch, and you want a no obligation conversation about what you could do - drop us an email.

Email Craig - craig@cohesion-labs.com.

Some References: Because who doesn’t like some peer reviewed references.

1. Keller, K.L. (2016). Reflections on customer-based brand equity: perspectives, progress, and priorities. AMS Review, 6(1-2), 1-16. 

2. Ambler, T., & Barrow, S. (1996). The employer brand. Journal of Brand Management, 4(3), 185-206. 

3. Kahneman, D. (2011). Thinking, Fast and Slow. Macmillan. 

4. Holt, D.B. (2004). How brands become icons: The principles of cultural branding. Harvard Business Press. 

5. Verhoef, P.C., & Lemon, K.N. (2013). Successful customer value management: Key lessons and emerging trends. European Management Journal, 31(1), 1-15.