#brand-layering

#brand-layering

The new identity sharpens its focus around four commitments that guide its behavior and decision-making: empathy, expertise, responsiveness and certainty. Those principles are intended to frame both customer experience and internal culture.

"The subversive simplicity of hobo hieroglyphics - the chalk markings left by people travelling through America during the Great Depression - are rooted in pure pragmatism: quick, direct signals that connect people to one another and to the landscape."

CMSWire's Marketing & Customer Experience Leadership channel is the go-to hub for actionable research, editorial and opinion for CMOs, aspiring CMOs and today's customer experience innovators.

Performance has always been the foundation of commerce media because it tied spend to measurable behavior. From sponsored search to sponsored products, the category scaled by delivering outcomes that could be directly attributed to transactions. Automation, AI-driven optimization and closed-loop measurement accelerated that model and made outcomes-based buying the norm. Outcomes still matter. But as AI reduces friction and increases competition, outcomes alone no longer create separation.

At this point in the Super Bowl ad post-mortem, a pattern has emerged: AI - both the companies selling it and the brands leaning on it - did not resonate as strongly as more familiar creative territory. Viewers gravitated toward the tried and tested, from nostalgia plays to celebrities in deliberately oddball scenarios, while many AI-centered spots struggled to make an emotional connection.

This year has been volatile for brands. With tariffs taking effect, the job market slowing, and consumer spending barely keeping pace with inflation, it's no surprise that ad spend has slowed in tandem. Amidst economic uncertainty and an onslaught of unanswered questions, brands are increasingly looking for demonstrable ROI in their marketing and design budgets. Some may choose to invest in a costly new campaign or commit to a new brand identity, while others will default to slashing their budgets altogether.

There is a persistent anxiety in brand storytelling that runs beneath the surface of nearly every conversation about reaching international audiences: that the closer a story is to its origin, the less likely it is to find purchase somewhere else. This assumption is responsible for many an organization filing down its content's edges in pursuit of a universal appeal that, paradoxically, renders it all the less memorable.

So the brand reinvents itself to pull in a younger segment of the market, often by borrowing ideas from cooler competitors to seem more "on-trend." But instead of younger and cooler, the rebrand comes off as insincere, stilted, or cringey. Worse, the brand's older, core customers, who liked the brand as it was, are irritated by the changes. Instead of spurring new growth, the effort drives off some of the existing customers, leaving the brand worse off than when it started.

Hearing stories triggers hormones like oxytocin (associated with attachment and trust), which helps us attach importance to the lessons behind the stories and make the lessons sticky. At one time, storytelling was key to survival. After all, the cavemen (and women) who listened to the cautionary tales about not straying far from the campfire at night were the ones who dodged the saber-toothed tigers and lived to pass along their genes.