ISSUE 34 /

A BULLETIN FOR
BIG IDEAS AND
BETTER BUSINESS.

Arctic blast 🧊

OPINION / COMMUNICATIONS 

Just keep it:
the case for sticking
with your brand’s end line

💬 Sir John Hegarty 

It’s hard to make a good decision in a crisis. John Lewis demonstrated this in 2022 when the department store dropped its “Never knowingly undersold” tagline. The business was in trouble – the pandemic and cost-of-living crisis had diminished market share. And as it cut staff, the company compromised its reputation of customer service brilliance. One notably terrible idea the top brass came up with to turn things around was binning the motto it had used since 1925. Now the company has come to its senses: and is relaunching the phrase that aligns it with good value for money.  

Brands fiddle with end lines at their peril. Even so, leaders have curious form for throwing out perfectly brilliant phrases and replacing them with nonsense the utterly meaningless. In the 1990s telecoms company Orange used the supremely optimistic: “The future’s bright, the future’s orange”. At the start of this year the company marked its thirtieth anniversary by unveiling the vacuous: “Orange is here”.  

The greatest parable for persevering with your end line is the comparison between Reebok and Nike. In 1988, the two had roughly the same market share. The former had the tagline: “Because Life Is Not a Spectator Sport”, and the latter had just launched “Just Do It”. In the following two decades, Reebok changed its tagline fourteen times, while Nike stuck with what it had. Today it’s no coincidence that Nike is valued at over $120 billion, while Reebok is reportedly worth $2.46bn. When it’s a question of stick or twist, brand managers should remember that the market rewards consistency.

Do you have a favourite end line that you’d like to see revived? Write to us at [email protected] and we’ll name the best ones in the next issue.

THE AGENDA

✏️ Pencil it in: your agenda for the coming week

1.
The World Trade Organisation assembles in Geneva for its WTO Public Forum. The theme this year calls for a return to internationalist ideals – “Re-globalization: Better Trade for a Better World”.
10th – 13th September

2.
The Last Night of the Proms comes to the Royal Albert Hall in London. Its more patriotic numbers have divided audiences. National pride shouldn’t be confused with jingoism.
14th September

3.
The Praemium Imperiale is an international art prize awarded by the Imperial family of Japan on behalf of the Japan Art Association. It recognises practitioners in painting, sculpture, architecture, music, and theatre or film.
10th September 2024

4.
A fire-fighting robot, a puck that reduces your bad habits, a band that alerts you when you’re skiing too fast. These are just some of the entries for the James Dyson Award. UK winners will be named this week.
11th September

5.
Over one hundred galleries participate in Berlin Art Week. The German capital is known for being off the wall.
11th – 15th September 

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US / POLITICS

Battle of
ideas

Tomorrow morning the world will tune into the first presidential debate between Kamala Harris and Donald Trump. The head-to-head is likely to represent a major juncture in the race to the Oval Office. Some polls show that the Harris popularity surge is slowing. Meanwhile, this will be the first time the vice president is tested on policy. From a communications perspective, there are two things to accomplish. Firstly, she must brand herself as the candidate for change – an uphill task, given that her party has been in charge for the last four years. Secondly, she must remind audiences of her opponent’s avarice. A creative switch in tone is necessary. Hillary Clinton struggled in 2016 by branding Trump a threat to democracy. Harris must show him to be a contemptible fool instead.

BRITAIN / WORK

Work
replacement?

Chief among modern worries is the notion that your job may not exist in the near future. The emergence of AI has accelerated anxiety around our own shelf-life. Today a report by The National Foundation for Educational Research (NFER) warns that 12 million people in Britain are employed in jobs that are expected to decline significantly by 2035 (due to “technological, demographic and environmental” changes). Administrative, secretarial and sales work are the most at-risk categories, and the report reckons that such job roles could shrink by 5 – 10% in the next ten years. Vanishing jobs is a concern, but it represents an opportunity too. Investment in education, upskilling and channelling creativity could help people find more fulfilling – and lucrative – work. Few people would describe a job in admin as the summit of their ambitions.

GLOBAL / RETAIL

Tomorrow
store

When e-commerce first emerged, retailers feared that shopping online would lead to the end of the store. Physical locations would become dead assets. This prediction was poorly thought through. People take joy in exploration, serendipity, and service. Meanwhile, the design of stores has been reengineered in recent years. Rather than chasing transactions, brick-and-mortar retail is about building brand awareness and a feeling of connection. Consider the artful designs of luxury brand Lowe’s store in Seoul, which has been modelled to recreate the feeling of an art collector’s home. Or Netflix House, a forthcoming multiplex store concept which promises to immerse visitors in the worlds of its biggest franchises, like Bridgerton, Stranger Things and Squid Game. If your store is less about selling, it must be more about meaning.

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