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- [00:00]
Damian Borchuk
Often I see disastrous branding programs where millions of dollars are being spent and then really cool high impact branding projects that very small budgets have been spent because they've made some good choices.
- [00:13]
Host
Hey everyone, welcome back. In this first episode of the no season, we're talking with Damian Borchuk from Koto, a branding agency. We talk about a brand evolution versus brand revolution brand. Damian brings some really interesting examples from Jaguar to Bolt to Walmart and when it's the right time to do a revolution versus an evolution, it's a really interesting and nuanced debate. And Damian brought a lot of visuals. So if you want, you can always watch this video on YouTube or substack. So buckle up and let's talk branding. I'm very excited to have you on the show. I've been a huge fan of Koto for, I don't know, a long time actually. So I'm very happy to talk to one of the great minds behind this company. Maybe for the people that don't know anything about you and Kotto, could you quickly introduce yourself?
- [01:07]
Damian Borchuk
Sure. So my name is Damien Borchuk. I'm managing director for Koto for the Asia Pacific region and our office is the youngest of the five offices we started about two years ago. Koto started in the UK about 2014 and has had a very significant sort of rise over the last sort of 10 years or so to become sort of one of the. One of the leading branding and digital agencies worldwide. So it's kind of as an outsider, interesting to watch that growth and now very exciting to be part of the business as it continues to grow now.
- [01:46]
Host
Yeah, interesting. I actually always say Koto, which is like a very Flemish way to say it. I'll try and use Kodo for now. That's actually better. It's a very local thing. Great. So I saw this really cool article about brand refreshes and rebrands and there's been quite a few interesting ones, let's say in 2024 when we started talking about this topic. But maybe taking a step back, like for you, what is. What has been your experience when it comes to rebrands versus refreshes? Like, how do you, how do you feel about it in general?
- [02:25]
Damian Borchuk
Sure. It is. It is definitely one of the topics that's really close to my heart because it is one of those areas where, you know, I often feel that a lot of value gets left on the table at that decision point. I think a lot of organizations take a relatively tentative approach, whether they're doing an evolution or a revolutionary approach, often they tend to pull their punches. And often as a result of that, I think you find that too often the question then gets asked, where is the value in what we've done? And if you don't actually take that opportunity to make the best possible investment, you're not likely to do a brand update for, you know, five, ten years. Again, it's quite an expensive undertaking for any organization to undertake. So if that investment's going to happen, you better be really clear about what you're wanting to do and the kind of impact you're prepared to make. And I would say that all too often too many punches get pulled and as a result of it, the market doesn't see the real value and doesn't necessarily understand why things are done the way they are. And then that's when you inevitably get a lot of that criticism that we then see in the media. And I often feel that's a real lost opportunity for doing better. For me, I tend to lean towards let's do more rather than less when we have the opportunity. So I tend to be more on the revolutionary side, I guess you would say, which is probably not atypical given the kind of industry that I work in. But, but certainly even within an evolutionary approach to doing the work, there is a lot of room to maneuver, and I think that often gets missed. And the kind of inevitable, rather bland tidy up that nobody notices and has next to no impact often becomes the way that a lot of these projects end up. And that's a really disappointing outcome, I think.
- [04:23]
Host
As you know, on this podcast, we've been talking to all kinds of different people, from the marketing scientists to practitioners and anything in between. And what, like, what's interesting to me about this topic is sometimes, like, we've seen rebrands where the one half of the industry is like, yeehaw. And the other half is like, what the hell is this? And the other half, or the other half, if we're speaking in terms, is like, this is not a good idea because you're losing your brand equity. And so there is a lot of different angles when it comes to this. And I tend to be like, I love good revolutions when I see them, but very often I feel like they threw away the child with a bath fodder. That's a very Flemish saying. I don't know if you, if you know what that means, but it's like, when you buy, it's like that, that idea. So I'm very curious to, like, see what you think about some of the rebrands that we've seen and like good examples of refreshes, revolutions and when to, to go into that. So, yeah, yeah, where do you want to start?
- [05:27]
Damian Borchuk
I think, I think just to that, to that point, I think there are people that kind of sit in particular camps and are almost, you know, oh, you should not change your brand. You know, it's almost like it's, you should never do that. But to me that presupposes that what you've got is the best you can have and that there's no further improvement to be done. And then there are others. You're right, the baby does go out with the bathwater and what you have is, it may be there was an attempt to significantly improve, but what you've thrown out of you essentially replaced it with something that may be equally mediocre and none of those are good outcomes. And so I thought, you know, just, just when, when, when you asked that question, we did, you know, put together a few examples and I thought, you know, to, to really unpick because I think sometimes the commentary can be very superficial and you never, you know, if you're an outsider looking, you don't always know all of the reasons why something came about with a branding project. So there's got to be some assumption and sometimes they're right and sometimes they're wrong. But there've been a few, particularly as you said, 2024, you know, there are quite a number of quite controversial ones and I've tried to pick a few of those out, but I also thought it'd be worthwhile having a look at that process from evolution to revolution, and demonstrate that within that there's a very significant continuum for change and it's not either or in fact it's a lot of different things that can be done to get the right outcome for you. So, you know, I think, you know, obviously 2024 ended with Walmart and I thought that would be a good place to start because I think that was quite controversial for a number of reasons. I think a lot of people, when they saw it came out and obviously Walmart's a very large brand, very high profile, so everybody's got an opinion on it. But you know, people first went to, oh, is that, is that all I've done? How much did they pay for that? I can't believe that 1.25 million was spent on, you know, a fattening up of the logo and maybe an improvement to the blue color. But is that all? But when you think about this, there are a couple of things at play that need to be considered. Firstly, when people complain that only one, that, you know, that I can't believe that to $1.25 million was spent on this, my immediate thought is that's not very much. And in reality, having sort of done a lot of very large scale branding projects and knowing what goes into it in terms of machine man hours that have to be done to deliver something at scale, it's not about a logo. And when you think of a company like Walmart, it's, you know, it's the largest retailer in the U.S. it has 10,000 stores, 2 million employees, a Fortune 500 company, largest retailer. When you, when you factor all those things in, this project is done at such a large scale, even a small shift can have a very significant impact on the fortunes of the brand and the company because of that scale. And so you have to be very careful in being able to understand all of the moving parts that the brand is going to affect how, how it can be improved successfully. And once you account for all of that scale and the amount of engagement that has to be done to understand, execute and deliver this 1.25 million doesn't sound a lot to me. In fact, I would say they are spending vastly more sums of money than that on this. It's just that number that's been published is kind of the safest number they can probably come up with because I just know that, know the kind of work to deliver something at, at scale is, is, is a very costly exercise for a big enterprise. And in this case, it looks like from an outside perspective what Walmart were wanting to do was not wholesale change 2008 rebranding that they did, that actually got them to the initial sort of spark solution that we see. This, you know, the 2024 version of that is, is an improvement on it. It's an, it's an ability to be able to look at it and go, okay, well how do we get better impact out of our color palette in different media? How do we ensure the Walmart name stands up strongly and our symbol is improved in the different media we show up in? And perhaps that was as far as they wanted to go. There was no significant strategic shift in the business they wanted to make that needed a bigger signal. It was more about saying we're already a very successful business in brand. So what we're trying to do is solidify that rather than, you know, again, reinvent everything. And to me that's, that's kind of where this has landed. Yes, you know, I, you know, it would be great to see more exploration of where it could have gone and more, more showing up in a, in a different, a slightly different solution. But certainly some very clear choices have been made here and you know, they've tried to execute it with a high degree of confidence and you know, I think I could probably leave it at that for Walmart because, you know, they're very confident in how they run their business and what they want to do with their brand.
- [10:34]
Host
Yeah, it's a really interesting case. And as you said, like, these are all the typical cliches that come up whenever a brand refresh or like is announced. It's like one, whoa, they spent so much money. And as you said, like for these types of companies, the stakeholder management alone, like, it's really another level. And I think we all have to just like keep in account the size. And for me it's almost like it's based on the risk as well. Like if you do this wrongly, the risk in terms of financial value is huge, like for the company, for your company doing it as well as a branding professional. So like, you better make sure you invest the time to see if it works on all different levels and for all different people. So in that sense, I totally agree. And I think the second part is it's never just a logo. It's like looking at a system and how it all comes together. So those are two things to get out of the way first and actually think it's a really good example of indeed, like making sure that what is really distinctive to Walmart is even more distinctive rather than looking for new stuff to add that's not necessary. So, yeah, really, really interesting example of what would you call, this is like a refresher.
- [11:53]
Damian Borchuk
It's kind of a refresher, a small evolution. And I think, I think the other thing is that Walmart, I would, I would argue that its brand is stronger than its branding. And because I think we often confuse the two. Branding is an input into your brand which is actually a consequence of all the things that you do. And so I think some companies embrace the process of branding to varying degrees. Some embrace it significantly. I would say Walmart, it's kind of a lighter touch in terms of how they, they use the process of branding in their business, but they have a very, very strong, very valuable brand. And so that what they're doing is using their branding to signal, but they're not, they're not necessarily saying we're embracing this to the same degree that other organizations do. And Again, it's a. It's a strategic choice in the tools that you make and, you know, that's kind of where. Where they've landed.
- [12:45]
Host
Yeah, I like that. It's. It's like, it's also. It's such a household name where, like, I think the most important part is almost for people like, to find their way to Walmart. And like, you better be careful with that because it's signage to a daily thing, a daily habit that you need. So, like, it's a different thing, I guess, in different industries and different scenarios where how you use your branding as well. All right, cool.
- [13:15]
Damian Borchuk
I think the second one is with Burger King, which we can probably move on to, is. I would describe this one as probably a much more heavy evolution. Some people would even argue that it's quite revolutionary because if you just look at it from the perspective of logos, there's quite a change. But the interesting thing with this one, and the reason why I call it more heavy evolution or the. Than a revolution, is that where the logo change came about was really historical. They went back and actually took a piece of branding that happened previously and I think vastly improved on where they were. And I think really got to the essence of what Burger King was about with much greater clarity. I think it gave it a whole lot more personality in the way typography was treated. But I think beyond that, I think there was a lot. And this is where you can see you can actually do a lot of change within an evolution. And if you go to the next slide, you can see where the real change started to happen is in the significant shift in the system they created. And this is a really important piece because I think often public commentary about branding is reduced down to the logo and do I like the logo or not, or did they not do enough or not enough and what have you? But I think where the really important shift started to happen here with was how they built out a system that recognizes that Burger King as a brand has so many touch points, whether it's in store signage, product uniforms, merchandise, through its digital communications, through all of its media. And so you have all of these places where you can actually make the best of your brand. And previously, I would argue that they weren't really doing enough with it. And what they have done is created a system where, you know what, the logo doesn't always actually have to play the hero's role in every instance. That's not what the consumer needs. What the consumer wants perhaps is a bigger story to tell. And so the tone of voice. They use the illustration system. They've added the very distinctive combination of colors that they have, make it absolutely ownable at every touch point that this screams. This is Burger King, puts it well away from its competition and shows that it can represent its brand with a high degree of confidence, bringing forward the best of what it had and actually making it bang up to date in a very contemporary rebranding. And when you. When you add all of those things up, you have a very, very significant system that's been upgraded without it feeling like Burger King's lost anything, and if, in fact, it's enhanced everything along the way. And so, for me, it's a very mature approach to branding. It's a very contemporary approach. And for those reasons, I think it was a very sort of successful solution for an organization that I think had probably struggled for a few attempts at brand upgrades. Historically, it's been sort of a very confident outcome for them.
- [16:22]
Host
Yeah, yeah. One of my absolute favorite rebrands in the sense that, like, as you said, it's quite the evolution or the revolution. We're gonna have to work on that word today. But they still found something that was already somewhere in the DNA of Burger King, and they just took it out and blew it up in a way that is very distinctive and interesting and feels modern for the brand. So I absolutely applaud that. And I think, in general, jkr, they often pull out these types of refreshes where, like, they. They go back to this, let's say, the startings of the brand, and then they. They find a way to, you know, amplify that. And I think that that worked really well for Burger King. Like, in your opinion, I'm curious, because you must have been through a lot of these types of big rebrands. Do you feel when the client comes to you, that they already have a good idea whether they want to evolve or revolve, or is it like something you, as an agency and as a brand strategy person, help steer?
- [17:35]
Damian Borchuk
I would say they usually have some sort of opinion. They usually come to us with. And so part of it is, you know, about unlocking the reasons for why they have that position. So, and then, you know, often they will have, you know, extremely good reasons for why certain things have built equity over time, and they don't want to lose those equities. Sometimes they come to us and go, we've had this for a long time, and therefore, it has lots of equity to it. And I'm like, longevity does not always equate with equity. It just Means it's been around a long time. But actually in reality, and I see this for a lot of business to business brands in particular, they've had things that they've had around for a long time. They just haven't changed, but they really don't move the dial for them at all. And when you actually have that, when you do the research, you have those conversations with them, really your marketplace is not saying that to us. I think you've just lived with this for a long time and you think it has value. But in reality, often, particularly B2B brands, it's the name of the organization that holds the equity. But a lot of their visual branding efforts are really weak and they don't really hold much equity at all. And so we, we often have to then convince organizations to say, well, these assumptions that we're making, when you look at the weight of evidence, don't really hold any weight. And so what, what we then have to do is build a case using facts, using data, and our own experience in saying, well, actually there, there is value in keeping this, but there is value in reinterpreting some elements. And actually we need to build a lot more. If we can actually create a system, not just simply a logo, that's going to actually achieve the things that are going to allow you to communicate your proposition better in the marketplace. And that's a very common thing. It tends to be in the very early stages when we're doing our audits, when we're looking at the strategy for the brand, is that we're ensuring that we're building a case and we're holding everybody accountable for upholding that strategy. It's like if we're going to go to this place that this strategy says we need to go to, well, then what we have right now doesn't really do it, or it can gets us 50% of the way. But if we're going to be at 100% here, we really need to take some bolder moves to get there. And so part of, part of the role is to be able to build that confidence that, because often people come to us with maybe having done a couple of branding projects in their career, whereas, you know, we've literally done hundreds and hundreds of them. We kind of know where, where the measure of the market is for a lot of these solutions. And, and, and often it's a lot further than people actually give the market credit for. And so part of the process is really building that degree of confidence so that, you know, we're quite conscious that Whilst we do this a lot, our clients don't. But they have to pick up what we do and live with it and make it, you know, well beyond our time working on this work succeed. And so we want to be able to give any client the confidence that they can move forward with their own internal capabilities or their other partners to actually make this come to life. And so understanding that connection that clients have and, you know, where they're coming from and, and how we can actually build that understanding with how the new system comes to life is, is as much part of the process as actually the design work or the writing work or you know, or delivering guidelines or assets and things like that. Those interactions every, is really kind of about some, some degree of change management in the process as much as it is as it looking at like, yeah, where's my logo, where's my color palette and my style guide?
- [21:28]
Host
Yeah, it's interesting and I think it's also like, definitely it's like reading the room and there are some even diplomacy involved in getting these types of things through. And what's also interesting to me is like sometimes you have clients that come to me and say like, well, we really need to do a crazy, like a full 180 degree, a revolution on the brand because we want to get there. And then often when I dive a bit deeper, I think they have a misunderstanding of what a rebrand will do for them in terms of business effects and so on. You still need to activate that, put it out in the market, do marketing campaign. The rebrand alone won't do a lot for you. And on the opposite, sometimes it can hurt you if you don't activate it properly. So that's one of the things that is really interesting to me. But you mentioned something about like getting confidence and getting signals on like what assets to build on, maybe depreciate like what assets do actually have market value. And I think that's something maybe like if you could shine a bit more light on how you actually can do some of the research that gives you ideas of what to use and what not to use, that will be super interesting, I think.
- [22:43]
Damian Borchuk
Yeah, look, I mean there are many, many different types of research that you can apply. Some of them are as simple as, because, you know, not everybody, not every client that comes to us has massive research budgets, particularly if you're an early stage business. And so some of it is just getting out there and talking to customers and being, you know, one on one all the way through to large scale. You know, you commission a research firm, you know, to the equities of a brand. And often companies have, you know, particularly if you're a well established business, have already all of their own tracking tools in place that we, you know, we often, when we're in the early stages of desk research, will be asking for that information. And so we want to be able to see kind of where the strengths lie or where those weaknesses are. Because I think one of the very early things that we ask about a branding project or what jobs does it need to do? Because some brands, for some companies, like I said earlier, Walmart's probably kind of lighter in terms of its branding, but others, other cl, other businesses, they have a very clear, you know, that they need to signal perhaps a significant pivot in the market. And so that's a really clear job that we've identified. And so you can't be a brand that's shy and retiring if you're actually looking at a, a significant pivot. Because if the market doesn't notice you've changed, then you've kind of, you've kind of going to lose momentum. And so for us being able to be very clear about identifying the objectives of the brand, what jobs it has to do, and then saying all through the process we're demonstrating how those jobs are going to be solved or achieved are really important part of that. And so you can then from that also go, do we have research that actually says that gives us some insight into how those jobs can be best done? And once we've finished the branding project, do we actually put in place a program of research that then provides us with feedback loops that those jobs are actually being achieved or not. So all of these things are kind of connected in the process. And when you put all that together, you end up with a much more robust understanding collectively within the organization that we've agreed these are the jobs they're getting done or not. Okay, if they're not getting done, what do we need to do to continually improve? So that's kind of the process and often that gets missed. There's usually a conversation around that at the start. Then you get into the creative process and that gets forgotten. And then we get to the end and then we just hope for the best. And I think those kind of projects I'm not a big fan of, I think you, you start with that robust position first because that shows you or it gives you a decision making framework for what degree of change is needed. Is it an evolution? So you have an objective here and you take a lot of the subjectivity out. And you can then dig in deep into the things that need to really change and provide proper solutions for that, as opposed to just going, oh, it needs to be wholesale change, because, you know, our brand doesn't work anymore, which is often what happens. Like some companies, they almost change their branding as often as they'd like to change their underwear. It just seems to happen so regularly. And you just go, do you actually have any handle on what problem you're really solving for here?
- [26:15]
Host
Yeah, that's. That's really interesting because on the one hand, as you said, like, the rebranding can be sort of like almost a communication vessel on its own. Like, it's almost like a campaign signaling something to the market. And I guess we'll dive into Jaguar and some of those examples. On the other hand, it's also like, do you need to signal it on the level of branding or is it somewhere else? Like, is it a communication thing? Is it an advertising thing? Is it a PR thing? And I think sometimes these things get a bit muddied and like, we're trying to say something with a rebranding that we have to say somewhere else. And sometimes it is like, a very good way of showing, like, hey, we're here, we're different, and this is what we want. And maybe just to, like, if you can dive a bit deeper into that, what are the actual signals that you've seen? Maybe in different cases where, like, that really say, okay, it's time for something radically different. Like, are there typical signals you see there?
- [27:13]
Damian Borchuk
Yeah, I mean, there are a couple of. There are different scenarios. I mean, the one one is that there's a dramatic shift in the market. And so that may prompt an organization to go. We've sat on our brand for a long time. We haven't really done much, and now the market seems to have shifted significantly when we're playing catch up. That's one. And the market shift may come from competitors, consumers. It may be technology shifts. It could come out of any number of different places. You know, another one might be that you're moving into new markets and you need to signal into that market. Whereas historically your brand has been in a particular market, you know, it may be in financial services, and it's maybe moving more broadly into, say, if you're a professional services firm, into legal services. It's a slightly different market. You may not be known how you're going to get noticed. There may need to be a shift to broaden that, or you may be moving overseas where the evolution of A market that you have been really successful in Australia at may be very different in the US or the uk. And so there needs to be that kind of change. Some other real classic ones, you know, if there's a merger or an acquisition. And so as a consequence of couple of organizations coming together, you, it's not one and one makes two anymore. It's mainly, you know, one and one kind of adds up to three. Now how do we signal that there's something new that's now emergent? We've had a few clients over time have come to us and said, look, we've basically been told that if we don't change our branding, we're just going to get sued because it looks too much like a very large global player. And so you have no choice. And that's a common problem when I would save so many brands. Despite all of the weight of contemporary research and data that's now been produced to say distinctiveness is so important. The vast majority of brands still do not follow a strong path of distinctiveness. The vast majority are happy to play in very comfortable category cues. Then they all kind of sit together in roughly the same space. And so I'm, I'm, I'm actually more surprised that more companies don't get sued for, for basically sort of copying one another's brands. I think I'm surprised it doesn't happen much more often. But those are some of the reasons why I would say probably one of the others that it probably less revolution. But I would say a lot of organizations time their brand upgrades around very practical choices. So website upgrade or if you're an airline, a fleet upgrade, because painting an airplane is really expensive so you don't want to do it too many times or if you're a big retailer, you're going to do a big signage changeover because it's time that, you know, we depreciated our signs. They're all looking pretty ratty. So we're going to change across, you know, 10,000 stores worldwide. We need to upgrade. So, I mean, there's a lot of reasons for why that's probably one of the most practical ones that some organizations do to make sure that that investment falls into line with a very significant other investment that they're doing.
- [30:27]
Host
Interesting. Yeah, I love that fact that even sometimes it's just a very practical thing and it's an opportunity to look into it like it makes total sense. Maybe like because you brought a number of examples. I have still a lot more questions, but I think maybe they'll Jump off when we see examples. What else did you bring with us today, Damien?
- [30:47]
Damian Borchuk
This next one is kind of. I picked Bolt because it was an interesting one. It's, it's, it's, it's a project that Koto did and it's, it's a fair, you know, still relatively recent, but I think it's, it's a really good example of what I'd say is probably a more revolutionary solution in, in terms of there, there were some elements that have been retained, obviously the name and you know, the little kind of lightning bolt symbol because that was something that was important to, to, to keep particularly when you, you know, if, and I think we can probably move to the next slide because you can sort of see the contrast between the old and the new. And I think that's, that's what I kind of wanted to show here was that, you know, Bolt, you know, on the left hand side is, is the original and then the work that we've done at Koto on the right hand side and you can kind of compare the two of them and see the distinctive difference because on the left hand side when I mentioned earlier, you know, it feels like the previous version of Bolt was very much sitting comfortably within the fintech category. You know, it kind of sat with the blue. It's like the kind of, you know, photo library imagery. A lot of it's kind of decorative but not really strategic. Kind of beyond the name, there wasn't really sort of a lot to describe sort of what, what the, what, what the offer was. And so what we tried to do is lean into the, what the value proposition was is that for those who don't know, Bolt, it's a payments platform and obviously it wants to be quick and easy and credible to allow people to transact in a secure, safe environment. And so, you know, the brief was to very much, you know, this is a business to business proposition, but to also extend into, let's make sure that the consumer feels like this is a proper consumer brand as well. It's something they can feel, feel and trust and get a sense of. And so for us, you know, we took the idea around this brand being this concept of being shockingly simple and really lent into that idea it already made. It was a kind of a natural part of the value proposition. And we kind of dialed that up to 11 because we felt like previously the brand was kind of a little bit shy and retiring and very comfortably sitting in that kind of fintech space. We wanted this to be a brand again that was confident High impact. You know, young brands don't necessarily have the huge budgets that, you know, big players have. And so every choice matters. And so taking the idea of shockingly simple, giving it that shock of green, taking it away from the, you know, kind of generic blue of the category, making the name and, and integrating the name and the lightning bolt successfully together, again, kind of just really dialing up all of the elements. And then even when you look at illustration and photography with this, it was about this idea of, you know, that boldness and simplicity coming through and creating that strong kind of confidence and sense of retail that would come out of the transaction that really kind of helped build all of the facets of the brand. So no matter what touch point this brand could show up, there was a certain distinctive boltness to it that they could own, as opposed to it being, I guess, yet another generic brand within kind of the payments place. And, you know, I think everybody likes to sort of follow PayPal and copy their blue and everything else because they were one of the first. But I think, you know, bolt is definitely showing now that they're, you know, they have their own place and their own position with a high degree of kind of confidence in how they want to present themselves. So that's kind of the kind of shift that, where we try to pack as much value into an outcome. It is a significant shift, but we felt that that step forward for them was only going to improve their proposition in the market, given they're still a relatively young brand.
- [34:47]
Host
Yeah, I mean, as I said in the beginning, like, in general, I'm quite critical of doing revolutionary things. But as you said, and I think it's a really important argument when the original thing is so bland and generic, it doesn't really matter whether you've been using it for a long time or not, there's not going to be a lot of equity because basically it's not recognizable for people. So in this case, for example, even just the lightning bolt alone, standalone, it's a very, I think, typical thing that we've seen a million times and very hard to stand out. And then how it's applied and the rebrand is really interesting and like intricate and distinctive. And I also, what I really appreciate here is the fact that it's not just on the level of logo or colors or typography. It's also the angle of the photography, like the fisheye perspective that comes back. Like, that's a cool little thing to make the distinctiveness go a lot further than just like having an illustration style or A photography style, it's something very different that could be like an asset over time. And I really appreciate that sort of thinking.
- [36:00]
Damian Borchuk
Yeah. And I think Bolt could have quite easily gone, look, we just want to tidy up. And in reality, even with a tidy up, you would spend roughly the same budget as you would for a significant shift. And so because often people think just because the degree of change is small, the cost doesn't. But for the changeover or all of the assets when they get changed over, the same expense is there, so you might as well make the most of your effort. And I think the great thing is the client is really kind of lent into. Let's get the best value for what we need to do at this point in time so we can actually present ourselves as a brand that's fully developed. Because I think it often takes early stage brands a few attempts at getting this right. And so I think being more confident in actually doing that because they obviously have very limited budgets when you're sort of in the early stages of your business. So you don't want to have to spend too many goes getting this right, otherwise you're forever sort of stuck in this limbo where you're never really getting your brand up to speed in performance terms and it's kind of just trundling along and not really getting you to where you should be as a successful, confident brand.
- [37:21]
Host
That's a good point and I think a question a lot of people had and I've seen many discussions on it as well. When it comes to startups like new companies, how much should they already invest in branding and what is the value versus being a bit more scrappy and thinking, okay, when we achieve legit product market fit, we can reinvest and make our brand more professional. What is your feeling there?
- [37:50]
Damian Borchuk
It's a fair call because it's always a balancing act and often early on your product is your brand for a long time because that's the closest touch point to the customer. But I would say that often if you're going to spend any amount of money, it doesn't matter big or small, because often I see disastrous branding programs where millions of dollars are being spent and then really cool high impact branding projects that very small budgets have been spent because I've made some good choices. And so for me it's the quality of the choice that actually sort of supersedes the scale of the budget often. So I would say, yeah, yeah, you can't. You may not necessarily be able to have a big expensive photo shoot or have Sort of very high end illustrators. But you know, I think again, you can make some smart choices early on in how your branding comes about and you don't have to devolve into, oh, let's, you know, this is where our category sits. So let's just settle for something that kind of just easily sits in this space. I think there's more than enough opportunity and leeway for even small organizations to make smart decisions. And unfortunately that doesn't happen often enough when it comes to branding is often just the safe choice that doesn't really take them very far. And then often what happens then is they get stuck with it for a lot, a lot longer than they would have hoped and investment has to come in all sorts of other places and it gets left for way too long before it's actually then executed successfully and it becomes a bit of a problem then.
- [39:26]
Host
Yeah, And I also think the point you made earlier about the fact that some brands like they have these codes or these things in their brand that they think like, because they've been around, like, yeah, we definitely need to keep that color and we definitely need to keep this. But then when you actually go and do the research, it appears that maybe nobody really recognizes these things. So I think it's a very good point about like, let's stop thinking it from the inside what we think our brand and how it's working and really look into the market, talk to the consumer and understand what is really, really working in your brand and go from there. Instead of like that inside out view, maybe let's looking at the time, what else do we have here?
- [40:09]
Damian Borchuk
Yeah, this one's iconic lightning rod.
- [40:12]
Host
Yeah.
- [40:13]
Damian Borchuk
And I think look, and I would say the camp of people. And if you, if you, if you spend any time on LinkedIn. LinkedIn is definitely a big camp of people that argue branding should almost never change. There's a very large group of vocal people about that and I think they often refer to Tropicana as their killer case study for that. And I think there's, there's a number of things that I think are interesting to unpack in this. I think absolutely. When a number of years ago, I think it was 2009, I think Tropicana sort of look did this rebranding that became sort of a, a worldwide case study in what not to do because they almost wiped the slate clean. Now I think I'm sure what their intention was is that they wanted to contemporize the brand, clean it up, make the branding, you know, make the Story sort of cleaner and clearer to people, but what they did is that they eradicated any element of distinctiveness. But I would say that within this category, you got to think about, and again, context is so important. Understanding category to category, audience to audience, environment to environment, is very, very important in understanding the degree of change you can make. And in the case of Tropicana, all that was ignored because I think context is, is that if you're a consumer in a supermarket looking for your, your favorite product, which may be Tropicana, if, if, if things change too much, that three seconds that you usually give to find your brand, if it doesn't look like it's on the shelves anymore, you got to move on to your next option. And that's what they event they found happened very quickly. People chose option two because they couldn't see their Tropicana. I would say, though, the thing that we need to be careful of is that I wouldn't necessarily say this Tropicana branding that built up so much equity over time is significantly, you know, a great piece of packaging or a great piece of branding. It's just what people got used to. But you still have to take that into account when you're looking at what the branding should be. The other thing is that they operate in a category that I would say sets a really, really low bar for branding. Like, the juice category is awful. It's largely generic. It's usually orange juice, picture of some orange juice drink or an orange and the name of your brand. And that's pretty much it. There is really no brand building going on here. And so I would say that Tropicana was lucky enough to fall into this situation where, you know, they did have some elements that were distinctive over time. And when they eradicated them, it was hugely problematic. I think for me, the thing that's now been missed is that I think they got such a scare back in 2009 that they really haven't evolved the brand itself. And so the juice category right now is one that is under quite a lot of pressure because consumer tastes are changing. And Tropicana last year found that as a challenge, as much of their other competitors have. So I think it's interesting that I think they've kind of sat on their brand now almost out of fear for, you know, changing anything. And I kind of wonder whether now they need to start to think about, and they probably should have started this earlier because of the changes that are now happening within the sector of how do we actually build a Bigger, better story for our brand. Not necessarily change everything, but certainly build more elements into the brand so that there's more to it than just simply what shows up on unpack. And I kind of feel like, you know, that I've kind of missed a trick in that regard. But it is one of those wonderful case studies because it says so much and there's so much that you can unpack about the wrong choices you can make and the kind of consequences as a result of that.
- [43:58]
Host
Yeah, but you're right. I mean, I'm guilty of using this example as well, like, as against an argument for rebranding, but I totally agree, like, that actually the problem was really on, like, they threw away all the distinctiveness while they could have done a rebranding where actually they doubled down, maybe like the straw with the lines, and they're like, there's some things that are quite iconic that they could have used but made it better. Instead, they just made it very generic and bland. So in a way, it's not really an argument for. It's just an argument for if you do it incorrectly, then you'll get bad results. And, as you said, like, the context of that shopping. It's also interesting to me to see, like, as you said, like, maybe. Maybe somebody's listening to this podcast or watching and thinking, like, maybe we need a liquid death in the juices category. Like, do something else. It's definitely an opportunity. So to those listening, go for it.
- [44:56]
Damian Borchuk
There have been a few. There have been a few that have tried and changed. And I think, you know, I think. I think very early on, you know, quite a few number of years ago now. And it's not a brand that you hear as much about now. Innocent Drinks sort of took a very different approach. Whereas the vast majority in this category is just treats. Treats their product as a commodity. And I would say role of brand amongst a lot of the players is probably relatively low. I mean, I think obviously Tropicana understood the role after they made their mistake, but I would say most juice brands seem to simply trade on the generic nature of their product, and not a lot of effort goes into actually trying to look beyond the functional qualities of what they have in the category.
- [45:44]
Host
Yeah, totally. Let's have a look at the other one.
- [45:47]
Damian Borchuk
Oh, yes, this one.
- [45:48]
Host
Controversial. So for the listeners, by the way, there's people listening and not watching. This is the Jaguar rebrand we're talking about.
- [45:57]
Damian Borchuk
Yes. So this is probably the revolution of revolutions, at least in contemporary times. I think it's obviously the most probably the most talked about branding project of last year. And look, I think for me, when it first came out, I didn't say anything about it. I didn't want to be critical it. I didn't want to say anything because it was. So many people were talking about it. So it's given me an opportunity to sort of sit and stew on it a little bit. But I think just. Just to think about, you know, think back at what happened and kind of where we're at with Jaguar right now. It's a really interesting one and I think, again, fascinating. The same way Tropicana is, because it's like, there's so many layers to it. But I think the first thing that, for me, in terms of this being sort of this is your classic revolution. I've changed pretty much everything that you could possibly consider except the name. And I think if we go on to the next slide, you can sort of see, like, the significant shift in. That's. That's happened here with Jag. And for me, again, the camp that says, well, they've thrown out the baby with the bath water, you know, all of these decades of heritage and provenance have just gone in one fell swoop. This is appalling. But my first point would be, is that I actually don't think Jag has been such a great car brand for decades. You know, they haven't produced classics for such a long time. It's a brand that's been pushed from one new owner to another over a number of years. Both kind of the vehicle quality. But also, I would say, you know, the branding is. Hasn't for a long time really set the world on fire. And so I really question the conservative viewpoint that, you know, that, you know, how dare, you know, the, you know, they change the Jaguar brand or attempt to update it. I don't see anything wrong with kind of challenging that, because obviously Jaguar itself is in a position where they're trying to transform the business. You know, numerous attempts have been tried by various owners over the years and they haven't been up to where they expected, so they've unsold the business. And so there's a desire to signal a significant change into the market, which is a valid response. But. And there's a big but to this, is that again, I'm not sure the choices they've made are really the right ones, because I think, again, to me, and I included these copy lines because I think they're just as important. And I think when you're thinking about branding, we shouldn't just think in visual terms, we should think about language and, and, you know, they made these bold pronouncements about copy nothing. Break molds, create exuberant. But if you're going to make those statements, you got to deliver. And for me, personally, I think this branding does none of that. I don't think this is bold at all. I don't think there's anything new in this for me. For Jaguar, per se, yes, it's different, but I don't see it as being bold or interesting or creative or innovative in any way. To me, this looks like a whole bunch of pretty mediocre tropes that have been borrowed from the luxury industry, done bad, and to me, and then just applied to the Jaguar brand. And so I don't think there's anything innovative there. You know, if you want to bring innovation, we'll then show up with it. Like, to me, it's, it's not really proving the argument at all. And so that's where I have the issue in this being a revolution. To me, it's not that revolutionary. It's kind of clumsy and it's kind of. If you want, if you really want to copy nothing, well, then don't borrow all this stuff from, you know, the luxury goods category and execute it badly. Like, come with something that's going to make us sit up and really take notice about where we want, how we want to take the, you know, the Jaguar brand and the car industry, given all the technology and change that's happening in the industry, show us a new perspective. And I don't get any of that. So I'm, I'm kind of. I don't, I don't, I don't, I don't sort of buy the, the anti change argument. I don't buy. This is. This is a really, an argument for good change. So I'm still kind of waiting to see, you know, well, if it's not the branding that's going to do it, are they going to deliver on the vehicles, are they going to deliver on the dealerships, are they going to deliver on the service experience? Where is the copy? Nothing. Breaking molds going to show up in a way that's really going to be valuable to the, to the customer. That's kind of. That's my kind of position on that one.
- [50:43]
Host
Yeah, I mean, I like the fact that you put the visuals. So for the people listening on top, we have the lounge video that they had with some of the copy that was in there. Break molds, create exuberance. With all the eccentric figures walking towards the camera. There was no cars, I think in the original lounge video. And then on the bottom we have a bit more like the visual of the cars, the new cars coming. We also have like the jaguar itself, the animal in this striped logo, which actually that's the one thing that I really appreciated it because I was like at first the type on its own, I found it a bit ugly, but I was happy that they didn' drop like their most iconic asset, that they started using it in a different way. I think it conveys speed, it feels a bit more modern. So in that sense, like only that part I really like. But I think this is also a really great example of it's not just about what you do with the graphic design, the visual identity, it's also how you communicate and what you communicate and as you said, like the copy, the way they packaged it in a lounge video without the cars. There was a lot of choices made that were more about the campaign of the, of the rebrand that were perhaps not the right choices. Time will tell, I guess, but that's also something and maybe to, because we're getting close to the hour mark just to get your thoughts on rollouts, like where do you start thinking about, okay, so we have this brand evolution or revolution. We've got the right signals, we've executed properly. People internally like it. How do you go from that to bringing it in the market? And what are some things to consider there?
- [52:26]
Damian Borchuk
Yeah, well, I think, I think that's often one of the big mistakes for branding programs. A lot of intense effort goes around delivery of the ta da moment of the identity system and presenting that to staff and everything. And I think often, often there's so much fatigue at the end of that, we forget that actually that's the starting point. Like that's, that's not the end you've got to think of. Have we budgeted properly to actually roll this out successfully? Have we aligned our culture, our organization, our management team around delivering to this? And this is like brands are long term assets, they're not, they're not short term campaigns. They are things that are built over time through the accumulation of lots of efforts. And so if you haven't prepared the organization for that and they think, okay, from day one we've launched, where are our results? That's just not going to happen. We know through data that the real results you get from proper branding effort you don't really start to fully see until after a couple of years. And it's a Couple of years of really hard effort. So you've got to make sure that your business is in lock or your branding and your business is in lock step, that you're, everybody is disciplined around how this happens. And it's not just, yes, there's the marketing program and the marketing campaigns and all that that go at a tactical level, but it is your products, it's your services, it's the strategic choices your businesses make. All of those need to be lined up and disciplined. And so I often think of branding is that the creative part is kind of making your strategy visible, but all the hard stuff still has to be done. Like, branding is not lightweight, creative stuff. It is actually the hard stuff of business that actually supports, that actually builds the brand and builds the value. You still gotta do that. And often that connection gets missed. And so in the case of jag, like a lot of people will argue that this has been hugely successful because what JAG has done is to create a lot of awareness and a lot of talk and a lot of reset of people's mindset, which I can say absolutely, it seems like that's what they've done. But that is not just the job of the brand, that's the starting point. And so what I'm interested in next is like, okay, how are you going to use this as a platform for long term business success and growth? And for me, I'm not sure a, this sort of matches the proposition that they're actually putting out there. And I'm not sure it's actually going to deliver a long term result. It's, it's, it's certainly had good short term effects, but I'm not sure about that long term. So I'll be, I'm really keen to sort of see, I'm happy to be proven wrong about that. And I would, I'd love for JAG to finally turn that business around with some really interesting stuff, but I'm not sure it's going to be with this really. Just my point about often organizations say we should do as little change as possible. And here are three quick examples of organizations that took some pretty dramatic shifts. FedEx delivered, you know, they, they, they delivered a solution that they haven't changed for decades now. When they moved from Federal Express to FedEx, they had Landor do its iconic branding which shows up in the best possible places on their packaging, on their people, on their vehicles. It's the perfect example of how Brandon and how they deliver work hand in hand successfully. And you know, they took a, they took a Big change step. And as a result of that, you know, they don't need to make lots of changes now. LG we forget used to be called Lucky Gold Star.
- [56:04]
Host
I didn't know that at all.
- [56:06]
Damian Borchuk
Yeah, and, and, and it's like they, they really made something quite wonderful and simple and iconic and quirky. And it's a, you know, globally recognized brand now because they made that step. And Airbnb copped hell when they updated their branding. They had massive blowback in social media and mainstream media about that. They held the line, though. They knew what they were doing and they've gone from strength to strength and there's nobody in their category that comes close to them. And so all great examples, to me, that are just signals of these are brands that took revolutionary steps and they've had payoffs. Successful success. And it's a response to all those naysayers that trundle out things like Tropicana to say we should never do a rebrand upgrade. And so that was kind of how I wanted to sort of finish things on, because I think that they're all great examples and we often forget them along the way.
- [57:04]
Host
Really amazing. I really appreciate the nuanced take and like you shining a light on different examples and how they were brought. So I think it's great for all people. Like, people that are constantly saying everything should be rebranded and people that are saying never rebrand. Like, it's a lot. There's a lot of space in between and as you've shown, it can have huge value when done properly. So, again, thanks, Damien, for coming on and keep doing what you're doing at Coto.
- [57:33]
Damian Borchuk
Thank you. Thanks a lot. It's been great chatting.