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When growth slows or customers slip away, many executives reach for a familiar fix: refresh the brand. Update the logo, sharpen the tagline, modernize the look. On the surface, it feels like progress. But more often than not, it’s only a temporary patch on a much deeper issue.

A refresh may adjust the expression, but it rarely addresses the real problem—a disconnect between brand and business strategy. Without strategic alignment, even the most dramatic new identity becomes a fresh coat of paint on a shaky foundation. The truth is, brand isn’t just a layer of design. At its best, brand is built from a solid foundation informed by business strategy. It defines how a company shows up in the world, forces clarity about ambition and direction, and provides the connective tissue that translates those choices into the experiences customers, employees and investors encounter every day.

The New Brand Reality

Whether you lead a B2B or B2C organization, the landscape has shifted. Customers and consumers are more informed, with much of the decision journey already behind them by the time they engage directly. They expect seamless digital experiences, authentic values and brands that feel current and coherent.

Historically, B2B brands leaned on function—logo-centric, static, timeless—while B2C brands were expressive, dynamic and active. Those boundaries no longer hold. The expectations of one world bleed into the other. Today, whether you’re selling enterprise software or consumer packaged goods, people are evaluating brands holistically: story, behavior, experience and values.

That’s why treating brand as a cosmetic exercise—something you dust off every few years when the identity feels stale—is such a missed opportunity.

“Business and brand strategy are interdependent, each shaping and reinforcing the other. Business strategy defines where and how a company competes, while brand strategy translates those choices into meaning that connects with customers. When aligned, they create coherence, credibility and growth that’s both financial and emotional. When misaligned, the result is confusion, mistrust and superficial marketing.”—Nathan Hendricks, Chief Creative Officer at LPK

Why the Refresh Instinct Persists

Still, the instinct to refresh remains strong. It shows up when a business has expanded into new markets but the brand hasn’t kept pace, when acquisitions leave a portfolio fragmented and incoherent, and when messaging feels inconsistent and employees struggle to articulate what the company stands for.

In those moments, it’s tempting to believe a new look will reset the trajectory. But executives who stop there risk mistaking symptoms for causes. A refresh might make the company appear more current, but if brand and business are misaligned, the problems return. Confusion persists. Sales and marketing teams keep struggling to connect. Customers and consumers sense inconsistency.

That doesn’t mean refreshes have no place. They can be powerful for internal alignment, employee morale or signaling the start of change. But a refresh is not designed to do all the jobs. For persistence and consistency in results, branding must be treated as a system, not a one-off project.

When Brand Sets Strategy

Here’s the truth: a brand can only promise what the business can operationally support. Brand strategy sets the foundation for the decisions that follow. Business strategy informs brand strategy, which ultimately informs identity and go-to-market execution. A strong brand clarifies who you are, what you offer and why you exist. It guides growth priorities, informs product choices, shapes culture and directs innovation.

For B2B leaders, that might mean investing in brand strategy to simplify complex portfolios, strengthen equity or make cross-selling easier. For B2C leaders, it might mean building relevance and distinction in crowded categories where parity is high. In both cases, the promise the brand makes becomes the framework for how the business operates and evolves.

The Cost of Getting It Wrong

Companies that treat brand as decoration end up with identities that look new but still feel irrelevant. They lose pricing power, invite commoditization and strain their teams. Perhaps most damaging, they pull the wrong lever—investing in surface changes that don’t move the business forward. Or worse, they risk having to do it all over again.

The Payoff of Alignment

The companies that treat brand as a strategic engine see measurable impact. Research shows that strong brands deliver higher shareholder returns and significantly faster revenue growth compared to weak or diluted brands. Alignment enables premium pricing, builds resilience in volatile markets and gives employees and consumers a clear reason to believe.

Brand is not a marketing expense. It’s a business multiplier—shaping ambition, focusing strategy and translating both into performance. A refresh can be part of the solution, but a refresh without strategy is where risk lies.

What They Really Need Instead

Executives don’t need just a refreshed identity. They need a brand built on a proven strategy that aligns with the business vision. That might look like:

• Corporate Identity that embodies ambition, not just history, built from a strong brand strategy

• Communication Strategy that creates coherence across audiences and channels

• Go-to-Market Positioning that helps sales teams sell smarter or equips marketers to cut through with clarity and confidence

To determine if a refresh is really the right lever, leaders should ask:

• Is our brand architecture unclear after acquisitions or portfolio expansion?

• Are we struggling to cross-sell or create clarity across offerings?

• Is our story inconsistent across markets and teams?

• What metric are we truly trying to impact—and will a refresh move it?

• Have we lost market share, or is our positioning no longer relevant?

Beyond the Refresh

So, do you need a brand refresh? Maybe. But the more useful question is whether your brand and business strategy are truly aligned. Is your brand making your ambition clear and compelling? Is it guiding growth choices, uniting employees, earning customer loyalty and building investor confidence?

When the answer is yes, growth doesn’t just look good in the deck. It becomes durable, resilient and inevitable.

At LPK, we help leaders diagnose the real challenge and identify the right lever. Sometimes that means a refresh. More often, it means building brand as a strategic engine—through Corporate Identity that translates ambition into action, Communication Strategy that drives coherence and Go-to-Market Positioning that turns strategy into performance. For both B2B and B2C leaders, the opportunity is the same: align brand and business to unlock the outcomes you want.

ABOUT LPK

LPK is a modern brand consultancy that applies insightful strategy and beautiful creativity to harness change—making momentum that grows brands and businesses.

The consumer-packaged goods (CPG) landscape has never been more crowded. Walk down any aisle or scroll through your social feed and you’ll see it: packaging screaming for attention, campaigns leaning on shock value and endless brands chasing the same bright, edgy aesthetic. For years, being “bold” was the shortcut to standing out. But when everyone is bold, nothing feels distinctive. Different has become the new default.

In this oversaturated environment, simply being louder isn’t enough. Brands must move beyond decoration to create true distinction—anchored in strategy, clarity and emotional resonance. After all, emotion is the engine of brand value. Around 95% of purchase decisions are made subconsciously. Consumers don’t just buy what you sell: they buy how it makes them feel. When your brand creates a sense of belonging, identity, or purpose, you earn trust and loyalty. That’s the essence of emotional equity.

Rules for a Relevant Brand Refresh

So how do you refresh a brand in ways that resonate deeply while still standing out on the shelf? Here are a few principles to guide the way:

Start with Clarity
A refresh begins with self-awareness. Who are you at your core, and who are you for? Every signal your brand puts into the world—from typography and color to voice and behaviors—should reinforce your story, not confuse it.

Honor Your DNA
Trends come and go, but your identity is what consumers anchor to in uncertain times. Strong brands evolve without erasing their roots. Staying true to your DNA prevents reactive, opportunistic rebrands that dilute equity.

Design for the Whole Brain
Effective packaging design engages both fast, emotional intuition and slower, rational analysis. The best brands make you feel something immediately and then hold up under scrutiny, balancing style and substance.

Leverage Human Desires
People connect with brands that fulfill deep-seated human needs, such as acceptance, order, tranquility or power. When a brand refresh aligns design and storytelling with these universal motivators, it creates resonance that transcends trends.

A Framework for Extraordinary Brands

At LPK, we use our GATOR criteria to ensure brands stay both aspirational and grounded. It’s a strategic gut check to make sure brands aren’t just creative—they’re effective.

• Gut Appeal – Does it make people feel something instantly?
• Anchor – Are there familiar signals and category cues that ground it?
• Twist – Is there a surprise that makes it memorable?
• Ownability – Does it have distinct assets that no one else can claim?
• Relevance – Is it meaningfully connected to what people care about right now?

When all five are present, brands move beyond attention-grabbing to building trust and loyalty over time. Boldness then becomes a tool for impact, not the strategy itself.

Lessons from the Aisle

To bring this thinking to life, we’ve chosen examples of recent refreshes—some from our own work and others we admire across the industry. Each illustrates how relevance, not just boldness, drives impact.

Hostess
When Smucker’s acquired Hostess in 2023, sales were slipping—they needed the brand to better connect with new audiences. The brand kept its recognizable palette but modernized its typography and simplified its system for clarity. Consumers chose the new design two-to-one over the old, with improved perceptions of taste and modernity. It showed how staying true while updating can re-energize a brand.

Liquid I.V.
Unilever’s Liquid I.V. was growing quickly but packaging lagged behind its position. A new design system emphasized variant clarity and visual appetite appeal, while strengthening presence on shelf. The redesign helped drive double-digit growth and made the brand one of Amazon Prime Day’s top sellers. Growth doesn’t always require a crisis—it can also be about anticipation.

Caboo
Caboo once spoke mainly to hardcore sustainability shoppers. Its 2022 refresh expanded the story, bringing emotional resonance to a broader audience. A fresher, more compelling design moved the brand beyond niche appeal, earning new retail placements, including Whole Foods. Done right, refreshes can create entirely new opportunities.

Holland House
Holland House, a brand with deep culinary roots, needed to modernize without losing credibility. The refresh, led by LPK, elevated quality cues while introducing stronger appetite appeal, clarifying its place in modern cooking. It proved that honoring history while signaling modern relevance can help a legacy brand find new resonance.

Corona
Corona’s refresh was less about reinvention and more about re-centering its iconic equity. Our work reinforced what makes the brand instantly recognizable while refining visual systems to feel fresher and more adaptable across markets. It shows how leaning into timeless brand DNA can keep a global icon relevant.

Building Lasting Relevance

Boldness alone isn’t enough. Emotion creates equity. And identity is the anchor that keeps brands steady while they evolve. Refreshes that work aren’t reactive—they’re intentionally rooted in meaning. Brands that embrace clarity, emotion and cultural fluency will earn a lasting place in consumers’ lives.

ABOUT LPK

LPK is a modern brand consultancy that applies insightful strategy and beautiful creativity to harness change—making momentum that grows brands and businesses.

Beverage brands today sit at the intersection of shifting consumer values, cultural fragmentation and accelerated competition. Social media amplifies every niche, making it easier for once-obscure drinks to go viral overnight. At the same time, generational divides in how people approach alcohol—from Gen-Z’s preference for low- or no-ABV options to Millennials’ focus on premium experiences—are reshaping the category.

For brand and marketing leaders, the challenge isn’t just gaining attention—it’s sustaining loyalty in a world where everyone can be in the know all at once. Cult-worthy brands offer a roadmap. They thrive by leaning into polarization, building lore that spreads organically and creating rituals that make consumers feel like insiders. In a market where sameness dominates and algorithms drive discovery, these are the qualities that separate brands with staying power from those that disappear as fast as a TikTok trend.

Defining Cult-Worthy

A cult brand isn’t simply well liked—it’s polarizing. Followers are ride or die, fiercely loyal, while detractors can’t stand it. That edge is what sparks conversation and keeps the brand alive in culture. Cult brands not designed to appeal to everyone—and mass-market companies who aspire to cult status need to be comfortable with that.

1. Anchor in Familiarity, Then Break Away
Successful beverage brands use familiar category cues to establish credibility—but stop short of blending into the sea of sameness. Light beer leans on blue and silver. Whiskey shows up in serif fonts, batch numbers and craft paper. Vodka bottles often stand tall with poppy colors and sans serif type. Anchors matter, but distinctiveness matters more.

Jeppson’s Malört shows how a brand can build cult status by embracing what makes it divisive. Known for its intense bitterness, comparisons to gasoline or grapefruit pith, and the infamous “Malört face” of disgust, it’s widely considered undrinkable. Yet that extremity has become its badge of honor. For some, enduring a shot is a rite of passage, a moment of shared suffering that turns into social bonding. This experience makes it more than a beverage—it’s a story to be told, and that story drives the fandom.

2. Craft a True Reason to Believe
Overused claims like “world’s finest” don’t cut it. A cult-worthy brand offers proof that feels authentic and singular. Whether it’s a founder’s story, an unconventional brewing process, or a bold new format, brands must dig deeper for a reason to believe that belongs only to them. Social media has raised the stakes—now everyone can be in the know instantly. What’s shared has to feel insider-worthy, not generic.

3. Embrace Cultural Relevance and Ritual
Cult brands don’t just sell products; they sell belonging. BuzzBallz became a Gen-Z staple because it leaned into unhinged humor, turning into a badge of “look what I’m drinking.” The Spaghett—a Miller High Life bottle spiked with Aperol and lemon juice—was celebrated as the drink of the summer. Its appeal lies in being simple, refreshing and a little irreverent: no shaker, no stemware, just a cheap beer turned into something slyly sophisticated. Both examples show how cult drinks thrive on shared rituals that feel accessible yet insider.

4. Preserve and Evolve the Lore
Every cult brand wrestles with staying relevant without losing what made it special. Integrity comes from knowing what to protect and what to evolve. Cutwater has stayed true to its mission of making bar-quality cocktails more accessible, presenting polished content that highlights quality, flavor and occasions to drink. At the same time, its high-ABV cans have fueled fan-driven lore online, sparking imaginative collabs like the Hulk (a Cutwater x Hennessy mashup) that consumers in the comments wish were real. By letting fans be fanatics—extending the lore through off-the-wall collab ideas and at-home cocktail riffs—Cutwater amplifies its cultural reach while keeping its core promise intact.

5. Narrow the Focus, Deepen the Following
Cult-worthy brands succeed because they know their consumer with precision. The beverage aisle forces choice—30 seltzers in a case make every brand define its lane. Compare that to categories with only a handful of options, where brands often stretch too broad. Even mass players gain power by thinking niche: clearly define the design target, understand habits and practices and build for a community rather than the masses.

The Path to Cult Status

Cult-worthy brands aren’t created overnight. They emerge through bold choices, consistent storytelling, and the willingness to polarize. In a fragmented, always-on world, the brands that lean into distinctiveness, culture and ritual—while preserving the lore that makes them unique—earn a fanatic following that drives growth.

Achieving that kind of status takes discipline across every touchpoint: strategy that defines where to play and how to win, design systems that balance category credibility with cultural distinction and packaging that acts as both anchor and amplifier on shelf and in social feeds. These are the levers that determine whether a brand fades into sameness or builds the kind of loyalty that feels unshakable.

ABOUT LPK

LPK is a modern brand consultancy that applies insightful strategy and beautiful creativity to harness change—making momentum that grows brands and businesses.

ABOUT LPK

LPK is a modern brand consultancy that applies insightful strategy and beautiful creativity to harness change—making momentum that grows brands and businesses.

ABOUT LPK

LPK is a modern brand consultancy that applies insightful strategy and beautiful creativity to harness change—making momentum that grows brands and businesses.

ABOUT LPK

LPK is a modern brand consultancy that applies insightful strategy and beautiful creativity to harness change—making momentum that grows brands and businesses.

In the world of brand building, the distance between a great idea and a great experience is deceptively vast. Strategy sets the course, but expression determines whether the journey succeeds or falters. Too often, what begins as a powerful brand idea becomes diluted—or lost entirely—in translation.

Nathan Hendricks, Chief Creative Officer at LPK, explores the nuanced, often chaotic process of moving from strategic intent to tangible expression. In this piece, he unpacks why so many brand strategies fall short in execution, and what it really takes to close the gap between inspiration and impact.

The Elusive Alchemy of Translation

Have you ever read a book, been thrilled to hear that it’s been adapted into a movie and then been utterly disappointed when you watch the film? It’s as if the director read a different book than you did. This translation challenge exists in every creative field where vision must become reality. In filmmaking, a director transforms words into visual storytelling with each decision representing a translation point where meaning can shift or dissolve entirely.

As someone working for decades in brand design, I can attest that the same holds true for brands. While you’re reading this, someone is putting the finishing touches on a brand strategy with hope blossoming in their heart. If it’s anything like the infinite number of brand strategies that have come before it, it will almost certainly fail to deliver on its potential. A great brand like a great movie is a miracle.

Running the Gauntlet

The translation from brand strategy to tangible experience mirrors the journey from novel to film adaptation. A strategy document captures a brand’s essential identity, but these abstract concepts must take physical form across dozens of touchpoints. Each translation step creates an opportunity for meaning to shift or dissolve entirely.

This process confronts formidable obstacles. The strategy itself might miss the mark. Decision-makers may compromise its core through excessive revisions. Organizations frequently lack the resources or commitment to execute effectively. Perhaps most insidiously, each stakeholder may interpret the strategy differently, creating fundamental misalignments that compound with each decision.

What makes this journey particularly treacherous is the sheer number of translators involved. When a strategy describes a brand as embodying “sophisticated playfulness,” a designer might envision clean lines punctuated by unexpected colors while a copywriter crafts wry, intelligent messaging. Neither is wrong, but their divergent interpretations begin to fragment the brand’s cohesive vision.

A Bonfire of Resources

This is the disorganized mess that passes for brand building today. Every day, substantial capital, careers, time and natural resources are wasted in failed attempts to translate compelling brand strategies into tangible brand realities. Companies invest millions in developing brand executions only to see them implemented inconsistently. The financial cost is obvious, but the opportunity cost may be even greater.

Consider also the human cost: strategists whose carefully crafted recommendations are misunderstood; designers whose work is compromised by unclear direction; executives who stake their reputations on rebrands that fall flat. The environmental impact cannot be overlooked either—failed rebrands often mean discarding physical materials, creating unnecessary waste.

The persistence of this problem suggests something fundamentally challenging about the translation from strategy to expression. It’s not merely incompetence or negligence, though these certainly occur. Rather, it points to inherent difficulties in moving from abstract concepts to concrete manifestations while preserving essential meaning.

Lost and Found in Translation

To surmount this challenge requires recognizing brand strategy and brand expression as distinct but interconnected languages. Brand strategy speaks in the vocabulary of positioning, differentiation and values. Brand expression speaks through color, shape, typography and interaction. The fundamental challenge is ensuring these languages remain in dialogue with each other, creating a coherent conversation rather than disconnected monologues.

Effective translation requires deep fluency in both languages and a commitment to preserving the essence of the message. It demands interpreters who can move comfortably between abstract strategic thinking and concrete expressive decisions, maintaining consistency of meaning across this shift in modality.

The Great Unpacking: From Strategy to Sensory Experience

Translation begins with strategic distillation—identifying the 3 to 5 foundational ideas that form a brand’s core. This crucial first step acknowledges a fundamental truth: not every strategic insight deserves direct expression. A 10-page strategy document cannot and should not be translated in its entirety.

The conventional approach of word-mapping exercises and mood board creation often produces superficial results. The resulting expressions may look appropriate but fail to resonate at the deeper level where true brand connections form. They address only the surface of brand expression without exploring the full sensory landscape where brands truly live.

Beyond Visual: The Multi-Sensory Vocabulary

Truly breakthrough brands operate at a visceral, intuitive level. Consider how Apple products feel immediately distinctive in your hand, how the sound of a BMW door closing conveys precision engineering or how the scent of a luxury hotel establishes its brand promise before you reach reception.

To achieve this depth of expression, we must expand our translation process beyond visual associations to encompass all senses. What must your audience see, feel, hear, smell and taste to understand what your brand is truly about? This exercise may seem strange, but suspend disbelief and give it a shot. You’ll be surprised at the richness you’ll unearth.

Expanding our translation process to include all five senses opens unexpected pathways. What might “approachable trustworthiness” smell like? Perhaps the clean but gentle scent of cotton sheets dried in fresh air—familiar, comforting and free from artificial notes that might trigger suspicion.

What must your audience see, hear, feel, smell and taste to understand your brand?

This multi-sensory exploration aligns with how humans actually experience the world. We don’t process brands through isolated sensory channels but as integrated experiences that engage multiple senses simultaneously.

Emergent Themes and Experiential Attributes

Following this approach ultimately reveals the brand’s multi-sensorial vocabulary. As you map brand attributes across sensory dimensions, patterns naturally emerge suggesting fundamental themes that transcend individual senses. These themes become your shopping list for creating mood boards that bring the brand’s world to life.

The clustering process transforms a potentially overwhelming collection of sensory descriptors into a manageable set of experiential attributes. These attributes serve as translation bridges between strategic intent and tangible expression, providing guidance more specific than abstract strategic concepts but more flexible than prescriptive design directions.

By embracing this more comprehensive approach to translation, we move beyond superficial connections between strategy and expression. We create brands that communicate at a visceral level, engaging audiences through multiple sensory channels to deliver experiences that feel authentic, distinctive and meaningful. This is how miraculous brands emerge—not through happy accidents but through thoughtful translation that preserves the essence of strategic intent while transforming it into unforgettable experiences.

ABOUT LPK

LPK is a modern brand consultancy that applies insightful strategy and beautiful creativity to harness change—making momentum that grows brands and businesses.

ABOUT LPK

LPK is a modern brand consultancy that applies insightful strategy and beautiful creativity to harness change—making momentum that grows brands and businesses.