Growth Belongs to the Brands That Lean Into Tension

This put up was created in partnership with KantarWhen you think about the highest manufacturers which have had endurance over the previous couple of a long time, one of many frequent threads between them is that they’ve all embraced pressure properly. They’ve discovered stability in battles like reinvention vs. core values, short- vs. long-term success, and experimentation vs. consistency.Throughout a Brandweek 2025 session co-hosted with Kantar, ADWEEK CEO Will Lee sat down in dialog with Jeff Greenspoon, CEO, Americas of Kantar, to debate how some manufacturers have turned pressure into transformation and the precious classes CMOs may study from these endeavors.Be meaningfully differentTo begin, Greenspoon outlined pressure as what’s created when two opposing forces pull us in numerous instructions. And on the planet of name constructing, pressure is a day by day prevalence.“Model builders, particularly inside the advertising and marketing ecosystem, are confronted with selections which are usually in battle with each other,” he defined. “The way you navigate these, each with the fitting proof and the fitting help out of your group, will matter in how briskly you’ll be able to develop at present, in addition to the way you set the stage for development over the following 5, 10, or 15 years as a permanent model.”Greenspoon shared that being a trusted, constant model can battle with making an attempt to distinguish and innovate over time. “However manufacturers which are significant and completely different are 70% extra more likely to develop,” he stated. He then shared two examples of manufacturers which have mastered this properly.Nespresso balances luxurious model standing with sustainabilityNespresso targets a higher-spending client, but it surely additionally needed to lean right into a sustainability message based mostly on a broader cultural dialog. “The model needed to command the premium pricing, however nonetheless have sufficient margin to cowl the sustainability message,” Greenspoon stated. Nonetheless, he defined, the problem is that making sustainability inexpensive requires scale. It means revamping the whole provide chain—from how farmers harvest the espresso beans to how the serving pods are in the end recycled. However from a luxurious model perspective, you don’t need an excessive amount of scale.To search out that stability, Nespresso determined to construct a sustainability message into its luxurious expertise. “Whether or not it’s the way you combine into the app or the way you go into their premium luxurious boutiques, sustainability is a part of the expertise. Nespresso leaned into each side of the strain,” shared Greenspoon.Empowerment and reinvention collide for MattelGreenspoon cited Mattel’s Barbie as one other case research in mastering model pressure. For Mattel, it meant balancing consistency—particularly, the message of “I could be something I wish to be”—with full reinvention with the discharge of the Barbie film in 2023.“If you concentrate on that movie, it was directly leaning into the consistency of who Barbie was, whereas on the identical time nearly making enjoyable of itself,” defined Greenspoon. In doing so, it created some pressure and challenged the model by reinventing who’s within the movie. And it labored. Not solely did it drive $1.4 billion on the field workplace and was the largest film that yr, however you additionally noticed doll gross sales in Barbie go up 25% within the two trailing months after launch. The model additionally rose 14% from a development perspective over the course of that yr.The rationale why it labored? As a result of Mattel stayed true to the core essence of empowerment. The model may additionally take dangers in each different a part of the story, which works again to being significant and completely different.“So long as you’ll be able to lean into the components of your model that the world or shoppers belief, you’ll be able to truly experiment and take a look at new issues round it,” shared Greenspoon. “However if you happen to stray from that core message or the North Star of the model, that’s when issues begin to turn into issues.”Set guardrails to navigate pressure and maximize budgetGreat CMOs must create guidelines and guardrails to make sure that the core components that make the model robust stay constant, whilst they tinker with pressure.Greenspoon shared a pricing instance the place a model rule is perhaps to remain a set quantity above or beneath the typical value. Having guidelines in place is particularly vital at a time when advertising and marketing spend is down. For example, you wish to persist with the basics of a wholesome cut up of name advertising and marketing and product or efficiency advertising and marketing. So even when the finances is lower, cut up it in fewer locations.“Focus the investments so that you just get extra impression for the issues that you just do,” he stated. “The largest lure that folks fall into is saying, ‘My finances’s down, so I’m going to chop all model spend’… That’s a giant mistake since you’re truly sacrificing extra than simply 2025. You’re sacrificing 2026, 2027, and 2028.”Embrace model pressure to construct future growthAccording to Greenspoon, organizations with robust model energy—outlined because the diploma to which a model drives penetration and development—are 4X extra more likely to see future development. As such, he sees investing in model as an financial determination.“You’re going to be extra resilient, you’re going to command extra pricing energy, and in the end, you’ve a better probability to develop,” Greenspoon shared. “And for an investor, it’s a greater greenback spent than in an organization that’s simply making an attempt to reap demand and get scale with out constructing model.”