
Here are the key takeaways from the YouTube video "Think Twice Before Updating Your Brand," featuring Roger Martin:
- Habit vs. Loyalty: Customer loyalty is important, but what's even more powerful in branding is habit. Most purchasing decisions are driven subconsciously by habit rather than conscious loyalty. Brands succeed when they maintain and reinforce these habits.
- Cumulative Advantage: This is built over time as customers repeatedly use and feel satisfied with a product or service. Each repeated positive experience strengthens the brand’s advantage, making customers more comfortable sticking with what they know and trust.
- Danger of Rebranding: When brands drastically change their identity or presentation, they risk breaking the established habit. This disruption can make even loyal customers uncomfortable and force them to start building new habits—possibly with competing brands.
- Tide Example: When Procter & Gamble created a new liquid detergent (Era) with a new brand, it failed. But when they packaged liquid detergent as Tide (a familiar brand), it quickly became a leader in its category—even if the product was new. Missteps, such as changing the familiar orange bottle to blue, also resulted in failures, showing the power of visual and brand consistency in maintaining habitual buying.
- Instagram Case: Changing familiar visual cues (like the Instagram logo) can confuse and alienate users, essentially “resetting” cumulative advantage and habitual interactions for the sake of newness that doesn’t add true value.
- Upgrade vs. Overhaul: Brands should aim to improve instead of introducing radical changes. "Improved" preserves connections to the past, while "new" suggests a break, erasing the cumulative advantage.
- Advancement with Familiarity: Even as a product advances, it's essential to retain recognizable elements (like the iPhone’s look and feel) so existing users’ habits are supported and the transition is comfortable.
- Behavioral Research: Modern behavioral studies show that customers’ subconscious preference for the familiar and habitual far outweighs their desire for novelty or change in branding.
- Strategic Branding Advice: Unless absolutely necessary, avoid radical updates. When progress is needed, connect new features or looks closely to what came before, allowing customers to transfer their comfort and confidence to the “improved” product rather than feeling lost with something totally “new.”
These lessons are especially relevant given your background in design and product management—emphasizing the importance of balancing innovation with respect for the user’s established habits and comfort.