Thinking

Reinventing Brand Strategy: The Holistic Brand Model

Brands matter today more than ever. Unfortunately, the pace of innovation in branding has lagged behind the technological advancements that have transformed our lives and the business landscape. We are confronting exponential change with outdated, logarithmic models. It’s like bringing a knife to a gunfight.

The Holistic Brand Model corrects this imbalance by presenting a new framework for building strong brands that elevates the role of the brand as a driver of exponential growth. This model is not a rejection of previous scholarship but a natural evolution. It builds on the foundational work of luminaries like Kapferer, Aaker and Keller.1 While these titans provided the scaffolding for our marketing strategies, it is time for the next important evolution in brand strategy.

What is this scaffolding? It is the evolution of branding as a strategic discipline, captured in the quote: brand strategy is the face of your business strategy. Figure 1 shows the classic Michael Porter conceptualization of strategy from the 1980s, the wheel with strategy at the core, and functions of the firm such as marketing, innovation or human resources as spokes.

Today branding is largely understood as shown in the Figure on the right. This shift has been significantly helped by two major developments. One is the emergence of the concept of brand valuation by John Murphy in the 1980s that expressed a brand’s value in terms of dollars and cents which helped recognize brands as an asset that requires proactive management. This evolved into more rigorous measurement of the brand, called brand equity.

And the other development was the strategy work by Gary Hamel and C. K. Prahalad who proposed a framework in “Competing for the Future,” that linked current capabilities with future opportunities, ensuring a coherent plan for growth and innovation. They envisioned new benefits or features that will be offered to customers in the future, and to determine the necessary competencies to create these benefits.

The 1990s was a prolific decade of brand development with many advances made by companies, academics and agencies. David A. Aaker and Kevin Lane Keller’s seminal models have become the North Star guiding brand strategists through the murky waters of relevant market differentiation and consumer engagement. They crafted frameworks that have stood the test of time. Yet, in the same breath where we revere these models for their past contributions, we find ourselves at a crossroads, pondering the path forward. The Brand Identity System (BIS) model by Aaker and the Brand Resonance model by Keller, while indispensable, now seem like chapters from an earlier time, that require adaptation to the technology-led epoch we now inhabit.

Let’s consider the prospect of expanding branding to ensure its relevance to this new era: Brand as Value Creation. Not merely a storehouse of accumulated equities, but brand as the prime driver of significant (even exponential) new firm or enterprise value. This isn’t merely an incremental step in the journey but a leap into a dimension where brand identity, resonance, and value converge to a singular point on the horizon.

1. Identity: The Bedrock of Brand Strategy

The model begins with identity, reminiscent of Aaker’s brand identity system or Kapferer’s brand identity prism model, yet transcending them. In today’s era of changing technology and the hype and hope thereof, a brand’s identity is not just a reflection of its business strategy but its very essence, embedded in the company’s culture, capabilities, and values.

Harley Davidson in the 1990s defined the shared beliefs, values and experiences of bikers such as freedom, including personal freedom and freedom from mainstream values and social structures, patriotism, being visibly American, and imagery inspired by the outlaw bikers of some famous Hollywood movies of the 1950s. There are many other examples of this identity-driven perspective. Think Virgin and iconoclasm, and its unique identity crafted around someone that flaunts the rules, with sense of humor and flair, the underdog willing to attack the establishment. Or Birkenstock with its essence around genuine spirit, craftsmanship and collective individuality. Lego defined an identity-based play promise around the joy of building, and the pride of creation.

This identity-driven approach also separates branding, the art and science of managing perceptions, from brand strategy that sets the long-term direction for the brand. It does more than just skim the surface; it dives deep, anchoring the brand in the bedrock of authenticity, consistency, a sense of belonging of consumers, employee engagement, shared values, and understanding of its role in the world. Nike of course comes to mind immediately, but there are other brands that serve as good examples.

Liquid Death is a company and water brand, bold, rebellious against conventional water branding, it blends elements of irreverent humor, a raw and edgy voice (#MurderYourThirst), with counterculture aesthetics, and an authentic commitment to sustainability. Its slogan #DeathToPlastic is a direct challenge to the water industry’s reliance on plastic, that appeals to young consumers that disdain conventional norms. It stands for something bigger than the product.

Being against convention or being exclusive is not necessary, consider Glossier. This ten-year old DTC or Direct-To-Consumer brand succeeded by connecting directly with consumers via its own e-commerce platform. It embraces natural beauty and inclusiveness, and community. Products feature minimal packaging. It engages with consumers via its direct access to data which enables product development, feedback and the use of user-generated content. Its marketing reflects its identity as a brand with deep, personal and emotional connections. Glossier shows how authenticity, and community and a sense of shared values can be combined to become “Insta-famous” and build a brand in a relatively short period of time.

Beyond mere puffery, we’re sculpting from the clay of genuine substance, delivering a cohesive and positive customer experience via product design, customer service, marketing and communications to create an emotional connection through storytelling. This notion of branding is consistent with the broader marketing mix perspective of marketing maven Prof. Philip Kotler.

Aaker and Joachimsthaler expanded the tactical and classic brand management model and proposed the brand leadership model, a strategic and proactive model to understand, manage and leverage brands for senior leaders. It involves defining a strategic and long-term vision for the brand, responsibility not just for a single product but an entire portfolio, and a focus on managing the complexity of a global organization with the overall objective of delivering brand equity. Examples of their work can be found from Allianz, BMW, Deutsche Telekom, Hyundai, IBM, Philips, Siemens to Unilever.

There have been several important expansions of this identity-driven approach to brand strategy, among some important ones are:

  • The cultural branding model by Douglas Holt. This model focuses on the cultural significance of brands. Holt suggests that brands should identify and address cultural contradictions. By using symbols, myths, and narratives to communicate the brand message, a brand can continuously adapt to cultural shifts and remain relevant over time. Holt refers often to Nike, Marlboro, Starbucks and Ben & Jerry’s.
  • The brand architecture model by David Aaker and Erich Joachimsthaler. This model is a comprehensive portfolio strategy and brand architecture model designed to help companies organize and manage their product and brand portfolios effectively. In their book, they describe several successful applications at Ralph Lauren and Marriott International.
  • The brand experience model. Numerous authors have pioneered a customer-centric approach to brand experiences. Jim Joseph, a marketer in the PR world, Darren Coleman and Martin Lindstrom, thought leaders and practitioners, and Bernd Schmitt, an academic at Columbia University. Lego or Disney or Absolut Vodka are great examples.
  • The corporate brand or reputation model. Fombrun and others focused on corporate brands and how successful companies build winning reputations. Lego Group, Mercedes-Benz Group and Rolex are the top entries in 2024.

2. Resonance: The Dynamic Symphony of Engagement

The model expands further with Keller’s resonance model, a dynamic, four-level pyramid that vibrates with the frequency of modern consumer engagement. The pyramid is the cornerstone of the CBBE – customer-based brand equity model which is a comprehensive approach to brand management, and a structured way of building and sustaining strong brands.

This model, rooted in science and the psychology of how brands embed themselves in the consumer’s memory, presents a fluid, outside-in, demand perspective, as compared to the relatively static inside-out supply perspective of the identity-driven approach, that mirrors the evolving landscapes of our world, today.

Here, brand strategy becomes a two-way street, a dialogue between brand and consumer, orchestrated through the symphony of engagement that defines our contemporary existence. Social media is just one such example of consumer engagement, its impact has been conceptualized as social currency. The CBBE model incorporates these and many others of the newer forms of engagement with consumers. Major brands have adopted this model ranging from American Express, Disney, Ford, Miller Brewing Company, Procter & Gamble, and Samsung.

The brand resonance model is just one part of a larger strategic brand management framework that also includes positioning, and the brand value chain. Keller’s positioning framework builds on the foundations of a larger community of academics and practitioners and advances this important strategic tool in important ways (e.g., Kotler and Keller). The brand value chain is a cause and effects model of how marketing investments affect customer mindset, marketplace performance and firm or shareholder value. There is a significant amount of empirical research that Keller together with co-author Don Lehmann stimulated in the scientific community. This research shows how brands and brand actions are a vital source of firm and financial value.

The Keller model holds significant value for several reasons:

  • Measuring Marketing Performance: Beyond brand management, Keller’s frameworks have influenced measurement standards for marketing performance by organizations like the Marketing Accountability Standards Board (MASB) and leading practices by research houses such as Kantar and BAV, focusing on the effects of marketing activities on sales, brand equity, and customer loyalty.
  • Research and Practice on Marketing Effectiveness: Keller’s work has inspired extensive research and practice on marketing effectiveness, particularly the short-term and long-term impacts of marketing activities on brand equity and business performance. Researchers and scholars most notable Koen Pauwels and practitioners such as Peter Field, Les Binet, and columnist and academic Mark Ritson have developed tools, methodologies, and dynamic models that integrate academic work and major studies, creating a unified understanding of strategic brand management based on Keller’s Customer-Based Brand Equity (CBBE) model. Pauwels and co-authors introduced a new and dynamic brand engagement model, called the nested adaptive cycles (NAC) framework.
  • Encouraging New Approaches to Brand Building: Keller’s work has also spurred alternative approaches to brand building, contrasting with established theories and practices. Some of these are the H2H branding approach by Philip Kotler and Waldemar Pfoertsch, who argue for a more human-centered approach. JP Kuehlwein and Wolfgang Schaefer focus on brand elevation and introduce a prestige marketing model. Another example is the marketing science inspired principles of sales growth by Sharp and Romaniuk. They advocate in favor of distinctiveness (they put renewed emphasis on tangible elements of the brand like Tony the Tiger or the Tiffany colors) over differentiation (intangible elements of the brand such as feelings, emotions and thoughts), and broad reach over targeting and segmentation, and functional innovation over emotional connection and loyalty. These principles provide insights into sales growth, when brands have achieved substantial strength or brand equity along some of the stages of Keller’s brand resonance model such as mental availability, the likelihood a brand or product comes to mind, or the well-known marketing 4Ps such as physical availability, how easily a consumer can find and purchase a brand which refers to access to various channels of distribution.

It is not surprising that Keller’s original article on brands, “A Model of Brand Equity” is the most cited marketing article of all time. This seminal work, published in the Journal of Marketing in 1993, has significantly influenced the field. Notably like the work of Aaker and Joachimsthaler, Keller offers a comprehensive brand planning framework to manage the brand over time.

Most valuable though is that Keller has been integrative of many of the new modern views of branding and marketing, his dynamic frameworks and models have been inclusive and integrative, building on the enormous body of scientific research and extensive practitioners’ work.

3. Value: The Alchemy of Business Reinvention

The third pillar of the Holistic Brand Model is value—a transformative perspective that positions branding as a catalyst for systemic reinvention and exponential growth. Once regarded as intangible assets influencing consumer perceptions, brands have evolved into powerful multipliers, amplifying every component of a company’s business model, ecosystem, and even entire categories. This shift redefines branding, transforming it from a traditional role into a driver of sustained value creation, innovation, and strategic reinvention.

Broadening the Brand’s Role

In this new paradigm, brands are no longer confined to intangible goodwill but emerge as central forces embedded within ecosystems, creating value across firms and networks. Historically, branding’s impact was measured through short-term soft metrics like followers, clicks, and impressions—metrics that prioritize immediate success over long-term impact. Today, however, the focus shifts to long-term value creation, aligning branding with corporate performance metrics such as discounted cashflow which is part of the corporate valuation theory, the de facto standard for CEOs, CFOs, and investors.

This reframing elevates branding’s role to that of a strategic imperative. Research underscores its transformative power: brands deliver 3x the impact on price realization (Kantar), and advertising creativity drives a 10x effect on price compared to a mere 1x on volume. Yet traditional growth metrics—penetration, market share, and revenue—fail to account for the systemic value that brand equity and creativity generate. Modern branding creates value not through isolated impressions, that is claimed to correlate with sales, or transactions but by orchestrating interactions, fostering loyalty, and driving corporate transformation and value.

1. A New Path to Value Creation

The traditional approach to brand value creation, built around mass-media and one-size-fits-all strategies, has now been supplanted. This historical model followed a linear path—marketing investments (e.g., advertising, product innovation) led to brand impressions (awareness and trust), which influenced consumer behavior and, ultimately, firm performance. While this remains relevant today, technological advancements, the rise of social media, search engines, programmatic advertising, and AI, has enabled a customer-centric model that is hyper-targeted, data-driven, and democratized. Smaller businesses and influencers now compete with established corporations, while platforms foster brand communities and advocacy. This evolution transforms consumers into loyal ambassadors, extending the brand’s reach and relevance.

However, this model is also facing challenges. Recent studies reveal that only 1% of campaigns achieve exceptional results, while the majority yield mediocre outcomes.

To succeed today and in the future, brands must embrace a new model of continuous engagement, a new path to bath to value creation—one that relies on data, analytics, and collaborative exchanges or interactions (Figure 3). This approach generates network effects, where the value of a brand or platform increases as more participants join, viral effects, where content spreads organically, amplifying engagement, and learning effects, where insights from interactions drive continuous improvement and innovation.

Brands like Uber, Airbnb, and Amazon exemplify this new path and transformation of how brands are built and create value. Airbnb’s “belong anywhere” promise is brought to life through millions of host-traveler interactions, building trust and reinforcing its community-driven ethos. Similarly, Amazon’s retail media networks integrate advertising with e-commerce, creating new value streams while enhancing personalization and relevance.

2. Brands as Ecosystem Multipliers

In the new paradigm, brands are not limited to interactions with consumers; they act as value multipliers across entire ecosystems. A brand’s influence now extends to suppliers, partners, and stakeholders, enhancing performance at every level. For example, Nike’s brand equity commands premium supplier relationships, ensuring consistent demand and profitability, Nvidia’s reputation strengthens its ability to secure long-term contracts in the B2B market.

This aligns with the inverted firm model by Van Alstyne and Parker, where value creation shifts from internal control to external orchestration. Brands like Apple and Amazon illustrate how orchestrating trust, loyalty, and differentiation within an ecosystem creates enduring competitive advantages.

3. A Future-Back Approach to Branding

This pillar also emphasizes the importance of future-back thinking—a proactive, long-term perspective that anticipates future needs rather than reacting to current trends. By envisioning consumer daily life scenarios 3-5 years ahead, brands can identify emerging opportunities, new competitors or new consumers, crafting emergent strategies, cand reimagine their role in consumers’ lives.

Future-back contrasts with the traditional future approach which focuses on stable need states that evolve along a set of trends. For example, L’Oréal integrates this traditional approach through its AI-powered Beauty Genius platform. Today, it combines personalized recommendations with real-time data insights, L’Oréal in order to address current skincare needs. Missing from strategic direction are potential future need states that are too small today or still in their infancy but that represent major future challenges.

4. Reimagining the Business and Monetization

In a future-back framework, branding shifts from marketing products to consumers to marketing to situations, lifestyles, and workflows. Xiaomi for example has strong expertise in consumer electronics and offers a range of smart home products. In 2024, Xiaomi scaled its business exponentially by entering the EV car market, leveraging its platform brand identity to produce 130,000 vehicles in just nine months. From a brand perspective, Xiaomi integrates its EVs with its smart home products, helping manage or control the home remotely. It meaningfully alters and enhances the value proposition of Xiaomi as a technology provider for consumers living a connected lifestyle.

By aligning with evolving lifestyles and challenges, brands can develop new forms of monetizing value creation, for example by monetizing outcomes rather than products. Xiaomi could be paid for cost savings on energy for the home, for example, further driving business reinvention.

The Role of Brands in Reinvention

The third pillar of the Holistic Brand Model redefines branding as a driver of systemic reinvention, not just a tool for perception management. By integrating long-term vision, ecosystem collaboration, and future-forward thinking, brands become transformative forces capable of creating value for entire networks. This is the alchemy of business reinvention: envisioning the future, orchestrating change, and leading industries toward sustainable, exponential growth.

There is growing evidence that this new perspective is taking hold:

  • Shift from brand-centric to customer-centric activities: There’s a clear movement towards understanding how a brand influences customer behavior throughout their entire experience, from usage to the activities around the customer journey. Traditionally, brand strategy focused heavily on the top of the purchase funnel. Today, the brand’s role extends much deeper. Innovation teams now focus on the entire customer journey, not just segments or personas, seeking opportunities to create new concepts. Brands have become central in orchestrating the customer experience, which in turn builds customer equity, a key driver of company value.
  • The new consumer contract of brands. More than ever, consumers demand a fair value exchange for engaging with brands or buying them. While years ago, the exchange involved a price for a product or a service. Strong brands could charge a price premium. Around the year 2000, this changed when Salesforce offered its software on a subscription basis, basically asking customers to pay for access, on a per seat basis, similar to Netflix’s pricing model in streaming. Today, with the emergence of AI as well as the focus on solving problems or challenges of consumers, and marketing to situations, instead of targeting consumers themselves, new value exchanges emerge. Instead of charging for access, consumers only pay for work delivered or success achieved. Imagine L’Oreal charging a teenager for successfully solving dermatology issues of a teenager. Zapier automates tasks and workflows for over 2 million customers and charges based on tasks automated. These new business models change the fair value exchange and perceptions of consumers, while also significantly impacting firm valuation, and the role of the brand.
  • Shift in branding responsibilities beyond the CMO: There’s also a noticeable redistribution of branding responsibilities across organizations. Some companies, like UPS, have even replaced the Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) role with more strategic positions like Chief Growth Officer, Chief Experience Officer, Chief Data and Technology Officer, or Chief Customer Officer. In other cases, the CMO role has evolved, as seen with Coca-Cola, where expanded responsibilities and new skills are needed to thrive in a data-driven era, improving customer engagement and business outcomes.

A Dynamic Process: Brand as Action

The paradigm has shifted from static brand definitions to a dynamic process. Now, brand strategy is an ongoing narrative driven by data, analytics, and technology like a two-step tango, with frequent interactions creating meaning (often referred to simply as: fast and do) and perceptions through impressions (slow and think). This approach delivers value through learning, virality, network effects when interactions are captured by technology, and effectively attracts consumers and other stakeholders to the brand.

This changes the role of the brand from merely a means to come easy to mind during purchase to an accelerator or multiplier of the value of the business. It’s a holistic journey that guides the customer from the first touchpoint to the last and beyond in daily routines, workflows activities or lifestyle practices, delivering enormous value for a business and corporate valuation that is meticulously measured and optimized. And enormous is the value. With Apple’s market cap at $3 trillion, a comprehensive analysis of decades of empirical study by Srinivasan and Hanssens has shown the brand effect to be 0.33. This means that for every 1% increase in brand strength, Apple adds about $10 billion to its market cap or firm value.

In this new era, our holistic brand model is not just a theoretical construct, a justification for the latest spray and pray campaign or a romantic dream of hopeful value creation through H2 or H3 innovations but a practical toolkit for navigating the complex interplay of identity, resonance, and value creation. It offers a blueprint for brands to not only declare their role in the world but to act upon it, creating a legacy of value that resonates through the annals of time.

As we enter this new era, let us embrace the holistic brand model as our compass, guiding us through the uncharted territories at the amazing frontier of today’s emerging technologies. Herein lies the path to not just surviving but thriving in the Age of Automation, Augmentation and AI, here every brand has the potential to become a beacon of non-linear or even exponential value creation in a world hungry for meaning and connection.