Fresh Today, Faded Tomorrow? Brand Resilience in a Changing World

The idea is that it’s easiest to scale a product, harder to scale a service, and most challenging to scale a feeling. Here’s my take: while consumers might buy a product once because of a trend, they’ll buy a product twenty times because of a feeling. Ultimately, it is that ability to evoke a feeling in customers that creates the highest impact and... See more

In light of this seeming conflict, what can we learn from Crocs — and from other brands that have engineered varying rebirths? Are there shared factors across consumer companies that lead to resilience across trend cycles and longer periods of time?

Thus we are left with an interesting consumer quandry — if companies are taking as long as twelve years to exit but trends have shortened to less than twelve month periods, how can brands be expected to keep up?

But Croc’s real acceleration came during Covid-19 as its comfortable aesthetic and affordable price point made it the perfect brand to become the “Unofficial Shoe of the Pandemic.” Crocs embodied the vibe (retro, #throwback), the feeling (comfort, individuality), and met the need (glorified slippers for lives lived at home). Over the past three yea... See more