Think Twice Before Updating Your Brand

Harvard Business Review · Oct 19, 2026 · 11m

Think Twice Before Updating Your Brand

Uploaded 11-10-22

12 Oct 2022

---

Brands are constantly changing in order to “stay fresh”, but that’s a mistake. Customers stay loyal through habit, not because you've forced something new and unfamiliar on them. Roger Martin, former dean of the Rotman School of Management at the University of Toronto and one of the world’s leading thinkers on strategy, says brands shouldn’t be so quick to throw away their cumulative advantage.

00:00 Customer loyalty–their consciously choosing your brand–is only half the story.

01:00 What is cumulative advantage, and why…