Brands need to reinvent themselves from time to time to stay relevant.
I want people to think of me as a 'Mindset' guy, a journalist, a commentator, a social media personality, a filmmaker, an author, but I got to - I have to pivot so far away from anything pro-Trump, I just got to keep going that way.
When we started, the business name was 'Fashion 21.' And change it to 'Forever 21' later.
Imagine maintaining 70 brands in a digital world - it is a nonsense. It is better to focus on a fewer, more distinct brands.
The NBA made a big move to become more stylish and business-oriented a few years back, and it's made a big change.
There's no more exciting moment for me as a brand strategist than a turnaround.
We didn't reinvent the circus. We repackaged it in a much more modern way.
Florida wants to change the state's motto to attract younger people. They're thinking about: More than just a great place to die.
Oftentimes, successful brands can lose discipline or become complacent over time, applying less rigor to the cost control and returns on investment.
The Starbucks brand has shifted over time from being a specialty brand to being more of a mass brand. There is a gap at the top of the market.
Nike used to be known as Blue Ribbon Sports. What's now Sara Lee used to be Consolidated Foods. And Exxon was once Standard Oil Company of New Jersey. These were name changes that worked. But for all the ones that do, there are 10 or 20 that don't.
As brands become larger, the need to reach greater numbers of customers makes them less edgy and dilutes their unique positioning as they try to please everyone. It is therefore not surprising to find such brands go into a few years of decline before they are able to reinvent themselves.
Repositioning a brand is never easy and rarely without pain. I believe the Urban brand is making the necessary changes that will allow it to more fully engage its traditional customer and return to solid profitability.
I never felt that although we were based in Germany, Puma was and should be considered as a German brand. So we restructured it in a way that positioned us as a global brand, with English being the corporate language, rather than us looking at it from a German perspective.
