Why the biggest brand glow-ups come from doubling down
Marketing gets cut when companies aren't meeting expectations, and I appreciate why. But the most transformational brand glow-ups come from companies that lean the opposite way. They make brave business decisions and pair them with equally bold marketing messaging - moves that require creativity and risk tolerance AI doesn’t offer.
From tongue-in-cheek crisis management to publicly admitting your product sucks, here’s some of my favourite marketing that rewarded bold moves and might just get your CFO to consider an alternative approach:
Astronomer - Last week’s example uses clever marketing to lean into a scandal. Astronomer (a.k.a the kiss cam company) has hired Gwyneth Paltrow (ex-wife of Coldplay singer Chris Martin) as a ‘very temporary’ spokesperson. The virality of the alleged C-suite affair had little to do with the recognition of Astronomer as a company, so the campaign converts this into actual brand equity and business value.
Domino's - Took the bold step of admitting their pizza sucked (including sharing damning focus group footage), then reformulated their recipes and launched the "Oh Yes We Did" campaign. The brutal honesty paid off with significant market share gains and a complete brand perception turnaround. Their stock gained 233% compared to just 37% for rivals during the same period.
Old Spice - Went from being seen as "your grandfather's aftershave" to a cultural phenomenon with their meme-worthy "The Man Your Man Could Smell Like" campaign. Rather than talking about scent or ingredients, they focused purely on absurd masculinity and confidence - proving that emotional positioning can trump product features. Sales more than doubled and skyrocketed Old Spice into the #1 spot for men's body wash.
T-Mobile - When John Legere declared war on the "stupid, arrogant and broken" telecom industry in 2013, T-Mobile was the smallest of four major US carriers with just 10% market share. Their "Un-carrier" strategy ditched contracts, eliminated overage fees, and made wireless fun again. Market share tripled to 30% by 2023, and they became the second-largest US carrier.
Nike - They were losing ground to Reebok in the 1980s until the Air Jordan partnership shifted the brand from a running shoe company to a lifestyle and basketball culture icon. First-year sales hit $126 million - forty times Nike's initial estimate. What they hoped would make $3m over 4 years now generates $3m every 5 hours. The Jordan brand alone now represents over 10% of Nike's total revenue.
Wendy's - Became the savage queen of Twitter via their roast-heavy social strategy. While smaller than McDonald's or Burger King, they gained massive cultural relevance through pure wit and timing. Net income increased 49.7% in fiscal 2016, while their TikTok National Roast Day campaign delivered massive results: 116 million total views, 153,900 new followers, and a 4.5% increase in actual store visits
While the budget reforecast is a market-tested playbook, sometimes the biggest company transformations come from bold marketing moves.
To enable this, companies might look at shifting how they approach marketing investment. For example, implement better attribution models that track long-term customer lifetime value rather than just immediate conversions. They could create protected "marketing investment funds", similar to how companies safeguard essential infrastructure spending or establish separate budgets for "maintenance marketing" that keeps the lights on versus "growth marketing" that drives transformation. Importantly, CMOs need to be more involved in board-level discussions about long-term competitive positioning, not just campaign performance reviews.
The brands above succeeded because they treated marketing as a competitive weapon, not always a variable cost to be optimised away.
