When Brands Don't Change: The True Architecture of Great Turnarounds

There are organisations that age because the market no longer needs them. Others age because the market no longer understands them.

At first glance, the difference seems subtle. In reality, it separates two profoundly distinct phenomena.

In the first case, the organisation has lost relevance because it has stopped creating value. In the second, it still possesses valuable assets — knowledge, reputation, memory, product, distribution, trust — but the market has stopped interpreting them the same way. The problem no longer lies in the organisation's substance. It lies in how that substance is read.

This is precisely where many transformation processes fail. Faced with signs of declining relevance, organisations frequently conclude that they need to reinvent themselves. They change their visual identity, shift their positioning, seek out new audiences, launch new products and adopt the language of the moment. They assume the future demands a new identity.

But is that really the problem?

The most interesting turnarounds of recent years seem to suggest another interpretation. Organisations that return to growth rarely do so because they discovered who they want to be. They do so because they rediscover what always set them apart and find new ways to make that difference relevant.

Guinness is today one of the most interesting examples of this phenomenon

For a long time, the brand was associated with a predictable grammar: Irish stout, traditional pub, male consumption, cold season, slow ritual, density, heritage. None of this was false. The problem was that this reading had become narrow. The brand wasn't dead; it was confined.

Diageo has presented Guinness as one of its most recently dynamic brands. In fiscal year 2025, the company reported double-digit growth for Guinness and share gains in its three largest markets; it also highlighted double-digit growth for Guinness 0.0, with strong performance in Great Britain, Ireland and the United States.

But the most interesting data point isn't just the growth. It's the nature of that growth

Guinness did not become relevant by abandoning its historical codes. Quite the opposite: it reinforced them. The two-part pour, the foam, the glass, the wait, the colour, the idea of ritual, the heritage of St. James's Gate — all of it remained. What changed was the field of use. The brand moved from an overly closed image — the pub, winter, the older consumer — to a broader presence: warm days, younger audiences, more diverse social moments, visual culture, alcohol-free consumption, new channels and new occasions. Diageo itself frames Guinness's evolution as brand work grounded in meaning, distinctiveness and salience, not as an identity rupture.

It's a more subtle operation than it appears

The most powerful innovation rarely consists of denying memory. It consists of reopening memory to new uses

Guinness 0.0 is exemplary for precisely this reason. The alcohol-free category could have been treated as a concession to the times: a defensive adaptation to more moderate consumers. But when it works, it represents something else. It is the extension of an old promise — flavour, texture, ritual and belonging — to an occasion where alcohol is no longer necessary. The product changes in order to preserve the experience. The brand adapts without abandoning its grammar.

This distinction helps explain why some turnarounds create lasting value while others are quickly exhausted. There are brands that try to regain relevance by becoming unrecognisable. Others regain it by becoming relevant again.

The same pattern emerges in other recent recoveries

Abercrombie & Fitch is perhaps the clearest case in fashion retail. For years, the brand carried the weight of a dated cultural identity: teenage exclusivity, a narrow body aesthetic, dark stores, belonging codes that aged poorly. The recovery wasn't just about changing collections. It was about redefining the relationship between aspiration and inclusion. The company reorganised the customer experience, strengthened digital channels and drew closer to a generation that valued authenticity over exclusivity.

Coach followed a similar path. For years, it was stuck in an uncomfortable position: too widespread to preserve exclusivity, yet too familiar to continue generating desire. The recovery came through revaluing its artisanal heritage, the quality of its leather, and a stronger cultural presence among younger consumers. The brand didn't win by becoming something else. It won by making desirable again what had, for a while, seemed too familiar.

Adidas, too, found part of its recovery in assets it already possessed. After the crisis triggered by the end of the Yeezy partnership and excess inventory, the company returned to historic models such as the Samba, Gazelle and Spezial. These weren't new products. They were products whose cultural relevance had been rediscovered. The archive stopped representing nostalgia and came to represent authenticity once again.

LEGO confirms the same principle on a different scale. After the crisis of the early 2000s, it could have concluded that the problem lay in its traditional product. Instead, it returned to the principle that had always sustained the brand: the system. The compatibility between pieces, regardless of the decade in which they were produced, stopped being merely a technical feature and asserted itself as a philosophy of innovation. The company changed profoundly without abandoning the element that gave it coherence.

These cases belong to different sectors, faced different challenges and responded in their own ways. Yet they share a common architecture. None of them recovered through the destruction of identity. They recovered because they reinterpreted that identity in light of a new context.

This is why the word turnaround can be misleading

It suggests inversion, rupture or a radical change of direction. But the most interesting cases show another reality. The organisation regains the ability to grow because it discovers new occasions for assets it had always possessed.

This is also a reflection on time

Organisations tend to view it as a threat. Time ages products, brands, leaders and symbols. But time also accumulates reputation, trust and recognition. And these assets are among the hardest to build and the most impossible to replicate.

The problem is that, precisely because they have been present for so long, they stop being seen as sources of advantage. They become invisible within the organisation itself. People look outside for what already exists inside. They copy other people's language, chase fleeting trends and confuse signs of modernity with genuine strategic renewal.

The literature on dynamic capabilities reminds us that competitive advantage depends not only on the ability to innovate, but also on the ability to reconfigure assets accumulated over time. Likewise, the tension described by James March between exploration and exploitation remains extraordinarily relevant today. The most resilient organisations do not live solely on permanent discovery, nor solely on repeating the past. They manage to combine both movements.

This is exactly what we observe in these cases

Guinness broadens the occasions for consumption without abandoning the ritual. Adidas rediscovers the future in its archive. Coach regains relevance through its artisanal heritage. LEGO continues to innovate while preserving the system that has always defined it. Abercrombie reshapes the idea of aspiration without losing its ambition to build a desirable brand.

There is a rare competence at work here.

Knowing what not to change.

At a time when transformation has become almost an end in itself, this may be one of the most valuable strategic capabilities. Changing is relatively easy. The hard part is distinguishing what constitutes the essence of an organisation from what was merely a circumstantial manifestation of that essence.

Not every tradition deserves to be preserved. But not every innovation deserves to be celebrated.

Organisations that return to the centre of culture seem to understand this difference. They do not treat their history as a museum. They treat it as an infrastructure on which they continue to build.

This is why these cases matter so much. Not because they should be imitated. Each organisation has its own identity and specific context. What matters is understanding the underlying logic: competitive advantage doesn't always arise from creating new assets. It often arises from the ability to recognise, once again, the value of those that time had rendered invisible.

Perhaps this is the true architecture of great turnarounds.

Great turnarounds rarely begin when an organisation discovers who it wants to be.
They begin when that organisation rediscovers what it should never have stopped understanding about itself.
Because the hardest competitive advantage to build is not the ability to change.
It is the ability to change without wasting what took decades to build.