A New Class of Brands

The traditional cycle of updating our brands every 5 years is no longer serving us, and is being disrupted.

The process of branding has been tied to complex production roadmaps, with multiple stakeholders, large budgets, and long timelines. The capital and overhead implied made it impractical to rethink identity every few weeks. As a result, the concept of a brand has been associated with a fixed asset that is resistant to change.

New tools are changing the process and economics of branding, and enabling a new class of brands to emerge.

Generative AI can output styles, assets, and content in seconds, and in large quantities. Software platforms are enabling us to go straight from idea or design to production. Design suites are making the creative process more accessible and distributed across teams.

The brands we create can evolve more quickly, and in more interesting ways than ever before. Brands no longer have to be static, timeless entities. Brands can now be treated as adaptive systems.

We can call this new class of brands “Dynamic Brands”.

The concept of a dynamic brand is inspired by companies like Perplexity. The Perplexity brand is not a fixed asset. It can be described more accurately as a "stylistic platform". It manifests in a variety of shapes, visuals, and verbal expressions - yet remains anchored in its core heuristics: invoking boundless curiosity, elevated knowledge, and a sense of futuristic wonder. It exemplifies consistency through constant evolution.

The Perplexity brand is one example, and dynamically adapts based on their team’s creative direction. Other dynamic brands will adapt based on system intelligence.

Dynamic brands driven by system intelligence will be informed by context, medium, and user preferences. They will not have a single representation or standard expression. They will render their display and content in the optimal form to reinforce their desired heuristics in the individual’s mind. This type of dynamic brand is less opinionated, and optimised for performance.

Paradoxically, it is the heterogeneity of dynamic brands that makes them so consistent and effective. A canonical and static brand identity can take on a variety of unintended meanings for different people, and in different environments. A dynamic brand is less vulnerable to variability in subjective interpretation. It can transform to resonate with an individual’s frame of reference, and be more responsive to the context that influences it.

The consequence of dynamic brands is that the notion of an “outdated brand” no longer needs to exist. Our brands can adapt as fast as we do. We can take more risk, and not have to be concerned with longevity.

What remains true is that brands (static or dynamic) are designed to convey meaning. Clear principles and guidelines continue to be useful. It is the expression of them, and the way they can adapt, that is changing.

In a world in which the pace of change is only accelerating, our neurochemicals and standards are calibrated differently. What we expect of our world, and by extension everything else - is change. Change is what we look for and pay attention to. It is a signal that it is worth our attention and investing in.

The ones who continuously evolve and adapt are the ones that survive and thrive. This is true in nature, and also in branding.