Brand relevance: the filter that decides your brand’s future
Brand recognition is a key contributor to brand value. But once someone recognizes your name, another, quieter force takes over: brand relevance. While recognition answers, “do I know you?” relevance answers “are you for me?”
In this article, we’ll explore how brand relevance works, why it fades, and how to build lasting relevance that drives brand value.
Recognition vs. relevance
We define brand relevance as the degree to which people think your brand fits their evolving needs and desires. I may recognize a brand that isn’t relevant to me (for example, Pampers). I may also encounter an unfamiliar brand that is nonetheless relevant because it aligns with something I already need or want (like a bougie hot sauce).
What’s relevant to me will change over time. Out: diaper brands. Incoming: pickleball brands. Forever: hot sauce.
While recognition is brand-controlled, relevance is audience-controlled. A brand can buy a Superbowl ad and boost recognition, but whether that brand has boosted relevance is up to the judgment of the audience. And this judgment is the filter that determines whether your brand even enters consideration.
In short, if relevance goes to 0, brand value goes to 0.
Brands with strong relevance open the door to broad benefits—all of which contribute directly to long-term brand value:
Efficient sales and marketing — because your message connects instantly with felt needs
Customer engagement and loyalty — because they feel understood
Higher brand premium — because the above translate to monetary value
Internal focus — because your team is clear on what they offer, and to whom
Brand relevance fades unless maintained
Even if your brand has high relevance today, it will naturally drift over time. Your audience changes. Technology and behavior change. Culture changes. All of this makes relevance a moving target.
In 2004, Blockbuster video operated over 9,000 stores and generated $5.9bn in revenue. In 2007, Netflix launched streaming video. In 2010, Blockbuster went bankrupt. The brand still had enormous recognition, but had failed to maintain relevance. Two years later, Kodak suffered a similar fate.
Relevance can be disrupted by technology or eroded by cultural shifts.
Disruptive technologies may provide the most dramatic examples of fading relevance, but cultural shifts or competitive pressures have the same effect.
To stay on target requires two things: knowing precisely where the target is and adjusting your aim. Maintaining brand relevance should be an intentional, proactive process—not a reactive one.
Strategically anchoring long-term relevance
The world’s most valuable brands maintain high relevance for decades—not by chance or sheer marketing spend, but through strategy that has the following attributes:
Empathy for your audience. Empathy isn’t just head knowledge. It’s the ability to deeply understand and share the feelings of others. If your audience is thinly defined as “millennial moms on the go” or “tech-savvy young professional,” how can you understand the details of their wants and needs? Relevance is inherently specific. So your picture of your audience must be specific, too.
Built on truths, not trends. Jumping on a trend is a common way to “hack” relevance. But when the trend inevitably crashes, being a hack isn’t a good thing.
Remember the cupcake shop boom that peaked about 10 years ago? Or the zillion hard seltzer brands that launched around 2020? These were trend-driven relevance plays—easy to launch, hard to sustain. When the cultural moment moved on, most of those brands went flat.
We all knew this wouldn’t last, right?
Sustainable relevance is built on real practical or emotional needs—like creativity, safety, ambition, or comfort. These are rooted in human truths that don’t go out of style. For example, LEGO has remained relevant by anchoring to creativity and imagination, whether that’s expressed through plastic blocks or a successful film.
Authentic value. The need or desire your brand fills should be closely aligned with your product or service’s authentic value—not a fantasy version of it. Your brand can (and should) be aspirational, but that aspiration must be grounded in the reality of your offering. Handing Pepsi out at a protest isn’t going to heal the nation. But opening a Coke may indeed be a small way to Open Happiness.
Internal culture. Empathy for your audience lives with your team. Once you understand your audience, you need to connect those insights with your team’s purpose and values. Building and reinforcing these connections between your audience and your team is a critical part of strategy definition because it paves the way for building lasting relevance.
Expressing brand relevance
Brand strategy is a blueprint. Creative expression is the building. Relevance must be consistently expressed through every dimension of your brand to unlock its many benefits.
A relevant visual identity. An empathetic approach to your audience positions you to connect through a shared understanding of visual symbols—whether they’re logos, colors, imagery, or illustrations. 55% of your brand’s first impressions are based on visual elements, making visual identity a key driver of perceived relevance (source).
A strategic refresh of visual identity isn’t about subjective taste or “staying on trend.” It’s about creating instant connection. Banana Republic and Anthropologie both sell clothes at a similar price point. But Banana Republic’s earth tone palette and Anthropologie’s bohemian influence reflect the unique desires and aspirations of their audiences. Identity is strategy.
Relevant messaging. Just as your visual identity reflects the values and preferences of your audience, your messaging should speak directly to their world. This includes the pain points you highlight, the solution you offer, and a tone of voice that makes your brand a natural companion to your audience.
Noticing the signals
Brand relevance isn’t static—and neither is your audience. The most enduring brands don’t chase every change; they stay anchored in enduring truths, shaped by empathy, and consistently expressed through identity and messaging.
Here are a few signs that it might be time to reassess your brand’s relevance:
Sales and marketing have become an uphill battle of explaining
Core customers are disengaged and / or leaving for other brands
You’re competing on price and racing to the bottom
Your team is chasing lots of new ideas without committing to any
Your brand expression is inconsistent
These aren’t failures—they’re signals. And responding to them starts with a deeper understanding of your audience and a clear strategy for rebuilding relevance as driver of brand value.
By Aaron Tovi
04/02/25
