In today’s episode, we want to talk about brands. Are brands still as important in 2022 as they were maybe back in the 20th century?  Notes on the time-stamped show:   [00:00] Introduction [02:05] Building a brand is associated with your value management system, and it is a continuous process. [04:28] How is your brand connected to your pricing, value management system, and customers? [08:34] Market preferences change. And you must be willing to adapt and make your brand always relevant. How? [15:13] Your brand should always be aligned with your customers if you want to remain attractive. To accomplish this, avoid having arrogant beliefs about oneself and be open to feedback. _____________________________   How Can You Increase the Value of Your Brands in an Evolving Market?   I think there’s not a clear-cut answer about it. A lot of these brands used to have a lot of loyalty. People will just buy brands, snacks and beverages. People would buy without question. But over the years, could be due to changing consumer preferences, people buying from different channels, stores vs. online. These brands are less powerful in a way. But what’s happening in retail, I’m sort of seeing the reverse. Like big sports brands moving away from distributor type stores, just expanding their brands. Focusing on themselves, rather than putting themselves in contact with other brands. “We’re strong enough on our own to have our own store. We’re confident enough that people would come.” Maybe that is due to provenance heritage. They’ve got a reputation for being the best. Which may be the retail don’t.    I think maybe a brand is, it is your value management.   It takes a lifetime to build a brand, they say, and you can destroy it in an afternoon. I think you’re building your value management system. What is the company that you’re doing? What do you sell? And as we’ve said many times in this podcast, that’s a work in progress. It’s never set and forgotten. You never reach value-based pricing. It’s always a constant journey. It’s the same thing with a brand. Clearly, you build a brand this year. Ten years later, the wind may be changing. You look at the oil. You need to reinvest and posh into electric cars. It’s a constant evolution.   The minute you feel that customer value changes, the minute you do your value exploration. You find what your customers value this year, next year, the world has changed. What’s happened in the last six months? Inflation’s bad. There’s a war. We’ve got Covid residing. We’ve got many things happening that people wouldn’t have forecasted. Things change and move.   You see, in a short period of time, a new entrance becomes an old hut.   What seems fresh and new, maybe it’s not gonna last the test of time. You look at Netflix… I even saw in the papers this week, Underarmour. You know, a clothing brand that was usurping Reebok and Nike. They’re probably getting profit downgrades this year when they’re losing popularity. It’s a constant evolution. Will brands last forever? I think the answer there in nearly all cases is no.    I think the interesting point of saying, you know, you’ve got a brand. What is a brand? What is a value management system if it’s not attached to customers? An understanding of the value chain? I don’t think you can think of a value management system in any other regard because that would become as abstract as a brand, if not associated with the person that’s buying.   I think this is where a lot of companies have gone astray with branding.   And a brand is associated with pricing and pricing power through branding. They’ve forgotten the source, the reference point which is the customer. Often what the customer values are very different from what the company values, or thinks what’s the most valuable about the business. Aidan, you mentioned oil there.   For many years, the value manage