Just keep it: the case for sticking with your end line

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It’s hard to make a good decision in a crisis. John Lewis demonstrated this in 2022 when the department store dropped its “Never knowingly undersold” tagline. The business was in trouble – the pandemic and cost-of-living crisis had diminished market share. And as it cut staff, the company compromised its reputation of customer service brilliance. One notably terrible idea the top brass came up with to turn things around was binning the motto it had used since 1925. Now the company has come to its senses: and is relaunching the phrase that aligns it with good value for money.??

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Brands fiddle with end lines at their peril. Even so, leaders have curious form for throwing out a perfectly good phrase and replacing it with something utterly meaningless. In the 1990s telecoms company Orange used the supremely optimistic: “The future’s bright, the future’s orange”. At the start of this year the company marked its thirtieth anniversary by unveiling the vacuous: “Orange is here”.?

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The greatest parable for persevering with your end line is the comparison between Reebok and Nike. In 1988, the two had roughly the same market share. The former had the tagline: “Because Life Is Not a Spectator Sport”, and the latter had just launched “Just Do It”. In the following two decades, Reebok changed its tagline fourteen times, while Nike stuck with what it had. Today it’s no coincidence that Nike is valued at over $120 billion, while Reebok is reportedly worth $2.46bn. When it’s a question of stick or twist, brand managers should remember that the market rewards consistency.

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Do you have a favourite end line that you’d like to see revived? Write to me at [email protected] and we’ll name the best ones in the next issue.

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