Live Long to Prosper

The Anatomy of Longevity and What it Takes to Survive

My name is Anders Bergstrom and I’ve been building brands and leading businesses for over 20 years. Most recently serving 6 years as the Vice President and Global GM of the Teva Brand. 2024 marks the 40th Anniversary of the founding of Teva and over the past year or so, our team had the opportunity to examine the true value and opportunity of a brand’s anniversary, as well as to uncover some of the hidden pitfalls of otherwise well-intended anniversary branding.

Congrats, You’re Alive

The very chance that you may have to celebrate a brand’s anniversary is remarkable unto itself. In my career, I’ve worked on more dearly departed brands than I have brands that are alive and thriving. Brands can be fragile and a competitive marketplace is a place where only the truly fit can survive. Each brand has a very specific escape velocity that must be reached or their ability to create sustainable growth is exhausted and they disappear into the fog of brand war.

Reaching this escape velocity for a brand has two primary requirements, the first is a glaring statement of the obvious but it’s one that should be top of mind for any brand manager. In order for a brand to live long to prosper, it must be famous for something. A brand must have something unique and notable in its history, preferably a product but not necessarily limited to that, that can transcend the brand itself. I had a meeting with the great Rick Sittig once, and he taught me something simple and profound – a brand is nothing more than its difference. So taking that one step further, the greater the difference, the greater the brand, and the greater the likelihood that brand will have what it takes to survive.

The Difference Dilemma

Organizing a brand around difference is not as simple as it seems. There will always be pressure on brands to make themselves more familiar, understandable, and easily quantifiable. These are all reasonable things – but can often serve to diminish and in many cases homogenize a brand. We use our past experiences, perceptions, and memories to assign comfort and familiarity. The rule of thumb is that brands need to invest in the discomfort of difference, because the more comfortable everyone is early in the process, the less different you’re bound to be, and this can be a risk masquerading as an opportunity.

The Real Test of Time

Being famous for something isn’t the only key to a brand’s longevity. We can all easily recall the fads of our youth – brands and products that seemed larger than life only to succumb to the inevitable gravity of time and trend. The second component in a brand’s longevity is patience. We as brand managers, as brilliant and insightful as we may be, are not all powerful. We can’t control culture, economics, or the weather – or any other externality that when properly aligned, can propel a well-prepared and well-positioned brand over its escape velocity and into the stratosphere. Patience is not a renewable resource though, and thus enters into the chat the role of luck. Because you can’t control the world around you, the challenge you face is how well you adapt to the world you’re in – to pivot when needed, or if you’re lucky, to take advantage of a world that has turned in your favor, and create a brand with longevity, staying-power, and one that will someday celebrate its anniversary in posts like this one.

So let’s wrap this up with some warm fuzzy memories of brands that didn’t quite make it, and an appreciation for the unlikely fact that your brand has shown the ability to survive. If you have the opportunity to celebrate a brand’s anniversary, take a moment to reflect on the elements of your business that may have provided escape velocity…those are the rare and priceless gems.

Next up I plan to dig into my favorite aspect of great brands…the foundation stories and moments of inception. These origins - ?myths and otherwise - ?hold valuable keys to any brand’s potential for greatness.