Never Knowingly Undersold: A great way to refocus the John Lewis brand

You really appreciate good slogans when you see a bad one. Among my favourite disasters are “nothing sucks like Electrolux” (vacuum cleaners ) and “cheat on your girlfriend, not on your workout" (an unsurprisingly short-lived Reebok Germany campaign in 2012).

Never Knowingly Undersold was always a great slogan, classy rather than catchy, and speaking to a deeper truth about the John Lewis brand with which it is still instantly associated: this is a business that will treat you fairly.?

The partnership’s decision to bring back the slogan – and more importantly, a modernised version of the price matching promise behind it – is inspired.

On a practical level, times have changed since the partnership had to make the no-doubt painful decision to drop Never Knowingly Undersold in early 2022.

We have reached the end of an era of aggressive digital growth, when you could barely move for online-only competitors cutting prices to grab share: we’re now firmly in a multichannel world, where customers have to be earned wherever you find them.

At the same time, technology has made the promise possible again. Whereas a few years ago, partners had to check and match prices manually, sometimes using pencil and paper , today it can do so instantly with AI, applying Never Knowingly Undersold to rivals online as well as in store.

More importantly, the price promise creates a clear, reassuring propositional statement of the retailer’s commitment to value and customer service, differentiating it in a challenging market.

It also goes a long way toward reinforcing the sense of mission inside the firm: a simple slogan, when backed up by heritage and action, can be a beacon of what you stand for.

Although some might say trust has been eroded by ditching and then restoring Never Knowingly Undersold, I think customers will give John Lewis the benefit of the doubt: it takes a lot to dislodge decades of that promise and what it stands for in the collective memory.

The company’s own market research suggests customers will welcome this back-to-the-future move, with 63% saying they’d be more likely to buy from John as a result. The fact that the promise covers online shopping should keep it relevant in a way it was struggling to do before. And the group can afford to invest to make it work, with encouraging half-year results coming out last week.

So let’s see how shoppers – and competitors – react over the crucial Christmas trading period.