USA | Some supermarket collapse outright but some drift quietly while ranges expand, private label multiplies and AI increasingly decides which products shoppers see first, until a brand identity built for a smaller, simpler shelf is still running on old assumptions. Nothing looks broken. It simply stops delivering share. New Gartner research suggests that drift is now the industry norm rather than the exception, with strategist Karen Tiber Leland arguing the standard response, a rebrand, is the wrong call entirely.
According to Gartner, a survey of 426 senior marketing leaders, conducted between September and October 2025 and released in June 2026, found that 84 percent of companies are trapped in what the firm terms a "brand doom loop": underinvesting in brand measurement, losing confidence in the results, and attracting even less investment as a consequence. Gartner reported that companies caught in the loop were half as likely to exceed their growth targets, and it projects that by 2028, more than 80 percent of companies will make significant changes to their identity, spanning mission, brand and culture, to keep pace with AI's effect on their markets.
Brand strategist Karen Tiber Leland, president of Sterling Marketing Group, argues the industry is reaching for the wrong fix. Her forthcoming title, Re-Up Your Brand, positions relevance not as a project to complete but as a discipline to sustain.
"Starting over says the last version was a mistake. Re-upping says it worked, and now you've outgrown it," said Leland.
"That distinction sounds small. It isn't. Confusing the two can cost a company years, and in many cases, hundreds of thousands of dollars."
A re-up, as Leland defines it, is not a logo refresh or a new colour story. It is a structured realignment of what a brand promises, who it speaks to and where it shows up, run on a set cadence rather than once a decade in crisis mode. The diagnosis happens annually. The intervention follows whatever that diagnosis calls for.
Without that structure, Leland warns, leaders default to something costlier.
"I call it drunk marketing," said Leland.
"It's the decision you make because a competitor did it, because a board member saw something on LinkedIn, or because somebody in the room got excited on a Thursday. No strategy, no data, just motion. It feels productive, but it's reactive, and it's expensive."
Leland's Brand Momentum Model tracks a brand across three states: Findable, whether the market can locate you at all as AI-generated answers increasingly sit between a company and its buyers; Followable, whether anyone stays once they arrive; and Unforgettable, whether a brand holds ground no competitor can claim. Leland's view is that most stalled brands are not failing across all three states. They are failing at one, and the re-up should target that point specifically.
The timing is notable. CMO tenure has fallen to its lowest levels on record, and CEO departures have run at historically elevated rates, leaving strategy resets that outlast the executives who commissioned them.
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