You don’t need a rebrand, but you might need a rethink.

In the past 12 months, the ground has shifted under many businesses. What once made you distinctive might now be industry standard.  Or worse - someone newer and noisier is saying it better.

More than one CMO I’ve spoken to lately has admitted a creeping discomfort: that their brand positioning doesn’t quite fit the current moment. Not wrong, exactly. But not sharp. Not energising. Not fit for what’s next.

And yet, they hesitate to act.  Because to even mention revisiting the brand positioning sounds like opening the door to a full-blown rebrand. And few teams have the appetite - or budget - for that right now.

Here’s the good news:  You don’t need a rebrand.  But you might need a rethink.

The context under which many brands were built, has changed.

• New competitors are entering categories they wouldn’t have looked at two years ago.

• Customer expectations have been reset - shaped by tech, culture, and the economy.

• ‘Category language’ is converging and when everyone sounds the same, no one stands out.

What made your business better then might no longer be enough. Or relevant. Or even true. And yet the brand language - the elevator pitch, the homepage, the LinkedIn boilerplate etc all stay stuck.

Holding onto old positioning doesn’t just make you sound outdated or out of touch.  It creates real friction - for your team, your customers, and ultimately for your sales.

This is something most CMOs and brand leaders feel before they can fully articulate it. It shows up in vague messaging, in disconnected marketing and in internal debates over “why don’t people get it?”

Positioning ≠ visual identity

Let’s bust a myth.  Revisiting your brand positioning isn’t the same as rebranding. This isn’t about logos, colour palettes or campaign launches.  It’s about words.  About how you frame your role, relevance, and value in today’s world.

It’s a strategic language exercise - not a design project.  And importantly, you're not throwing anything away. You're making it sharper.

Consider the following:

• Can you clearly articulate why you matter, right now, to the right people?

• Do your differentiators still feel… well, different?

• Are you saying the same thing as your competitors - just in nicer words?

Consider undertaking an audit to look at how your brand positioning is showing up today, across:

• Website copy

• LinkedIn bios

• Sales decks

• Job descriptions

• Internal onboarding and culture documents

You can make the case without making it “a thing”. Rather than talking about the need to rebrand – talk about clarity.  And the need to clarify how you talk about who you are, what you do, and why you matter.

It’s a low-cost, high value reset.  One that builds alignment internally, and traction externally. And it often paves the way for stronger briefs, sharper creative, and clearer customer connection - without needing to change a single visual element.  But if it does, then you know the result will be sharper and more impactful.

And remember, brand positioning is not a set-and-forget job.  It’s a living narrative, and it should evolve as your business does.

If the world around you has changed, and your brand story hasn’t, it might be time for a rethink.  Not a rebrand. Just a rethink.

Let me know if you’d like help doing that kind of thinking.  It’s often small shifts in language that unlock the biggest change.