When innovation met renovation: back to the future of branding

Abstract

Purpose– Retro-marketing is rampant. Throwback branding is burgeoning. Newstalgia is the next big thing. Yet marketing thinking is dominated by the forward-facing discourse of innovation. The purpose of this paper is to challenge innovation’s rhetorical hegemony by making an exemplar-based case for renovation.Design/methodology/approach– If hindsight is the new foresight, then historical analyses can help us peer through a glass darkly into the future. This paper turns back time to the RMSTitanic, once regarded as the epitome of innovation, and offers a qualitative, narratological, culturally informed reading of a much-renovated brand.Findings– In narrative terms,Titanicis a house of many mansions. Cultural research reveals that renovation and innovation, far from being antithetical, are bound together in a deathless embrace, like steamship and iceberg. It shows that, although the luxury liner sank more than a century ago,Titanicis a billion-dollar brand and a testament to renovation’s place in marketing’s pantheon. It contends that the unfathomable mysteries of theTitanicprovide an apt metaphor for back-to-the-future brand management. It is a ship-shape simile heading straight for the iceberg called innovation. Survival is unlikely but the collision is striking.Originality/value– This paper makes no claims to originality. On the contrary, it argues that originality is overrated. Renovation, rather, rules the waves. It is a time to renovate our thinking about innovation. The value of this paper inheres in that observation.