The Positioning Lie
Safe Brands Finish Last
Playing it Safe Isn't Playing at All
In branding, comfort is a trap. When companies focus on minimizing risk, avoiding criticism, and tiptoeing around hard choices, they may feel secure in the short term. Still, in reality, they’re slowly dissolving into the background noise of their category. A “safe” brand isn’t a strong brand, unless you’re in the business of PPE — “ba dum tss”
The irony is that safety doesn’t protect you. It erodes you. Brands that spend all their energy appeasing public opinion rather than living out their story, values, and principles don’t just stall growth, they move backwards. They fade into irrelevance, interchangeable with competitors who also chose to color inside the lines.
The truth is: if your brand is never criticized, it’s probably not standing for anything noteworthy or doing anything worth talking about.
Playing it Safe is Really Fear of Your Own Brand Story
Brands that play it safe often reveal something deeper: a lack of trust in their own mission. When leadership waters down messaging to appeal to everyone, or hides behind generic promises, they signal uncertainty about who they really are and what they really believe.
This fear may buy them comfort today, but it costs them tomorrow. When the moment comes that they need to differentiate — whether in the face of disruption, new competitors, or changing consumer behavior — they find themselves stuck with a hollow story and no ground to stand on.
A safe brand is like a ship anchored in shallow waters. It won’t sink immediately, but it will never sail.
Case Study: Kodak — Comfort Develops into Collapse
Kodak was not a small player you could write off; it was the photography brand. George Eastman’s company democratized photography and, for decades, Kodak’s film business was the engine of culture and profit.
Ironically, Kodak’s own labs produced one of the earliest digital camera prototypes (engineer Steven Sasson, 1975). The technical capability to lead the coming shift existed inside the company. Yet leadership repeatedly treated digital as a threat to be managed, not a future to be embraced. Rather than pivot aggressively and accept short-term cannibalization of film revenue, Kodak prioritized protecting its profitable film business and licensed technology instead of building a full-scale digital platform.
- Kodak invested in lots of options (diversification attempts, kiosks, early digital models), but never aligned the organization behind a decisive repositioning of the company from “film company” to “imaging company.” That incremental, risk-averse approach left Kodak perpetually behind competitors and emergent platform players.
- By 2012, after years of decline in film and mounting liabilities, Kodak filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. The Chapter 11 filing closed a long arc of missed leadership in digital and signaled the end of Kodak as it had long been known.
Kodak emerged from bankruptcy a much smaller company, having sold large portions of its patent portfolio to raise cash and refocused around commercial printing and select imaging services; a far cry from the market leadership it once held.
Why this is a “playing it safe” failure (the brand lesson):
- Kodak’s leaders treated existing data (healthy film sales, strong brand equity in film) as a reason not to lead transformation. That’s playing safe: protect the present at the expense of the future.
- When leaders prioritize stabilizing existing revenue instead of reimagining the brand’s Belief (why you exist) and Means (how you will change the world), the brand slowly loses relevance. Customers don’t wait; markets shift.
- Kodak’s technical inventiveness without bold strategic conviction turned into a tragic irony: invention existed, but the brand wouldn’t commit to the new story.
Key teaching points for brand strategists and marketers:
- Don’t let present metrics define future identity. A defensive posture to protect legacy revenue is still a strategic choice, and often the wrong one for long-term survival.
- If your Brand Insight (Belief / Means / Want) signals a future different from today, push the organization to accept short-term discomfort for long-term leadership.
- Bold repositioning requires courageous storytelling and organizational alignment, not just R&D or patents.
Case Study: Dove — Courage Creates Lasting Impact
Dove entered the early 2000s in a crowded personal-care market filled with product claims and idealized imagery. Rather than fight on product claims alone, Unilever’s Dove team went to work to understand a deeper human problem: women’s low self-perception and unrealistic beauty norms. That research work became the foundation of the Campaign for Real Beauty (launched 2004).
Instead of a timid repositioning built on incremental product claims, Dove centered its brand around a human belief: that beauty standards were damaging and that Dove could stand for more realistic, inclusive representations. This became Dove’s Belief, and every decision after flowed from that conviction. The campaign used real women (not models) and research-backed messages to shift the cultural conversation.
Execution Highlights:
- The program was multi-layered: billboards, documentary-style ads, the Dove Report, and later the Dove Self-Esteem Project (education and outreach). It wasn’t a one-off stunt; it was a sustained program that lived in product, comms, and CSR.
- The “Real Beauty Sketches” and other flagship pieces sparked massive earned media and social engagement; the work was intentionally emotional, human, and sometimes polarizing, because it asked people to rethink a deeply held cultural norm.
The outcomes (commercial + brand):
- Multiple industry sources and case studies report dramatic business impact: Dove’s sales climbed materially in the years after the campaign launch (widely reported estimates show sales moving from roughly $2–2.5 billion to $4 billion over the campaign’s early decade), and Dove has remained one of Unilever’s top power brands.
- The brand built long-term equity and a platform (Self-Esteem Project) that extended the campaign’s social purpose into ongoing engagement and product positioning. Unilever continues to treat Dove as a strategic, purpose-led brand.
Nuances: Critiques and Considerations:
- Dove’s work has not been universally praised; critics have called out inconsistencies and opportunism at times. Those critiques matter — they highlight that purpose must be authentic and lived across behavior, not just communications. But overall, Dove’s long-term brand value and commercial performance show the payoff of conviction when it’s truly integrated.
Why this is a “bold but right” win (the brand lesson):
- Dove anchored a campaign in a brand truth (purpose) and let identity and programs follow. That alignment created differentiation competitors couldn’t replicate; not because they couldn’t copy imagery, but because they couldn’t copy the authentic commitment and organizational behavior behind it.
- Purpose was not a marketing stunt; it was a North Star that shaped product, comms, and social programs — the exact opposite of “playing it safe.”
- The commercial payoff reinforced a critical strategic truth: courage that’s tied to brand truth compounds into durable equity.
The Power of Pushing Boundaries; Without Being Reckless
This doesn’t mean brands should stir outrage for the sake of attention. Being provocative without purpose is cheap and destructive. The distinction is clear:
- Reckless brands chase shock value.
- Courageous brands lean into their story and values, even if it invites criticism.
Criticism is not the enemy. In fact, it’s often a sign you’re doing something right — challenging norms, disrupting categories, and forcing people to pay attention. A brand that never risks criticism is a brand that will never matter.
Final Word: Safe Brands Finish Last
A brand that plays it safe may feel comfortable today, but when the market shifts, “comfortable” becomes “irrelevance”. Kodak learned it the hard way. Dove proved the opposite: conviction, even when it invites criticism, creates growth and loyalty that lasts.
Safe brands don’t survive. Courageous brands do. And courage doesn’t mean being offensive or loud for the sake of noise. It means living your brand story with clarity and conviction, and refusing to water it down to fit in.
In the end, the choice is simple:
Do you want your brand to be comfortable today or relevant tomorrow?