How brands remain relevant and visible despite cost-cutting measures

Cutting back on strategic brand management only saves money in the short term – and costs more in the long run. This is truer now than ever before. Brands provide consumers with guidance, build trust and ensure long-term customer loyalty. That is why it is essential for marketers to keep brands visible, relevant and effective with increasingly limited resources. These three principles will help you maintain the power of your brand:

1. Focus brand communication

During a crisis, communication does not decrease – it becomes more selective. The decisive factor is where and how brands can still generate resonance. It is therefore important to identify the touchpoints that generate the greatest brand loyalty. To save on their budgets, marketers should focus on the three most important contact and interaction points. These can be determined using the relevant data. By analysing the information, marketers can understand how customers interact with their brand throughout the entire customer journey and gain deep insights into their behaviour. This kind of customer journey mapping reveals which touchpoints are crucial for customer satisfaction and why. For example, a medium-sized healthcare company identified its three customer- and business-relevant touchpoints: high-quality specialist portals as the first point of contact, the personalised service offering in the customer portal, and personal advice from the sales force. 

Healthcare marketers immediately seized the opportunity to make their measures even more customer-oriented in these areas. For example, they strengthened their field sales consulting with specially trained artificial intelligence (AI). The AI now suggests customer-relevant and individualised content and argumentation aids to sales staff before their meetings, based on the respective customer data. The key feature is that these are tailored to the brand's tone and messaging guidelines. Since then, field service communication has become even more effective without being intrusive. The healthcare company thus increased its brand awareness among customers without a large budget – compared to brands that rely on comprehensive presence throughout the journey.

2. Operationalise the brand in a clear, applicable and memorable way

Many brands have defined values – but too rarely are these systematically incorporated into content, campaigns or the customer experience. Yet they offer precisely the framework that is urgently needed under budgetary pressure: a strategic filter for everything that is published, designed and decided. That is why it is important to provide a brand-appropriate set of tonality, visuals and messaging guidelines and to use these tools as an amplifier.

Motion, sound, language – all of these elements shape the brand experience, especially in digital spaces. Here, too, clear principles for multisensory perception are essential. A concise sound logo, consistent UI sounds or animated social media elements often have a stronger impact – if they contribute to a brand system in a focused manner – than elaborate content productions that consume budgets. The brand manual, which should be put into practice, serves as the basis for all measures. Interactive brand portals, training formats and smart template systems make brands applicable and empower teams that often operate internationally. Overall, brand managers achieve greater consistency in communication and recognisability – a value that has a direct impact on higher conversion and brand loyalty. Ultimately, what is needed are brand experiences that are repeated but do not seem repetitive.

3. Use AI – but in line with your brand

Whether text, image or layout: GenAI already performs many tasks in marketing. From a brand management perspective, however, this only makes sense if the AI is based on a brand framework. Otherwise, the output will appear arbitrary or fail to reflect brand values. In addition, high-quality and distinctive brand content also requires ideas, creativity, sympathy and empathy. It's about real experiences and human encounters that appeal to customers on an emotional level. AI, on the other hand, knows neither joy nor pain, neither humour nor imperfection. That's why the principle of human-led AI should always apply – despite all the automation and cost savings. AI can make brand processes scalable and more efficient – but it should not weaken the brand in the process.

Simplification is the strongest lever

Strategic brand management is not a question of budget size. Instead, the greatest potential lies in clear decisions and focus: What really belongs to the brand and to building brand loyalty? What can be left out? What can be automated or standardised? Even small updates, language developments or design refinements help to keep the brand current and relevant – without costly and time-consuming rebranding. Simplification is not a cost-cutting measure, but a strategic requirement. When brand management is reduced, focused and empowered, it gains in effectiveness – not complexity.

The decisive currency of the future is brand intelligence – the strategic ability to design brands with meaning, value and impact. This requires systems that allow for machine support – but are clearly guided by human experience and expertise. Brand management is also gaining strategic importance in economically volatile times – or perhaps even more so. Those who create structures today, even with limited resources, that consistently operationalise attitude, language and design principles will have an advantage tomorrow. Because the brand is not a cost factor, but the operating system of current and future communication.

This article was first published in
HORIZONT, 26.05.2025