The recent rebranding exercise conducted by BrewDog across its portfolio got me thinking about mavericks - specifically, the decline of maverick brands - and the high level of risk attached to any brand choosing to make ‘maverick’ its long-term brand strategy.BrewDog’s brand refresh - “a new look for a new era”, the company has promised - came about following a well-documented period of upheaval at the business, which in October kast year reported a doubling of losses to GBP59m (US$79.8m) for the 12 months of 2023, the final full year with co-founder James Watt as its CEO.Then, in Ma
Why being a maverick is not a sound brand strategy for the long term – Comment
Positioning your brand as the antithesis of something is all well and good for a start-up and a challenger brand. As a long-term strategy, though, this has risks.

Chris Tyas is chief strategy officer at independent creative agency Impero - the creative agency for impatient brands.



