Ahoy, stout vessel! Your longevity in sailing the high seas is the stuff of maritime legend. Permission to come aboard for a quick memo-length chat.
You’ve provided centuries of philosophy students with an indelible paradox. Over the years, once every one of your planks, masts and oars have been swapped out, do you remain the Ship of Theseus? Or have you become something new?
Thinkers from Plutarch to Hobbes have wrestled with your predicament. We believe it’s equally relevant to the branding industry, and unlike philosophers, we’re paid to reach conclusions. So allow us to sail in your wine-dark waters in search of an answer that many of our counterparts have pondered, but failed to articulate.
The modern brand changes its proverbial planks over time, as it well should. Logos morph as years pass, gaining dimension and flattening as trends dictate. Color palettes evolve when a new design director declares a previous hue to be “tired.” Even brand voices are retooled across generations of copywriters, the tonal pendulum swinging between gravitas and irreverence.
Aboard the ship of brand, the crew cycles out as well. Founders depart, either by choice or when a board vote forces them to walk the plank. A CMO who commissions a brand book leaves for a bigger boat before the ink dries. Over enough time, all those who represent the brand, from sales and service reps to receptionists, are replaced.
(Sadly, even the most heroic of shipmates, the heralded brand consultants, come and go.)
So your eternal question remains, Theseus. When everything about a brand has been changed, does it remain the same brand?
We believe the brand was never the planks. It’s always been about something bigger.
Yes, the logo, the palette, the voice, even the people are expressions of the brand, and vital ones. We've built a firm on handling them with care, and we'll loudly defend the difference between a plank crafted well and one cut poorly. But they are the ship, not the voyage.
What persists, and what sustains a brand’s essence through every refit, is the mission that it keeps sailing. Along with the belief of those who sail it.
A brand persists through a purpose that’s held constant while everything that expresses it evolves. It endures in the accumulated faith of the people aboard, from employees to customers to fans. Continuity lives in them, through the shared agreement about what this thing means and, more importantly, why it matters.
This is why plank-swapping, when done thoughtfully, strengthens a brand. And why careless upkeep can sink it.
Replace a weathered plank in service of the same voyage, and you're maintaining the ship. But replace it because a new captain wants mahogany, or because the shipwright next door has mahogany, and you're quietly building a different vessel.
Do that enough times, and one day the crew looks around and realizes they don’t know where they're headed. And that’s when brands become lost. Not in any single change, but in changes that are unmoored from meaning.
So, old friend, we wish you fair winds and following seas. You are still you, not because of what you're made of, but because of where you've always been going.
