Most brands don’t die from failure. They die from indifference. At Verve we’ve drawn a line. We don’t brand for recognition. We brand for irreplaceability: the state where replacing you doesn’t just feel difficult, it feels unthinkable. Our Strategy Lead, Eveline Koppejan, writes about how to reach this rarefied brand air.
What a weird time to be alive
I’ve been in branding long enough to see trends come and go, but I’ve never seen the stakes as high as they are now.
On the surface, it looks like a golden age. Tools are abundant. Inspiration is everywhere. A single AI prompt can now generate landing pages, color palettes, type systems, even copy. In theory, this should liberate us. Branding has never been faster, never been cheaper, never been more accessible.
But here’s the paradox: the easier it gets to produce, the harder it gets to matter.
We see sameness. Same tone of voice. Same stock or AI aesthetic. Same safe, templated design based on best practices. Whole categories collapse into one indistinguishable blur.
This is the silent killer of brands. Not failure. Not scandal. Indifference.
When customers stop caring, price becomes the only differentiator. And once that happens, the race to the bottom is inevitable.
We’ve come to call it the commodity death spiral. Unless brands take decisive action, it’s where many of today’s “good” businesses are heading.
So what’s the alternative?
For me, the most powerful idea in branding isn’t recognition or consistency. It’s irreplaceability.
Ask yourself: if your brand disappeared tomorrow, what would your customers truly miss?
If the answer is “not much” (or worse, “they’d just switch to a competitor”), your brand is replaceable. And many are.
Irreplaceability appeals on two levels.
First, the emotional level. If you’re a CMO or CEO, you don’t want your company to be a footnote. You want to lead categories, shape culture, leave a dent. The fear of irrelevance is real, but so is the ambition of building something unforgettable. Irreplaceability speaks directly to that ego, and rightly so.
The second level is all about the bottom line: branding for irreplaceability is a commercial imperative. Ultimately, this approach will lower your marketing spend, because loyal customers market for you. It boosts lifetime value, because people stick around longer. It commands a price premium, because you’re not interchangeable.
Investors see it. Competitors envy it. Teams rally behind it.
Put simply: irreplaceable brands grow stronger over time, while replaceable ones fade into noise.
Our tried and true formula
So how do we fight back against neutrality and sameness?
At Verve, we’ve distilled it into a simple but powerful formula: Irreplaceability = Difference × Hyper-Relevance. And yes, we’re aware that this all sounds abstract. But it really is quite simple.
Difference creates distance. You want to be as far away from competition as possible. Be it through your product, which is 10 times better, or through brand, or through both.
Hyper-relevance creates connection. It’s about knowing exactly who you’re for, and making them feel seen in a way nobody else can.
Put them together, and you have the two ingredients that make a brand indispensable: standing apart, and locking in.
What this means for business
If you’re leading a company right now, here’s the reality: your product, no matter how innovative, is vulnerable. Features can be cloned. Interfaces can be copied. Entire experiences can be mimicked overnight.
What can’t be copied is emotional lock-in. That sense that your brand has become part of a customer’s life, identity, or story.
That’s why branding isn’t a surface exercise. It’s not decoration. It’s a business imperative. The difference between being a replaceable commodity and an irreplaceable category leader is the difference between fading out and enduring.
And this is why we’ve repositioned Verve. After 18 years, hundreds of brands, and countless market shifts, we’re doubling down on this idea: helping businesses brand themselves irreplaceable.
A final word
I’ll end with a challenge.
Ask yourself: if your brand disappeared tomorrow, would your customers miss it? Would they fight to keep it alive? Would they care at all?
If the answer makes you uneasy, that’s the point.
Because the future doesn’t belong to the most visible brands. It belongs to the irreplaceable ones.
And that’s exactly what we’re here to build.
View our program to see how we
brand businesses irreplaceable.