5 Timeless Lessons in Managing Brand Meaning

This piece was originally published in Branding Strategy Insider.

The Toblerone case has taught us how brand management is essentially meaning management…

It was the breaking news last week when Mondelēz announced Toblerone was going back to the original shape. The brand’s owner concluded their temporary strategy was a mistake and reversed it, now with the realisation that meaning drives the fortunes of brands. In this way, they confirmed what the customers had known all along — just how much symbolism was really packed in this chocolate bar.

That is until 2016 when the rising costs of chocolate ingredients put the Toblerone brand’s owner Mondelēz in a difficult position. To protect their margins they had to choose — either raise the price of the product or offer less chocolate in each bar. The first option could reinforce Toblerone’s premium position though might make it vulnerable to more affordable chocolate brands. The second option was riskier — executed poorly the move could damage the very essence that the brand was founded on.

As we know, Mondelēz decided on the second option. By introducing much wider gaps between each of the chocolate peaks, the owner effectively reduced the weight of each bar. An otherwise sensible strategy…