Your brand has always performed well. Consumers rated it highly. Brand perception scores were strong. Sales were steady, market share secure.
But now, something’s changed.
Perception scores are slipping. Sales are falling. Market share is declining. And yet—nothing internally has changed. The product or service is the same. It still delivers. Your marketing remains consistent.
So why are consumers no longer viewing your brand as positively as they did before?
If nothing has changed in your product or communications, then the change must be happening in the mind of the consumer. Their expectations have shifted. The way they assess your brand has evolved. To respond effectively, you need to understand how and why their perception has changed.
Perhaps a competitor has launched an innovation that’s captured consumer attention. Maybe your brand—or something within your category—has faced negative publicity.
But it’s important to understand that these external events are not the direct cause of your brand’s decline. Rather, they trigger a reassessment in the consumer’s mind. And that reassessment is rarely logical.
Consumers don’t typically evaluate brands through careful, rational analysis. Instead, they react. Often subconsciously. Their responses are emotional, intuitive—what Daniel Kahneman refers to as System 1 thinking. Fast, instinctive, and shaped by associations, not evidence.
To recover from declining brand perceptions, you need to understand this shift in emotional processing—not just the external cause, but the internal response it provokes.
The new competitor or the negative news story has sparked an emotional reaction. That reaction sets off a chain of unconscious responses which subtly alters the way consumers feel about your brand. It may not be immediate or overt. But it changes what they expect from you—and how they interpret what you offer.
If you can map this emotional journey, you can break down the psychological impact of the external trigger. You can identify exactly which aspects of consumer perception have shifted, why they’ve shifted, and most importantly, how you can respond with precision—through product refinements, repositioning, or refreshed messaging.
Alternatively, you could take the standard rational route. Analyse the external threat, then react in kind. Reformulate your product to remove an “offending” ingredient. Mimic the features of your competitor’s innovation. It may feel like a logical, safe response—but it’s also likely to be what your competitors are doing.
The result? Commoditisation. Everyone starts offering similar products with similar claims. Consumers see less differentiation. The market becomes a blur of sameness.
But when you take the time to understand the emotional impact of the external change—and respond to that—your path forward is clearer, more targeted, and often less internally disruptive. You might not need to overhaul your product. You may simply need to amplify the emotional signals your brand already delivers—or tweak them slightly to realign with evolving expectations.
And in doing so, you demonstrate leadership—not just in strategy, but in empathy. You show your consumers you understand them better than anyone else. And your competitors? They’re left wondering how you’re recovering so effectively while making fewer changes.
This is not about reacting harder. It’s about reacting smarter. Not just managing perception, but truly reshaping it—by meeting consumers not just where they think, but where they feel.
Get my new book, The Shape of Taste here:
Chris Lukehurst is a Consumer Psychologist and a Director at The Marketing Clinic:
Understanding the connections between the consumer experience
