We caught up with Nick Cooper, Global Vice President Strategy & Innovation at Landor, after he spoke at CHARGE North America 2026.
Can you share your perspective on why connecting brand strategy to business strategy is particularly critical for energy companies today?
It’s because of the changing landscape within energy. There are no categories where brand doesn’t work just categories where brand hasn’t yet been used or needed. Every category, sooner or later, experiences a trigger that sets off the starting gun for brand. We’ve seen this over many decades across airlines, telecoms, banks, leisure, and more.
Energy is now primed to see the same phenomenon for two reasons.
Firstly, the certainties underpinning historical growth volume increases or price increases are running out of road. Other factors will need to take their place, and brand will be one of them.
Secondly, well-crafted and potent brands are now emerging within the energy market. Brands such as Octopus and NRG are creating competitive advantage for their organisations and, sooner or later, this will force a response from everyone else.
How do you translate brand performance into metrics or language that CEOs and CFOs can act on?
Ultimately, the metrics that matter most to CEOs and CFOs are financial. The critical role of brand is to persuade more customers to buy from you, buy more often, and pay more for your offering. This must have a positive commercial and financial impact — the only question is “how much?”
Being able to measure, model, and predict the financial impact of brand is therefore a vital part of persuading CEOs and CFOs that brand has a key role to play in the business.
At the same time, because brands exist in the mind, they have a perceptual impact on all types of stakeholders. This can influence stock price — arguably the ultimate metric for CEOs and CFOs. While stock prices are often portrayed as the result of mathematical or accounting precision, sentiment and perception matter too. This is precisely where brand has permission to step in and play a role.
In your experience, where do energy companies most often underinvest in brand?
Energy companies collectively are significant spenders on brand, so it is not always simply a question of insufficient funds. However, there are two areas where they tend to underinvest.
Firstly, not enough time and effort is spent developing a truly strong brand positioning that can drive differentiation in the market. As a result, when it comes to executing, implementing, and communicating the brand, there is often a lack of impact.
Secondly, there is insufficient consistency of investment. Many energy companies invest heavily for a year or two and then take their foot off the gas. Sometimes this is linked to the first challenge investing behind an undifferentiated brand is likely to produce underwhelming results. However, it is also often due to competing priorities, with brand investment dropping down the agenda because it is not seen as sufficiently important.