In his President's Prize-winning thesis for the IPA Excellence Diploma in Brands, Sam Collenette argues why we should embrace a polyphonic approach to brand planning, moving beyond a single, monolithic brand voice to a coherent ecosystem that designs for multiple voices, meanings and perspectives to co-exist productively.
Doubt is not a pleasant condition, but certainty is an absurd one.
We are in the business of selling certainty. We have built our value on the premise that we can reduce complexity to a single position, a single answer, a single path forward. We tell clients that if their brand can define a single meaning and repeat it consistently over time, they will be rewarded. This is dangerous.
The idea that we could ever really control or own meaning is a falsehood. Now, as our experience of brands comes from an increasing array of places, it is becoming impossible to uphold. Meaning is not dictated but negotiated, and now it is happening communally. What you say your brand means is not automatically more credible or valid than what a creator, Reddit thread or AI-generated answer says.
This creates a paradox. In a world that by many measures is more uncertain than ever (Figure 1) (Ahir et al., 2026), the harder brands try to cling to control, the less able they are to adapt and the more fragile they become. Consistency alone is not a sufficient substitute for coherence, nor is positioning a substitute for a meaningful and ongoing dialogue with the world around us.
I believe the time has come to abandon the myth of control and start harnessing the voices that exist around brands. Therefore, I propose we embrace a polyphonic approach to brand planning, moving beyond a single, monolithic brand voice to a coherent ecosystem that designs for multiple voices, meanings and perspectives to co-exist productively.
In this essay, I will propose a framework for harnessing these voices and make the case that, by adopting it, we can create more resilient brands, better positioned for long-term growth and relevance.
Building Brands on Shifting Foundations
What worked in the past won’t necessarily work now or in the future.
First, let’s take a step back in time. In 1981, nearly 20 million people were tuning into Coronation Street weekly (BARB, 2025), Channel 4 was preparing to launch (Anon, 2007) and the internet was a nascent network of 213 hosts (Norman, n.d.). Social media as we know it was years away.
That same year, Ries and Trout published Positioning: The Battle for Your Mind, popularising the concept of positioning that is still applied today. In this book, they argued that you need to “look for the hole” in the prospect’s mind, define your positioning and deliver that message consistently over time (Ries and Trout, 1981).
This was their solution to what they called an “overcommunicated society” (Ries and Trout, 1981, p.5). If that was then, what might we call today? Where we once had a handful of media channels, we now have myriad; where communication was a one-way broadcast, it is now a public conversation; where research was found in books, it is now also synthesised and interpreted by large language models (LLMs).
In The New York Times, journalist Thomas Friedman labelled our current era the ‘polycene’ (2025) – a neologism articulating the way in which politics, society, technology and media have become defined by their entanglement. Friedman cites the replacement of binary systems with poly ones, from polymathic artificial general intelligence to polycentric geopolitics.
As networks grow, they become increasingly dense (Leskovec et al., 2005), so it follows that the more the world becomes connected, the more each event in that world becomes conditional on everything around it (Lotto, 2017). As Friedman says, “interdependence is no longer our choice…It is our condition” (2025).
Media thinking has evolved to try and accommodate this complexity, but the underlying concept of brand has not kept pace. Whilst there is a broad acceptance that brands need to evolve, we are still clinging on to old models. Now, as the mechanisms by which we interact with brands fundamentally change, a better answer is becoming critical.
The Limitations of Our Current Architecture
We build an image as birds build nests - from scraps and straws we chance upon.
Jeremy Bullmore’s famous quote about how we build an image of a brand is a truth that endures. What has changed is the nature of those scraps and straws. They are not purely made from the mechanisms a brand owns as Bullmore laid out (production, price, promotions, advertising) (2002), but also a wealth of people, platforms and technology beyond a brand’s immediate control.
Markets have always been conversations (Levine et al., 2009), and as Stuart Hall’s encoding/decoding theory established, the meaning a brand encodes is not necessarily the same as the one an audience decodes, which is shaped by their own social and cultural experience (1980). The idea that a brand could define and dictate its meaning was always a myth. Now, it is becoming impossible to sustain. With an explosion of potential authors (Figure 2) (Mir, 2026) creating access to more views and viewpoints than ever, increasingly these conversations are not being led by brands themselves.
This can work to a brand’s benefit, or equally to its detriment. On the one hand, a shop employee can build a following 10x the size of the brand itself and in doing so introduce it to a new generation of potential customers, as has been the case with Kaedon Rowland, AKA ‘Staples Baddie’ (Hicks, 2026). On the other hand, a viral social media video can quickly expose quality issues that undermine a luxury brand’s credentials (Chitrakorn, 2025).
What was once private is now public and what was once direct is now often mediated. The combination of algorithmic media influence and the increasing role of LLMs and agents are removing the context and hierarchy that brand communications relied upon. You will no longer receive a single-sourced answer, but a series of qualitative signals. These signals are often not coming from brands themselves, but instead from community and informational signals like Reddit, Wikipedia and Forbes (Harsel et al., 2025). As WARC reports, marketing spend only accounts for 22% of LLM visibility (2026), whilst being a leading brand does not guarantee that you will be rewarded by equal presence in LLMs (Tarin and Dell, 2026).
Traditional brand architecture doesn’t allow for this structural shift. In this environment, a brand can no longer be thought of as a monolith to be built, but instead must be thought of as a series of parallel conversations. These conversations span human, algorithmic and AI meaning systems, all of which function in different ways. Brands are not ranked but interpreted by different decision-making mechanisms, whether emotional, attentional or probabilistic. What they have in common is relevance to context.
All of this has significant implications. When a community or machine’s interpretation diverges from your intended positioning, it creates a competing reality – one which may reach more people with more credibility than your own (Brockway, 2026) – and, as Joe Calloway asserts, “if your idea of the brand is different from their idea of the brand, theirs is the only idea that counts” (2009, p.98).
We can see how this plays out when a brand’s positioning becomes incongruent with the public’s experience of it. In the case of BrewDog, the punk positioning that served it in its growth stages no longer held the same authenticity as a billion-dollar company. As gaps appeared between what it was saying and what employees, press and people were saying, its mythology became untenable. Combined with significant strategic errors, the business was ultimately sold for £33m (Davies, 2026).
However, this can also happen more slowly. Cultural meaning is in constant flux, resulting in the same thing being interpreted differently over time. We can see this writ large in the world of entertainment as notions of acceptability have altered perceptions of once-popular TV shows. Equally, what is considered aspirational is subject to change with the tides of culture, and our industry’s view of this has been shown to be out of step with the market (Gwynn, 2020).
Brands are now only one voice amongst many other audible ones. This can be a problem in a networked environment, but it is also an opportunity since we can now better hear and measure these conversations. However, to take advantage of this, we need to enter into a more productive dialogue.
From Brand Constructions to Brand Conversations
Truth is not born nor is it to be found inside the head of an individual person, it is born between people collectively searching for truth.
Russian literary theorist and philosopher Mikhail Bakhtin developed a distinction between two modes of communication: monologic and dialogic. In monologic communication a single voice and perspective dominates, meaning is fixed and final, and complexity is reduced to a single truth. This is analogous with how we tend to think about brands and media: meaning is identified, encoded into a message and transmitted consistently. Bakhtin viewed this as dangerous, creating an environment when only one voice is allowed to speak.
Dialogic communication, on the other hand, is created in the space between voices, through response, interpretation and ongoing exchange. This does not weaken meaning but enriches it, better representing the fundamental experience of human life. As Bakhtin says, “its sense and significance are renewed and grow as the context continues to unfold” (1986, p.30). Instead of trying to silence other voices, you are better served by engaging with them.
From a dialogic perspective, difference is not to be eliminated. As communications scholar Leslie Baxter states, it is “the key to growth, change, and vitality” (2005, p.104). This provides a more useful way of thinking about how we can foster brands that are able to adapt and evolve. Rather than treating difference as a problem to solve, we can treat it as a signal to integrate.
As well as accepting the reality that multiple viewpoints and perspectives exist, a dialogic approach paves the way for the creation of new meaning and knowledge as a result. Productive dialogic communication ultimately leads to conceptual combination, expansion and reframing (Tsoukas, 2009) – the very basis of the creation of new ideas. Many ideas and innovations do not come from within the walls of a brand, so entering into dialogue is extremely valuable. The drinkware brand Stanley is a perfect example.
For most of Stanley’s 100+ year history its drinkware had been positioned for workmen and outdoorsmen. That is, until a group of women with a small community discovered the Quencher tumbler and started championing its aesthetic for an entirely different urban, primarily female audience (Jansen, 2023). The brand recognised this new meaning and integrated it alongside its existing positioning, leading to a series of collaborations and products that drove a surge in revenue from $100m to $750m in just a few years (Vega and Shamo, 2023). As the cultural meaning around Stanley shifts and revenue plateaus, the question becomes about where new opportunities for growth and relevance will come from.
Bakhtin’s dialogism is not a surrender to chaos, but an honest engagement with the fact that meaning is created collectively. If dialogic communication is the method, what is the practical form we can apply?
A Polyphonic Approach to Brand
The essence of polyphony lies precisely in the fact that the voices remain independent and, as such, are combined in a unity of a higher order than in homophony.
Bakhtin’s dialogic communication takes the form of polyphony, which describes how a collection of independent voices contribute to a higher order unity, one that is richer and more meaningful than a single voice (homophony). We can think about this as the contribution of different narrators to a story’s sense and meaning. When we apply this to brands, a polyphonic approach means moving away from the idea of a brand as a single authorial voice and instead creating an ecosystem that allows multiple voices, meanings and perspectives to co-exist productively.
The immediate objection to this lies in the concept of consistency. However, we must distinguish between the consistent purpose, values and distinctive assets that brands own, and their meaning which they don’t. As John Grant asserts in The Brand Innovation Manifesto, coherent companies needn’t fear variety (2011). Liberating ourselves from the idea that a brand’s meaning is fixed allows us to build a more truly market-oriented system that can more effectively listen, diversify and evolve. Rather than contradicting established brand evidence, I believe polyphony gives us a new way to think about how we apply it.
We know that growth comes from building mental availability across a wide range of category entry points (Sharp, 2010), and that, according to Kantar, brands that are more meaningfully different to more people command more penetration (2026). We also know that brands with high levels of cultural relevance grow faster than their peers (Gorton-Lee, 2026). In order to build mental availability, create meaning and maintain relevance over time, we need to be able to adopt and move between a variety of positions. Polyphony gives us the means of doing this, while the modern media environment gives us the opportunity to design for it more effectively.
I propose three core principles that define a polyphonic brand:
1. Reciprocal
The relationship between a brand and its ecosystem is reciprocal: the brand shapes the system, and the system shapes the brand in return, with meaning emerging from the interaction between the two.
The relationship between a brand and its ecosystem is reciprocal: the brand shapes the system, and the system shapes the brand in return, with meaning emerging from the interaction between the two.
Take Crocs as an example. Crocs was established in 2002, promising a supremely comfortable and practical shoe. Worn by chefs, gardeners and nurses, aesthetic was sacrificed for the value it offered those on their feet. It built a substantial following, but for years it remained at a plateau.
However, as fashionable aesthetics evolved, so too did ideas of ‘ugly’ and Crocs capitalised on this. Taking advantage of this cultural shift and leveraging it to create a series of partnerships and products, between 2020 and 2024 Crocs grew from a $1.3bn business to a $4.1bn business (Rocco, 2026). Simultaneously worn by kids, professionals and fashionistas, the brand grew by occupying multiple positions.
2. Heterarchical
No single voice or meaning is more or less valid than others, with value ascribed to the collective voices of other sources as much as a brand’s own. This means moving beyond the idea of audiences as passively receiving messages and towards active participants in shaping the meaning around a brand.
Throughout the 2010s, McDonald’s was facing declining revenue. Challenged by an evolving conversation around health, the brand had tried to play to the voice of its critics and failed. In the 2020s, McDonald’s turned this on its head, choosing to elevate a different voice: that of its fans. The brand introduced its ‘fan truths’ positioning.
Rather than occupying a single position, the brand opened itself up to the many different realities that exist around it. The brand proved that it can mean a family ritual, a side quest and a drunken night out and gain rather than lose meaning as a result. Whilst revenue growth can’t be attributed to communications alone, in the last five years McDonald’s has rebuilt its cultural relevance and reversed a revenue decline, growing from $19bn to $26bn in 2025, according to Statista (Anon, 2026).
3. Distributed
A brand is not monolithic; it is distributed, existing in all of the different voices that surround it, from creators and individuals through to LLM outputs. Moving beyond consistency to coherence means being recognisably the same thing but expressed and experienced in a multitude of ways.
Identifying the abundance of videos existing online that show different ‘hacks’ with Vaseline, the brand took advantage of an opportunity to elevate these conversations. Testing the hacks to see which worked, Vaseline officially verified more than 450 hacks from creators before promoting them as official ads.
Driving a surge in mentions, positive sentiment and ultimately a 43% uplift in sales (Anon, 2025), this showed the value of building a network of community voices into the brand’s communications system – not briefed by the brand but elevated by it, expressing it in individual ways. Unilever is now taking a more significant step towards this model by shifting 50% of its investment into creators as a decentralised brand voice (Chou, 2026).
This requires a new way of thinking about the brand communications model, as shown in Figure 3 and Table 1 below.
Table 1: Identifying the shifts from a traditional model to a polyphonic model
Polyphonic Planning in Action
A polyphonic approach is not purely a conceptual adjustment, it also requires a practical change. Current brand planning and measurement asks us to focus on what the brand voice is communicating and how far that voice is reaching versus the competition. However, it falls short of considering the makeup and meaning of the other voices that contribute to it.
I propose a three-stage framework for a polyphonic approach: mapping the voice ecosystem, measuring its health through Share of Brand Voice, and managing strategic decisions and investment accordingly.
Stage 1: Map the Voice Ecosystem
The planning process begins with mapping the brand’s voice ecosystem. By grouping this into six distinct categories as shown in Table 2 below, we can create a framework that acknowledges fragmentation whilst remaining practical. Understanding these as individual and interdependent elements of a system gives us a holistic understanding of the voices that exist around a brand.
Table 2: Voice ecosystem comprised of six individual categories of voice
Whilst I acknowledge that the previous examples given are driven by big brands in relatively high-interest categories, this approach can be applied to any brand. Depending on the nature and size of the brand, these voices will carry different dynamics and influence. A low-interest category brand like a toothpaste is unlikely to have a substantial community voice. However, other voices in this system will be key to brand choice, such as the sales voice (e.g. dentists) and the critic voice (e.g. product reviews).
Equally, a new brand can begin by prioritising key voices in this system. In her IPA essay, Lysette Jones highlighted the challenge of fame for smaller brands (2022), suggesting a fragmented approach to fame. We can apply a similar principle here. Rather than designing for mass paid reach, a new brand could prioritise the community and critic voices within key niches.
Mapping this ecosystem tells us which voices exist and how they relate to one another. Next, we can look at whether they are working and the total system is healthy.
Stage 2: Measure Share of Brand Voice (SBV)
Share of Brand Voice is a complementary tool that enables us to understand how well a brand system is functioning. SBV has four core dimensions as shown in Table 3 below: scale, diversity, influence and alignment.
Table 3: Four dimensions of Share of Brand Voice
Once we understand the state of the voice ecosystem, we can then use this to make strategic decisions.
Stage 3: Manage Strategic Decisions and Investment
Understanding the Share of Brand Voice will tell us where a brand is robust and where it is fragile. Looking at the growth and contraction of voices over time will give us further insight into potential opportunities and risks.
A brand with high SBV concentration in a single voice is fragile. For example, if your brand voice exists solely in paid media but is not reflected in any other voices, you are entirely dependent on outspending the competition. Whereas a brand with a distributed SBV across multiple voices is a more resilient one that can withstand change and adaptation. Similarly, if we can see significant misalignment between the comms voice and other voices in the system, we can see where we are at risk of an incoherent brand system.
Share of Brand Voice therefore becomes a diagnostic tool, helping influence where to invest, which voices to elevate and where meaning is at risk. In business terms, this can help reduce reliance on particular channels, mitigate risk, improve discoverability and increase mental availability across a range of category entry points.
Harnessing Polyphony
I started this essay by warning against the danger of certainty. If control is a convenient illusion, liberating ourselves from the suggestion that it ever really existed is a powerful opportunity to rethink how we can create more relevant and resilient brands.
By letting go, we can grow. The brands that will continue to thrive are not those with the most single-minded positioning statement, but those that have the humility to listen to the voices around them, accept difference and evolve.
The world has always been polyphonic, now it is time that we finally harness it. What we create will be richer and more meaningful for it.
In the spirit of this essay, I welcome different voices to add to this conversation.
Sam Collenette is Strategy Director at DRUM. This essay was submitted as part of the IPA Excellence Diploma in Brands.
The opinions expressed here are those of the authors and were submitted in accordance with the IPA terms and conditions regarding the uploading and contribution of content to the IPA newsletters, IPA website, or other IPA media, and should not be interpreted as representing the opinion of the IPA.
Last updated 22 September 2026