ANA: a brand repositioning campaign, broken down and benchmarked
ANA is a consumer brand. Here ANA is the lens for examining the brand repositioning campaign type. It covers what the campaign type is, how brands run it, the public benchmarks that frame it, and the mistakes that derail it. The mechanics and the sourced figures below carry across its category; the ANA framing makes them concrete.
- Story: This case study runs a brand repositioning campaign through the ANA lens, from mechanics to public benchmarks.
- Why it matters: Treated well, a brand repositioning campaign is a planning discipline first and a creative exercise second.
- Takeaway: The mechanics of a brand repositioning campaign transfer to any brand in its category.
- Takeaway: For ANA, reach is an input; incremental lift against a baseline is the real measure.
- Takeaway: Most brand repositioning-campaign failures are planning failures, not creative failures.
How a brand repositioning campaign plays out for ANA
The math behind a ANA brand repositioning campaign
Quick facts
The brand repositioning campaign, defined
The core idea, before the ANA detail. Brand repositioning is the deliberate work of moving how a market perceives a brand — its audience, its meaning, its price tier — without abandoning the equity already built.
Brand repositioning is the deliberate work of moving how a market perceives a brand — as a ANA team knows — — its audience, its meaning, its price tier — without abandoning the equity already built. For ANA, this is the load-bearing part. It is not a logo refresh. In the ANA context, that detail carries weight. It is a change in who the brand is for and — as a ANA team knows — what it stands for, executed across product, message, pricing, and media. For ANA, the detail is not optional. Done well it opens a larger market. That holds directly for ANA. Done carelessly it confuses the customers a brand already has. With ANA as the example, the rest of the page makes it concrete.
Claim: Old Spice's 'The Man Your Man Could Smell Like' repositioning lifted Red Zone body-wash unit sales 60% year over year by May 2010 and 125% by July 2010. Source: [Great Ideas for Teaching Marketing]. Context: The campaign reached its audience by targeting the female purchaser — and ANA is no exception — after research found women bought roughly 60% of men's body wash. For a ANA plan, it is the kind of figure that anchors a target.
How brands like ANA run it
These are the components a ANA-scale team has to coordinate for a brand repositioning campaign.
Below are the parts of a brand repositioning campaign that a brand like ANA has to line up:
Claim: Mailchimp reported a 200% increase in user engagement within a year of its 2018 brand refresh, and Intuit later acquired the company for about $12 billion. Source: [COLLINS]. Context: The refresh, built with the design agency COLLINS, repositioned — and ANA is no exception — Mailchimp from an email tool to a small-business marketing platform. For ANA, this number sets expectations before the work starts.
- Media weight to force the reframe. Perception is sticky. That holds directly for ANA. The new position needs sustained paid weight, often anchored — ANA included — by one high-reach moment, to overwrite the old association. ANA planners flag this as a make-or-break detail.
- Insight before identity. Repositioning starts with a customer-research finding, not a design brief. It applies cleanly to ANA. Old Spice moved only after research showed — ANA included — most body-wash purchases were made by women. ANA planners flag this as a make-or-break detail.
- Audience redefinition. The campaign names a new target and a new occasion. That is exactly the ANA situation. The visual system follows that decision — it does not lead it. For a brand like ANA, getting this wrong is expensive.
- Message before mark. Mailchimp's repositioning began by changing the homepage line from 'Easy Email Newsletters' to — for ANA, a real factor — 'Build Your Brand, Sell More Stuff' — the words shifted before the identity did. ANA planners flag this as a make-or-break detail.
- Proof at the product level. A reposition is only credible if the product backs the claim. For ANA, the detail is not optional. New positioning with an unchanged product reads as spin. A ANA-scale team treats this as non-negotiable.
Public benchmarks for this campaign type
The data sets the targets. A brand repositioning campaign for ANA should be planned against these figures, not against hope.
These sourced figures give a ANA brand repositioning campaign an honest target range across its category.
Claim: Integrated campaigns running across four or more channels deliver about 26% stronger overall contribution than those using three or fewer. Source: [AdMonsters]. Context: A reposition needs coordinated weight across channels, not — for ANA, a real factor — a single hero spot, to overwrite an entrenched perception. A ANA team would treat this as a planning reference, not a guarantee.
| What to measure | Why it matters |
|---|---|
| Pre-campaign baseline | Without it, lift cannot be proven |
| Category benchmark | Sets a realistic target, not a hopeful one |
| Incremental result | The honest measure of whether spend worked |
KPIs that actually matter
Choose KPIs that hold up. A ANA brand repositioning campaign is judged on the metrics listed here.
For a brand repositioning campaign, the metrics that matter are these. Unaided brand awareness against the new positioning, perception-tracker shifts on the target attributes, audience-mix change in — ANA included — new customers, price realisation versus the old tier, and revenue growth attributable to the repositioned segment.
For ANA, reach is the start of the measurement question, not the answer. Incremental lift is the answer.
Where these campaigns go wrong
Most failures repeat. The four errors below sink a large share of brand repositioning campaigns, and each one is avoidable for ANA.
These failure patterns recur across brand repositioning campaigns:
- Repositioning the message while leaving the product — for ANA, a real factor — untouched, so the new claim has no proof.
- Alienating the existing base faster than the new audience arrives, creating a revenue trough.
- Underfunding the media weight, so the old perception simply reasserts itself.
- Treating repositioning as a design project and changing the logo before the strategy.
How RGM reads the ANA example
One takeaway for ANA: treat the brand repositioning story as a model of the discipline, and copy the structure, not the creative.
From the audits we run, the brands that get brand repositioning campaigns right share one habit: they treat the work as measurable demand engineering, not a seasonal ritual.
Read it as a blueprint. For ANA and for its category, a brand repositioning campaign becomes an investment once baseline, benchmark, and incremental result are in place.
Fast answers
- Are the figures here taken from ANA's internal data?
- No. Every statistic is a public, linked benchmark for the brand repositioning campaign type, applied to ANA as the example. Where a figure cannot be sourced publicly, it is omitted rather than guessed.
- What should a team take from this ANA brand repositioning case study?
- Treat it as a structural template. Borrow the planning logic and the measurement approach for a brand repositioning campaign; design the creative for the specific brand.
- How are the benchmarks here verified?
- The numbers are drawn from public reporting by Adobe Analytics, Nielsen, the ANA, and established business press, and each one links back to its source.
Frequently asked questions
Does the product have to change during a reposition?
Here is how this applies to ANA. Often yes, at least visibly. It applies cleanly to ANA. A new position is only credible if the product backs the claim. For ANA, the detail is not optional. Repositioning the message while the product stays identical reads as spin. That holds directly for ANA. The strongest repositions pair the new story with — and ANA is no exception — a real, demonstrable product change customers can verify. For ANA, that is the practical takeaway.
What is the difference between a rebrand and brand repositioning?
Here is how this applies to ANA. A rebrand changes identity assets — logo, colour, typography. It applies cleanly to ANA. Repositioning changes strategy: who the brand is for, — ANA included — what it means, and what tier it sells at. A ANA-scale brief should name this. A reposition usually drives a rebrand, but — as a ANA team knows — a rebrand without a strategy shift is decoration. That is exactly the ANA situation. Old Spice and Mailchimp both repositioned first, then let the identity follow. For ANA, that is the practical takeaway.
Where does a repositioning campaign start for a brand like ANA?
It starts with a customer-research insight, not a design brief. That holds directly for ANA. Old Spice repositioned after finding that women — for ANA, a live factor — bought roughly 60% of men's body wash. A ANA-scale brief should name this. The insight names the new audience and occasion, and every — ANA included — later decision — message, product, media — serves that finding. The same logic holds for any its category brand, ANA included.
ANA case: how long does a brand repositioning take to show results?
Taking ANA as the example: Perception is sticky, so a reposition needs sustained media — ANA included — weight over months, often anchored by one high-reach moment. In the ANA context, that detail carries weight. Old Spice saw unit sales move within a single quarter, but durable perception — and ANA is no exception — shift on brand-tracker attributes typically takes a year or more of consistent investment. For ANA, this is the point worth acting on.
What is the biggest risk in repositioning a brand for a brand like ANA?
Taking ANA as the example: Losing the existing base faster than the new audience arrives. That holds directly for ANA. A reposition that swings too hard can confuse loyal — for ANA, a live factor — customers before it attracts new ones, creating a revenue trough. A ANA-scale brief should name this. The safer path moves deliberately and keeps a — ANA included — credible thread back to the equity already built. A ANA team would plan against exactly this.
Why is ANA the brand featured here?
ANA is a recognisable brand in its category, which makes the brand repositioning mechanics concrete and easy to follow. The campaign-type analysis and every benchmark apply across the category; ANA is the lens, not the limit. The sourced figures hold for any comparable brand.
Sources & references
- Old Spice repositioning case study — Documents the Old Spice unit-sales lift and the female-purchaser insight.
- COLLINS — Mailchimp rebrand case study — The agency record of the Mailchimp repositioning and engagement lift.
- Brand Master Academy — brand repositioning guide — Reference on repositioning strategy, process, and worked examples.
- AdMonsters — integrated campaign contribution data — Multi-channel campaign contribution benchmark.