Why Iconic Brands Struggle With Innovation

Emphasising a product’s heritage can be a powerful marketing tool. Think of brands like Coca-Cola or Converse’s Chuck Taylor All Star sneakers.

But the strategy could have a big drawback, according to research . When a brand emphasises its past, customers are less likely to buy its updates and innovations. A food company that heavily promotes its classic recipe, for instance, could have a tough time getting customers to buy a new variation on the product. The reluctance is particularly strong if people think the brand has stood the test of time and is authentic the way it is.

When you change an original product, it challenges why many people like the product in the first place, says Rosanna Smith, an associate professor at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign and one of the paper’s co-authors.

“We call it the curse of the original, and the question is how to update a product that is considered an icon without enraging your customers,” says Smith.

The shock of the new

In one part of the study, 418 participants read about a fictional hand-cream company and its top lotion. Participants were either told the company was established in 1917 with “deep roots in the old world French apothecary” or that it was established in 2017. Then the participants were either told the hand lotion was developed when the company was founded or was a new and improved version of the original.

All participants tried the same lotion and rated it on a nine-point scale, with nine being most favourable. When it came to the 1917 company, people rated the classic formula much higher than the new one: The original got a 6.68, while the new one averaged only 6.09. In other words, people didn’t like a venerable brand that tried to innovate as much as a brand that stuck to its roots.

Meanwhile, participants who were told the company started in 2017 rated the original and improved hand creams similarly.

“One big limitation of heritage branding is that it makes it harder to innovate,” says Smith. “But there are ways to lessen the effect.”

Back to basics

For instance, in another experiment, 602 participants read about Fratellino, a fictional Italian-food brand launched in 1911 when founder Martina Fratellino began selling tomato sauce from her front porch. The participants were told the brand would be improving its original tomato-sauce recipe.

The people were then divided into three groups. The control group was told the company was proud to introduce the new formula. The second group was told the new sauce was a bold departure from the original recipe, while the third was told the change was inspired by traditional techniques Martina used to create her tomato sauce in 1911 and that the change was a return to the company’s beginnings.

The authors found that participants in the control group rated the new tomato sauce less favourably than the original, giving it a score of 6.0, compared with 7.2 for the original. Simply doing something novel hurt the tradition-heavy company. The new product did even worse among people who heard that it was a bold departure: The new item got a 5.57, compared with 7.19 for the original.

But in the third group, where the change was framed as grounded in the product’s origins, the scores for the original and new tomato sauces didn’t significantly differ.

“Stressing the connection to the brand’s origins may have made the update seem more authentic,” says Smith.

The best financial advice many Australians are receiving right now is not coming from licensed advisers charging by the hour. It is coming through a phone screen, in the ten minutes between work and dinner, from creators who have built credibility the hard way: by being right, being transparent, and being specific in a space where vagueness has always been the easy default.

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If Queenie Tan represents the new wave of personal finance creators, Alan Kohler represents something the new wave will spend decades trying to build: institutional credibility that has survived multiple economic cycles. As Editor-in-Chief of the Eureka Report and InvestSMART Group, and a decades-long presence on ABC News, Kohler has spent more than thirty years making financial analysis accessible without dumbing it down.

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Most finance creators address the mechanics of money. Aleks Nikolic addresses the psychology — and that distinction explains why her following is as loyal as it is. Operating as Broke Girl Wealth across Instagram, TikTok and YouTube, Nikolic covers ETFs, crypto and investment strategy, but her real differentiator is a willingness to discuss the emotional architecture of financial decision-making.

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Equity Mates did not build a following. They built a media company. What began as a podcast by two friends learning to invest has grown into Australia’s most established investing media brand, covering ASX stocks, ETFs, global markets and fund manager interviews across podcast, social and YouTube.

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The metric that matters most on social media is not followers — it is engagement, because engagement signals trust. Jane Lu, known as The Lazy CEO, maintains an engagement rate of approximately 1.15 per cent on Instagram, which is exceptional for a finance account of his size. Her 242,000-plus followers are not passive consumers: they ask questions, share experiences and apply what they read.

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Tash Invests built her following on a premise that sounds simple but is rarer in practice than it should be: she publishes the actual numbers. Not approximations or ranges or anonymised case studies — her salary, her savings rate, her portfolio value, her net worth, updated and on the record.

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The authority of most finance social media content rests on research and reading. David Scutt‘s authority rests on having done the job. A former Treasury Dealer at Arab Bank and the Commonwealth Bank, former ASX Business Supervisor, and former Global Markets Editor at Business Insider Australia and anchor at ausbiz TV, Scutt now brings that direct market experience to his role as APAC Market Analyst at StoneX Group, rather than relying on secondary commentary.

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8- Meddy Demars – Investing & crypto content creator

The gap Meddy Demars fills is specific and underserviced: connecting global macroeconomic events to the practical reality of Australian investors. When the US Federal Reserve adjusts interest rates, when inflation data moves, when commodity prices shift — most Australian finance content either ignores the local implications or translates them poorly.

Demars, operating across TikTok and Instagram from Sydney, does the translation well: explaining what global conditions mean for Australian stocks, savings rates and investment portfolios in terms that are accessible without being condescending.

9- Simran Kaur – Founder, Friends That Invest

Friends That Invest is arguably the most successful community-building exercise in Australian personal finance, and Simran Kaur is the reason why. The New Zealand-based creator — whose audience is predominantly Australian — built a podcast, a book and a social media presence around a single insight: that the personal finance world was not speaking to young women, and that the consequences of that gap were significant.

The measurable cultural shift that followed — women engaging with investing concepts in communities that had not previously existed — is the kind of impact that most financial literacy programmes aim for and rarely achieve.

10- Effie Zahos – Money Editor at 9News

Effie Zahos is one of Australia’s most recognised financial commentators, appearing regularly across 9News, A Current Affair, Today and Today Extra as 9News Money Editor. Her role puts everyday money questions, from mortgage rates to cost-of-living pressures, in front of a national broadcast audience.

Before television, she spent years as editor of Money magazine, building the editorial foundation for her current commentary. She is also Director and Money Commentator at InvestSMART, an ambassador for Canstar, and a published author, with her financial advice available in print as well as on screen.

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The common thread across this list is not follower count or platform presence. It is that each creator has built an audience willing to act on what they say, and for the Australians making financial decisions off the back of this content, that trust is the only thing that actually matters.

Why Iconic Brands Struggle With Innovation

When a company markets its product’s long, iconic heritage, consumers are reluctant to buy a new variation

The shock of the new

Back to basics

The voices reshaping how Australians think about money — and why credibility matters more than reach.