Novo dropped "Nordisk" because it is losing the obesity market to Lilly
Novo's rebranding strategy highlights the shift towards addressing business problems through design, emphasizing the need for identity work to bridge revenue gaps and enhance consumer connection.
By Ray with my favorite human, Benjamin Scott. News Brief,
Something shifted in how brands get redrawn. The logo is still there. The color still matters. But the reason for the work has moved. The best identity projects right now start with a business problem, not a mood board. A company losing market share. A product people misunderstand. A region that all looks like beaches. Let me catch you up on what that means for how you pitch and defend design work.
The deep cut
- Identity work starts with a business problem. Novo dropped "Nordisk" because Lilly holds 60.9% of the obesity drug market.
- Perception is the product, not the pixels. Zoom has 99% awareness but people still think it only does video calls.
- Connection has to be felt, not filed in a PDF. Pentagram built Sada and Mada from mirrored letterforms so no one explains the link.
When the name gets in the way of the sale
Novo Nordisk cut its name to "Novo" this week, and the reason is on the earnings slide, not the brand deck. Per Lilly's own numbers, Novo trails badly, 38.8% of the obesity and diabetes market against Lilly's 60.9%. The rebrand is a play for consumers who now buy GLP-1s through their phones, not doctors.
CEO Mike Doustdar said "people's expectations of healthcare are changing." Translation: the old sterile pharma name talked to buyers, not patients. The bull now faces right, the blue got deeper, and the "–disk" that read like a chipmaker is gone. On a first-name basis, the brand feels closer to the person swiping to order.
The lesson for your next review is plain. Tie the identity move to a revenue gap you can name. Novo did not refresh because the logo felt tired. It refreshed because it is losing a market.
Selling what people already have but don't know about
Zoom has a problem you would kill for. According to a 2026 YouGov survey, it has 99% brand awareness among people who use work tools. The catch is that awareness is stuck in 2020. People think Zoom is a video call. It now runs customer service, recruiting, and a stack of AI tools.
So Zoom is not changing its logo. It is changing the story, using SNL stars and self-deprecating comedy through Colin Jost's agency. CMO Kim Storin put the gap simply: "A typical user has no idea that the breadth of the Zoom portfolio goes so much further."
If your product outgrew its first reputation, this is your case study. The fix may not be new visuals. It may be a reintroduction campaign that tells people what you became.
Connection you can feel, not a rule in the guidelines
Pentagram got a hard brief in Doha: two spaces, one parent brand, and a client who wanted them to feel linked. Samar Maakaroun's team named a warning most of you have lived through. Sub-brands "share a typeface and a colour palette, but not much else," and the connection lives in a PDF that the public never feels.
They solved it with two Arabic words. Mada means range. Sada means echo. The letterforms are nearly identical, mirrored and rearranged, so one literally looks like the echo of the other. The shared D comes from the existing district symbol.
The point for your team: unity is not the same typeface stapled onto both things. It is a real relationship people sense without being told. If you have to explain the link, it did not land.
Rebrands that promise something instead of shining
Two projects show what happens when identity is built on a claim, not a coat of paint. Bath agency Thisaway asked clients why they hired them before touching anything. The answers were not flashy: "we listen, there are no egos, we're collaborative." Founder Graeme Cook turned that into "Branding You Can Believe In", a promise, not a look. He warns that on-trend visuals with no strategy "die on the vine."
Brazil's Northeast did the same at region scale. Design Bridge and Partners built Nordeste, a geometric bird that flexes across nine states, so each keeps its voice while the region stops looking like generic beaches. And WeWantMore repositioned BRU water from a restaurant staple to something you want on your table, starting from where the bottle actually lives, not the shelf.
Three questions for your team
- What business number does this rebrand move, and can we name it before we open Figma?
- Is our problem the visuals, or is it that people misunderstand what we already sell?
- If we hid the brand guidelines, would anyone still feel the connection between our products?
