Applying evolutionary thinking to brand marketing

Martin Oxley

Argues that evolutionary biology offers useful paradigms for studying the growth and behaviour of brands.

Applying evolutionary thinking to brand marketing

Martin Oxley

Evolution is one of the most revolutionary ideas in the history of science. It has spawned the scientific discipline of evolutionary biology that, to use the title of Darwin’s book, helps understand and describe ‘the origin of species’. But what, you are probably thinking, has this got to do with marketing and the problems that face contemporary brands?

The answer to this is that the ideas contained within evolutionary biology provide some fascinating parallels between living things and brands, since they can both be thought of as going through a cycle of...

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