Your Brand Doesn’t Need a Resolution. It Needs Renewal.

Here we go again. Quitter’s Day was another reminder of how our goals and intentions failed within the first two weeks. I’m not referring to our personal goals. The self-control resolution is up to you. I’m talking about quitting our brand’s resolutions. 

The second Friday of January is recognized as Quitter’s Day, the day when most people fail in their attempts to change a personal habit or achieve a goal.

I’m on record for having a personal food abstinence goal every year for more than a decade. I’ll give you an update on 2025’s experiment and a reminder of 2024’s failure in a moment.

The New Year’s resolutions signal one thing: Brands don’t fail loudly. They fade quietly. The audience may be drawn to a new trend or genre that extends beyond our brand’s borders and influences. However, the audience tends to drift because the brand drifted first.

Quitter’s Day reminds us how quickly the purpose fades. We’re excited about brand renewal. The messaging, the marketing, the execution – everything is updated, critiqued, reviewed and accepted for display and distribution.

The initial feedback is encouraging and validating. Your team, just like your family during your personal resolutions, is cheering for success. And, just like your personal cheerleaders, your brand is faced with other challenges, tasks, responsibilities and seasonal changes. 

The noise of life. It not only impacts you and your team, but it also invades the audience. Your brand’s execution of the new campaign, promotion, or offer begins to fade for three reasons. I’ll make these simple:

1. Vision Assumption: Think of the personal resolutions you share. Friends and family are excited for you in the early weeks and months. Naturally, their world gets noisy, and they forget or move on to the next person who needs encouragement. It’s the same with brands and marketing. We assume the team knows we’re in “new” mode. The vision and messaging start to lose frequency in meetings and execution. Everyone is thinking about Q3 Summer marketing by mid-January.
2. Message Inconsistency: The moment your No-Pizza resolution disrupts the Friday Night Family Pizza Night, the changes kick in. “Okay, I’ll give up pizza this year…except for Friday nights,” becomes our special case deviation. (I have one of those this year, and I’ll share it in a moment.) The interpretations fade without disciplined resets. Sales has one interpretation. Marketing has another. Social begins to drift. Consistency erodes, and with it, trust.
3. Urgency. Why? You completed two weeks of your new diet and read one book toward your goal of 12 new books this year. Why should you feel anticipation or urgency to remind yourself that a new month is starting soon? Because our goals and tasks will be replaced by other urgent ones. Constantly reviewing, renewing, and reinforcing the program to yourself and your team exercises the discipline muscle and allows you to manage the chaos without abandoning the momentum of your featured resolution.

If that sounds familiar, well, it should. Like you, I’ve lived through the same pattern personally and professionally with resolutions and goals.

Thirteen years ago, it started with abstaining from pizza, not for Lent, but the whole year. Each year had a different food theme or category. Ice cream, red meat, chocolate, cookies, candy, milk, cheese, and eggs were among the annual foods of refusal.

The themes were known only to my family because I didn’t want to announce to the world my self-righteous goal of not eating cheese for a year. I didn’t go public with this annual resolution habit until I wrote about it last year.

Coming off a failed 2024 theme of No Bread, Cakes, Cookies, or Crackers, I placed food and beverage abstinence on hold in 2025.

Last year’s theme followed my company’s mission statement: Reduce The Noise To Increase The Volume™. I removed all social media accounts from my smartphone and tablet. Access to those accounts happened only on my desktop PC, a device I used early in the morning or late in the day.

The results were not surprising. I spent much less time doomscrolling and wondering what happened to the last 23 minutes I’d spent looking at my phone.

My reactions and attitude were not chronicled, but I likely spent less time laughing out loud or being entertained by moments throughout the day when I watched a funny or moving video sent by a family member. Those moments are good shots of dopamine and adrenaline, boosting productivity and improving attitude.

The “No-Icons” resolution stopped in the Fall when I started teaching a Branding and Storytelling course. I wanted, not needed, but wanted instant access to the content anytime. Except in the bathroom. That’s where I draw the line.

And the failed resolution of 2024? It’s back in 2026: No Bread, Cakes, Cookies or Crackers, with an exception: birthdays and weddings, or funerals, where cake is the only option. Yes, there was a birthday in January. The carrot cake was so good.

Exceptions are better as part of a plan than as a surprise. If I foresee issues with the branding or marketing plan, I’m prepared for the Message Inconsistency in Reason #2 above. There will be plenty of opportunities for inconsistency. Controlling the narrative by anticipating the disruption brings clarity to the detour.

The annual food and beverage abstinence began as a way to improve other disciplines in my life. I’m not sure it worked. However, the lessons have been more valuable than I ever imagined because those experiments improved my understanding of brand and storylines.

I didn’t save more money, read more books, or exercise more often simply because I chose not to eat red meat for a year. I became more disciplined when I noticed I was drifting.

That’s the real lesson for brands. We don’t need a resolution. We need awareness and renewal. Catch the drift through an Urgent Vision of your Message. Then, renew it. Daily. Not annually. 

Quitter’s Day isn’t a failure. It’s a renewal reminder.