The anatomy of two decades of branding challenges
After four years of growth, with a strengthening team and a clear direction, the winter of 2009 arrived. A winter in which the recession—born somewhere far away—caught up with us faster than expected. We realized how deeply interconnected we all are, big or small, and how quickly a business direction shifts when the economy breathes differently.
One morning, it became visible.
Budgets stopped.
Projects were postponed.
Calls brought “we’ll get back to you,” “not the moment,” “let’s wait.”
That was when I understood a truth that stayed with me: branding is, for many companies, the outermost point on the orbit when turbulence hits the economy.
Not because it lacks value, but because it’s tied to the future.
And when the present hurts, the future gets paused.
For underfunded, overstretched entrepreneurs balancing on fragile lines, it was the moment they had to choose between salaries, stock, loans, and branding.
And branding was inevitably shelved.
In 2009 we felt what it means to be on the “front line,” even without selling physical products.
When entrepreneurs go defensive, branding is the first to be delayed.
And maybe most painfully, we saw how alone a small business is in a crisis.
When “the big ones” retreat into survival mode, there’s no space for altruism toward smaller players.
Individualism rises with fear.
2020 – The pandemic. A different kind of wave
Ten years later, in 2020, the world seemed to stop again.
I remember the early days: all of us online, faces lit by screens, souls scattered across our homes, trying to understand what was coming.
We braced for slowdown, postponed projects, cut budgets, uncertainty.
But surprisingly, things unfolded differently.
Projects appeared from online conversations alone—no travel, no courtesy meetings, no classical rituals of starting a collaboration.
Most came from brave entrepreneurs with the instinct to act counterintuitively when others hit the brakes—often what branding looks like.
Paradoxically, the pandemic wasn’t our hardest moment.
It activated existing clients, brought them closer, made them respond faster, more honestly, more humanly.
And it helped the team grow.
We welcomed remarkable people who weren’t intimidated by distance and felt they could build with us from anywhere.
We stayed connected through live meetups on the office terrace, rediscovering the joy of breathing the same air in a shifting world.
For the team, it was a phase of release and discovery: a new way of working, relating, organizing processes, and approaching projects.
A different wave—one that didn’t hit us, but reshaped us.
Today, after 20 years – Another form of volatility
The last two years brought a different tremor—not abrupt, not uniform, but in waves.
Entrepreneurs are more tired than ever, pressured by operations, cornered by decisions that keep their businesses alive.
Public-sector projects have shrunk, and like falling dominoes, this created a vacuum felt across the business landscape.
And inevitably, branding remains last on the list.
Because branding needs exactly what crises refuse to offer:
- time,
- clarity,
- perspective,
- mental space.
The heaviest thing in these 20 years
Not a client.
Not a project.
Not a refusal.
Not even a failure.
The hardest part was sensing the economy’s pulse before others.
Being the first link hit by uncertainty.
The first cut.
The first postponed when entrepreneurs switch to survival mode.
And this doesn’t just hit numbers.
It hits creative energy.
Internal rhythm.
Everything that makes up the life of a branding agency.
How we carried these moments
With resilience in forms no book teaches.
With faith that since branding is about the future, it remains valid even when the present shakes.
With a team that stayed, built, hoped, and supported our own brand.
And with an understanding that became our foundation: a strong brand is built in good times and proven in hard ones.
That’s why we moved forward through each of these moments.
Because after 20 years, we’ve learned the same truth: difficult times don’t stop us.
They calibrate us.
Refine us.
Sharpen the meaning of our work.
