Widen your research with these suggested journal articles. Links to SAGE articles have been provided freely.

1. Beverland, Michael B., Sarah J.S. Wilner, and Pietro Micheli (2015), “Reconciling the Tension between Consistency and Relevance: Design Thinking as a Mechanism for Brand Ambidexterity,” Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, 43(5), 589–609.

As times change, brands need to keep up and stay relevant. However, they also need to remain recognizable as themselves and maintain the existing brand. As brands work to achieve this simultaneously, the authors of this paper consider how different firms use design thinking to accomplish this brand ambidexterity. Also read on for eight practices that help brand managers maintain this ambidexterity.

2. Verganti, Roberto (2011), “Designing Breakthrough Products,” Harvard Business Review, 89(10), 114–120.

Designing a new product can often be hard, however, inventing something new can often put companies one step ahead at serving their customers. Verganti argues that in order to create new products, companies must aim to address problems that consumers aren’t even aware they have and for this, they need to look beyond the users themselves. Examples used include Apple and Nintendo.

3. Walker, Rob (2008), “Can a Dead Brand Live Again?” New York Times Magazine, May 18, 49–53.

In this compelling article for the New York Times, Rob Walker takes the reader down memory lane of brands that have fallen out of daily discourse and how companies such as River West work to revive these using their status from an anthropological and cultural viewpoint.