This is becoming a familiar pattern. Brands explode onto social media with fairy-tale success. Then the clock strikes midnight, and they are gone. I run Tony Roma's, a 54-year-old brand ranked No. 2 in Newsweek's Excellence Index, after Starbucks. Our unit count is not what it was in the 1980s, but we continue to serve customers profitably across five continents. Here's the tension: Social media has genuinely democratized entrepreneurship.
Executives, "on average, attribute 63% of their company's market value to their overall reputation." We tend to attribute high market valuations to tangible assets, such as technology or sales. The reality is that most of a company's financial power is intangible-it rests on the trust of its stakeholders. This statistic highlights a profound strategic truth: Longevity isn't about surviving but about investing in and mastering reputational capital.
Once a brand hits its stride, it can be tempting to coast. As these 2025 Brands That Matter enduring impact honorees demonstrate, longevity (in this case, 15-plus years in business) can inspire innovation. That's particularly true when it comes to finding fresh ways to engage longtime consumers-and court new ones. From Clinique leaning into its longstanding reputation among dermatologists to Lundberg Family Farms getting its shoppers to care