Licked. Not Stuck.

Now you can send your letter to Hermione with David Bowie’s image on the envelope.

Featuring six of his most iconic albums and four of his tours, a commemorative collection of stamps produced by the Royal Mail are marking the fiftieth anniversary of the singer’s first album. The stamps serve as a slightly incongruous (old school stamps, an absolute throwback when set against the arch innovator himself) reminder of what it is to have the capacity to regenerate and revitalise.

What made Bowie able to change the game at will and still be true to himself, when other contemporary artists get stuck in the past and obsolete by comparison?

What is it about artists, products, people or businesses that means they remain current, relevant and necessary when others fall by the proverbial wayside?

Places are the same. Look at London. So adept at regenerating itself. Soon to be creating its first new park in one hundred years with Fitzrovia’s Alfred Place being transformed in to an inner city idyll, minutes from the British Museum. And as for that half-mile long Peckham coal-line, it’s going to give New York’s highly admired High Line a run for its money.

The skyline of London serves as an exciting living physical graph charting the progress of the city. Just look at all the new funny shaped structures that have sprung up with their charmingly faux-basic utilitarian names, the Scalpel, the Stage, the Shard and that’s just the S’s to accompany the Gherkin, the Walkie-Talkie and so on. So fresh. So terribly vibrant. No wonder the tech giants are happily setting up camp in town - Groupon in King’s Cross, Snapchat in Soho, Facebook in Fitzrovia and Amazon in Liverpool Street to name just some of the recent bunch.

London, like Bowie, regenerates because it has a very clear idea of who and what it is, and just as importantly who and what it isn’t. And that, as we’ve seen time and time again is what counts. Don’t copy. Never imitate. Be yourself. Life is so much easier then. Simpler.

Businesses and their brands can learn a lot from the enduring sense of self that comes so inherently to some people and some places. And they’d be well-served to take a leaf out of those playbooks.

Hermés has it. Hermés, since 1837, the brand that was built to trot, not gallop. Hermés, for whom sales grew fourfold between 1989 and 2006 to $1.9 Billion through a smart expansion of its footprint. Hermés, the serial regenerator, the brand that Forbes ranked ahead of Netflix and Starbucks in a list of the World’s most innovative companies at number 13.

Hermés knows who it is. Like other great businesses, it is clear about what business it is in and so can fully unleash all its inventiveness in a focused way and market itself brilliantly. It is said that Hermés doesn’t have a marketing department. Just as McKinsey doesn’t have a consulting department and nor does Microsoft have a software department. Marketing is Hermés core business. Hermés knows that, and that’s that.

Whether you are looking at a half century career as an artist. Or multiple centuries of evolution as a city. Or 180 years as a leading global brand, the same principles apply for those that really want to endure beyond the flavour of the month or the new tech kid on the block. Endurance is about adapting, regenerating and revitalising to remain relevant and necessary. Like David Bowie did. Like London does. Like Hermés determines it will.

Those principles can be best expressed with three questions worth asking when not merely refreshing, but rather, regenerating and revitalising a brand. They’re the same questions that are asked when seeking to patent an idea as original, not derivative.

Is it New? Is it Non-obvious? Is it Useful?

Used as a filter, they’re a failsafe. Answering to each of those three questions is not a bad way to approach any decision about moving on or moving forward with your business. It’s how Heroes get made.

This piece was by Philip Davies, EMEA President, Siegel+Gale.