If you find yourself planning another discount promo just to hit revenue targets, keep reading on.
The pattern we see with some brands: discount offer, new collection launch, repeat. Most already know that when discounts become your default growth lever, customers start waiting for sales instead of seeking you out year-round. But sometimes the quick win is hard to resist. If it's time to break the cycle, the answer lies in brand moments that build equity over time.
What Pricing Power Actually Is (And Isn't)
Pricing power isn't about raising prices or being more expensive. It's about being 'worth it' any time of year. Brands with pricing power hold their price because their differentiation is clear and their value is undeniable. They compete on meaning, not price.
Promo sales are valid, but they become dangerous when you can't hit targets without them. We've seen this play out more than once with DTC brands. A brand trains customers for years to wait for sales. E-commerce becomes unprofitable, only spiking during launches or promos. Eventually, the strategy shifts to treating online as a channel that no longer drives profit, and brands pin growth hopes on physical retail instead.
How Brands Are Weaning Off the Discount Cycle
The brands making this shift aren't going cold turkey. That's not realistic when you've got revenue to protect. What they're doing is creating space while the foundation gets built.
1. The discount calendar gets audited
They look at last year's promos and ask which ones really moved the needle. The under performers get scaled back or cut. Some shorten the promo window by half. Others gradually dial back discount depth over time: 25% becomes 20%, then 15%.
2. The calendar gets planned around narrative, not just drops
Instead of building the year around product launches, stronger brands map out the messages they want to own. They ask different questions:
- What's happening in the world or in their customers' lives that makes the brand relevant?
- What do they stand for that isn't tied to what they sell?
- What shift are they trying to create?
These become the narrative anchors for the year and the centerpiece for brainstorming calendar ideas. In practice, this looks like brand campaigns or activations that aren't tied to a product drop: cultural moments, partnerships, content series with no 'Shop Now' attached.
E.l.f Beauty shows this well. Brand purpose and values take center stage alongside just four product launches per year. They still show up for major sales events, but they're not dependent on them. Looking back at E.l.f with 77% sales growth in 2024, taking a closer look at their marketing calendar that year, they carved out space for storytelling, collaborations, and brand-building initiatives rooted in their brand’s purpose and letting their core values take center stage.
Why the Cycle Persists
What keeps teams trapped isn't the discount itself. It's the mandate. When KPIs are tied to year-over-year growth at all costs, every campaign has to convert immediately or it's written off. There's no permission to invest in something that won't show up this quarter. Brand-building never gets off the ground.
The way out is building a brand strong enough that discounts become a choice, not a crutch. When margin pressure comes, brands with pricing power have room to move. The ones stuck in the discount cycle don't.If you're looking at your calendar and recognizing the pattern, we'd be happy to talk it through. Sometimes it helps to have an outside perspective on what your narrative anchors could be, or just to pressure-test whether the shift makes sense for where your brand is right now. >>Click here to contact us<<
Author: Effie Asafu-Adjaye
Effie Asafu-Adjaye is the Founder of Beautiful Sparks. Beautiful Sparks helps beauty and fashion businesses get more fanatics in love with their brands, by refining their brand identity, content storytelling and community-building strategy. Read more about Effie here. Linkedin.
