This article originally appeared in CHARGE.
Matt Valenzia asks whether agility is really the right goal for energy brands. In a sector where disruption is a constant, he argues that resilience, built on a simple and adaptive core idea, is what helps a brand thrive through change.
CHARGE 2026 tables the notion that energy brands should become more agile to survive disruption.
I would humbly disagree.
Indeed, what does agility even mean?
Is it about moving faster?
Sure, speed creates advantage. But without direction, a cliff edge is as likely an outcome as a finish line. Just look at the experience of hapless Mr Wile E. Coyote at the hands of that fiendish Roadrunner.
Is agility about becoming lighter?
The sporting world is always rich with useful allegory. When the late, great Kelvin Kiptum broke the marathon world record in 2023, the Nikes that carried his feet home weighed 246 grammes. Three years later, Sebastian Sawe set a new record, smashing the two-hour barrier, while wearing Adidas that weighed a cool 196 grammes – and dropping 20% in weight from Kelvin’s creps.
As CHARGE delegates will know, simply shedding volume often isn’t an option in the energy industry, where organisations must manage countless critical systems, sometimes at massive industrial scale.
So, is agility about reaction?
The natural world, as ever, could hold the answer.
The star-nosed mole, named so for the remarkable facial apparatus, has, at 8 milliseconds, the fastest reaction time of any mammal on the planet.
Reactive, sure – but is that agile?
Our furry friend, I am informed, is ‘preyed upon by a wide variety of aerial, terrestrial, and aquatic animals’. The poor thing is also functionally blind. Extraordinary reactions, it seems, are no guarantee of survival.
Unlike the star-nosed mole, no one could accuse Aramco of having a record-breaking reaction time (and predators, aquatic or otherwise, have rarely troubled it). Instead, the Aramco brand has shown remarkable durability throughout its pre-eminent rise since Siegel+Gale guided it into the public eye (and a very disrupted world), before its blockbuster IPO in 2019.
Perhaps we’re asking the wrong question. Disruption isn’t an exceptional challenge for the energy industry. It’s one of its defining characteristics – an ecosystem ever exposed to, and weathered by, geopolitical realignment, technological progress, changing resource economics, shifting regulation and evolving public expectations.
If disruption is permanent (and it is, just ask the dinosaurs), why does the industry keep building brands that fold under change?
Maybe the big question faced by energy leaders isn’t simply how quickly their brands can evolve. It’s whether there is something at the heart of their brand strong, simple and adaptive enough to thrive in that change.
I would suggest that resilience is a far more suitable guiding principle for Chief Marketing Officers in the energy sector as they nurture their brand today. And resilience needs a core. It needs an idea.
That concept requires compression and interrogation. At Siegel+Gale, we call it Simplification.
It’s a way of getting to a brand simple enough to unite a leadership team, guide difficult decisions and give an organisation the confidence to evolve without losing itself. An idea intuitive enough to be adoptable, distinctive and defensible.
One you could explain to your grandmother. Or your six-year-old.
As NATO’s ex-Secretary General Lord Robertson once observed, you can’t bomb an idea.
He presumably meant a good one.
