Never Knowingly Undersold: A great way to refocus the John Lewis brand

You really appreciate good slogans when you see a bad one. Among my favourite disasters are “nothing sucks like Electrolux” (vacuum cleaners) and “cheat on your girlfriend, not on your workout" (an unsurprisingly short-lived Reebok Germany campaign in 2012).

Never Knowingly Undersold was always a great slogan, classy rather than catchy, and speaking to a deeper truth about the John Lewis brand with which it is still instantly associated: this is a business that will treat you fairly. 

The partnership’s decision to bring back the slogan – and more importantly, a modernised version of the price matching promise behind it – is inspired.

On a practical level, times have changed since the partnership had to make the no-doubt painful decision to drop Never Knowingly Undersold in early 2022.

We have reached the end of an era of aggressive digital growth, when you could barely move for online-only competitors cutting prices to grab share: we’re now firmly in a multichannel world, where customers have to be earned wherever you find them.

At the same time, technology has made the promise possible again. Whereas a few years ago, partners had to check and match prices manually, sometimes using pencil and paper, today it can do so instantly with AI, applying Never Knowingly Undersold to rivals online as well as in store.

More importantly, the price promise creates a clear, reassuring propositional statement of the retailer’s commitment to value and customer service, differentiating it in a challenging market.

It also goes a long way toward reinforcing the sense of mission inside the firm: a simple slogan, when backed up by heritage and action, can be a beacon of what you stand for.

Although some might say trust has been eroded by ditching and then restoring Never Knowingly Undersold, I think customers will give John Lewis the benefit of the doubt: it takes a lot to dislodge decades of that promise and what it stands for in the collective memory.

The company’s own market research suggests customers will welcome this back-to-the-future move, with 63% saying they’d be more likely to buy from John as a result. The fact that the promise covers online shopping should keep it relevant in a way it was struggling to do before. And the group can afford to invest to make it work, with encouraging half-year results coming out last week.

So let’s see how shoppers – and competitors – react over the crucial Christmas trading period.