Tariffs and brands: from disruption to direction

Tariffs don’t just shake up markets and the daily news cycle, they shake up meaning. While they raise prices and dramatically redraw sourcing maps, they also have the power to nudge consumers into a far more intentional mindset.

Tariffs provoke questions: Where is this made? Why does it cost more now? What makes it worth it? These aren’t just economic queries, but invitations for brands to reveal deeper stories, craft bolder value propositions and sharpen their identites to propel their business into the new reality.

When tectonic shifts hit the market, most panic, a few pivot, and exceptional brands take the opportunity to reposition with purpose. What’s stopping you from joining the latter group?

Let’s explore some ways in which smart brands are harnessing these fundamental shifts, turning them into opportunities:

Local: from km0 luxury to responsiveness and reliability

When global sourcing gets complicated, brands can double down on where they’re from to adjust their business to the new reality. When provenance becomes philosophy, there are new opportunities for local stories to find new power as equivalents or reinterpretations of international favourites. “Made in” may have been a marker of quality, authenticity or luxury, but now has the power to represent a way of doing things or a guarantee of increased responsiveness and reliability. Being near means more now, and is no longer a “nice to have”: shorter chains, local fulfillment, and regional service are key differentiators in a more functionally stressed world.

Transparency: from risk to reward

Over the last few years, brands are discovering that consumers don’t just accept honesty, they reward it. Real and candid storytelling has never been so relevant, and while many players turned to building this particular brand voice in calmer times, could this be the moment to really harness its power? When brands bring customers into the real story behind price, delays, and uncertain sourcing, loyalty grows - making your business more resilient.

Challenges: from irritation to ingenuity

In a similar way, navigating supply stress isn’t just an operational headache, it’s a brand narrative. The path through turbulence becomes a signal of the grit, integrity, and staying power that consumers are expecting from the market. Furthermore, scarcity forces invention, and there is an understanding that constraints push better ideas in terms of material shifts, design hacks and smarter formats. There is an opportunity for brands to integrate this mindset into their brand narrative and become top-of-mind for problem solving and operational excellence. Amid flux, reliability wins hearts. Brands that keep promises, despite chaos, become beacons of calm and control.

Price: from positioning to purpose

For businesses that import or export, tariffs inevitably translate to a higher price tag. However, a higher price tag is easier to accept when the story backs it up. When cost rises, the quality and depth of brand narrative must rise too, aligning value with values. In the age of trade friction, even mundane products can gain mystique when they have an international element. Tariff disruption turns the familiar into the rare, and the rare into something worth savoring. When products become harder to find, brands can take the opportunity to reposition them as rare, desirable, and worth the chase.

Narrative: from story to stance

Is neutrality out? In a charged landscape, a clear stance on trade, sourcing, or sustainability adds relevance and resonance. If your brand is international by nature, you have the opportunity to defend and promote international exchange, and justify your commitment to making consumers’ lives richer through the transnational meaning your products have acquired.

To make sense of these shifts, we created a quadrant model to help brands locate their best narrative play.

Two key tensions define it:

Tension 1: Rediscover Local vs Better from Abroad
Are you going to create value by rooting deeper into your origins, or by championing excellence from elsewhere?

Tension 2: King of the Moment vs Betting on the Future
Are you a brand which gains credibility around winning today’s battle or are you planting flags for tomorrow’s relevance?

These tensions form four distinct narrative zones—each one a different strategic stance. The names of these zones are their narratives. Here’s how each quadrant delivers a winning story:

Quadrant 1: Tomorrow Starts (Right) Here

While reindustrialisation is the nebulous promise of tariff-setters, industry players can cash in now by localising their technological edge.

(Rediscover Local + Betting on the Future)
Local doesn’t have to mean nostalgic luxury any more - if you feel like it’s you against the world, the time may be right to become the visionaries you always felt you were.

A local product enjoys a newfound relevance when trade friction builds, and can take the opportunity to be bold and forward looking, bringing the global technology narrative to consumers with a local edge.

Become: leading, visionary, accessible, futuristic, innovative

Example: EBRO: “Reinventar, qué palabra tan nuestra.” A new range of personal vehicles manufactured in Spain using designs from Chinese manufacturer Chery. The historic Spanish brand is set up to compete with similar new competitively-priced car brands in the market as a closer, more trustworthy and more local competitor which is still able to lead in terms of innovation and technology.

Quadrant 2: Worth the Wait

We may be entering a world where leading design takes on a new, exotic meaning.

(Better from Abroad + Betting on the Future)
Patience signals value. When international sourcing slows things down, brands in this quadrant win by dramatizing craftsmanship, building storytelling rarity, and pinning their value on the bygone virtues of international trade, in a way that justifies their newfound premiumness.

Become: authentic, deliberate, unique, eccentric, design-centric

Example: 8BitDo, a Hong-Kong based manufacturer of computer peripherals bets on reinvented retro hardware aimed at European and American enthusiast gamers, evoking the golden age of Japanese gaming systems which offering technologically advanced products which command a heavy premium against those found on marketplaces such as Temu.

Example: Mazda’s Crafted in Japan positioning takes its perception in the market: accessible technology, practicality and difference in design, and pivots it towards a slower, more luxurious interpretation of quality craftsmanship and uniqueness.

Quadrant 3: Here All Along

No longer a luxury, locally-sourced goods and products should make the most of their local attributes in a more practical sense.

(Rediscover Local + King of the Moment)
Speed and service meet substance. Brands that lean into local infrastructure, regional pride, and community embeddedness win trust. In this quadrant, being here now means being essential and relevant.

Become: trustworthy, knowledgable, down-to-earth, dependable

Example: Fotus, a Danish supermarket chain is featuring black stars on its labels for EU-sourced products to build transparency, empower consumer choice and set the stage for a battle to keep US-origin products stocked in these unstable times of price hikes and limited availability.

Quadrant 4: Luxury in the Now

Geographically-tied products have to justify their price and scarcity, building on their time-sensitive nature to premiumise.

(Better from Abroad + King of the Moment)
The fleeting becomes fascinating. Tariffs create scarcity, and scarcity creates theatre. Brands win here by leaning into exclusivity, cultural cachet, and time-sensitive desirability.

Become: ephemeral, premium, exclusive, comforting, aspirational

Example: Faire was launched as a direct response to the UK’s ill-fated departure from the European Union, offering small-scale producers of artesanal or low-volume goods a red-tape-relieving shipping solution, with a brand centred around authenticity that promised to provide greater opportunities to justify positioning their products at higher price points with longer shipping times when exporting to other European countries.

Five Questions to Guide Your Strategy

Use this quadrant as more than a model - use it as a mirror.

Here are five questions to help locate your brand’s potential in this new landscape:

1. Is your value rooted in where you're from, how you deliver, or what you mean?

2. How are your audiences reframing value in response to scarcity and price shifts?

3. What new associations could scarcity or origin unlock for your category?

4. What does 'local' allow you to do faster, smarter, or better right now?

5. How can friction sharpen your identity instead of blurring it?

Want to turn disruption into direction?

When things get hot, branding gets interesting. Tariffs are more than a policy, they're a prompt. They’re an opportunity to reframe, refresh, and reassert what makes you matter through your brand.

At Imparalel Brand Works, we help brands transform volatility into strategic clarity. If you’re navigating tariffs, tension, or tectonic shifts, we’ll help you find the story and the stance that moves you forward.

We don’t just tell stories, we shape strategic narratives built to stand the heat of regulatory friction, and travel in First Class wherever they go. Our insight, linguistic agility, and cross-sector intelligence help brands not only respond, but lead in uncertain times.