Mark Ritson has delivered a blunt verdict on corporate rebranding in his latest column for The Drum: most of it is expensive nonsense. His exception, in the same breath, is PwC.

The column lands as a rare defence of a rebrand from a commentator best known for attacking marketing excess. Ritson's position carries weight with marketing leadership because he has spent years arguing that brand work often substitutes for strategy. When he says a rebrand was worth the money, CMOs take note.

What does Ritson actually claim?

His argument, as framed by the headline, splits corporate rebranding into two categories. The first is the majority case: rebrands that burn budget without serving a strategic purpose. The second is the exception, where a rebrand does real work for the business. PwC, he argues, sits in the second camp.

For a marketing-leadership reader, that distinction is the actionable part of the piece. It shifts the question from "should we rebrand?" to "what would a rebrand have to accomplish before it earns its cost?" Ritson's framework implies a rebrand is defensible only when it tracks a genuine change in the business, not when it refreshes aesthetics for their own sake.

Why does the PwC exception matter to CMOs?

The exception is what separates this column from routine rebrand-bashing. Trade press regularly covers rebrand criticism; a named, positive counterexample from a skeptical voice is rarer and more useful.

It gives CMOs a defensible reference point when boards ask why a rebrand is — or is not — on the table. If a commentator known for calling out expensive nonsense can be persuaded by one case, that case becomes a benchmark. The implied test: does the rebrand serve the underlying business reality, or does it merely redecorate it?

What should marketing leaders take from it?

The practical read for CMO teams:

• Treat rebrand proposals as strategy questions first and design questions second.
• Expect the default answer to a rebrand pitch to be no — the burden of proof sits with the proposal.
• Study cases where a rebrand clearly mapped to something the business actually did, which is how Ritson frames PwC's effort.
• Be skeptical of rebrands justified by trends, anniversaries or new agency relationships rather than by a change in what the company offers or how it competes.

Ritson's verdict also functions as a budget argument. In a period where marketing spend faces tighter scrutiny, a column arguing that most rebrands waste money — while conceding one did not — gives CFOs and CMOs a shared vocabulary for evaluating brand expenditure.

The full column, published by The Drum, lays out the case in Ritson's own terms. Marketing leaders weighing a rebrand, or defending the decision to skip one, will find in it a usable litmus test rather than a blanket verdict.