How to tell a brand needs a “rebuild,” why the creative team’s freedom is a marker of brand maturity, and what naming can lean on beyond product meaning
We talked about this with Sofya Konova, Head of Brand at “Mnogo Lososya”—a brand that started in 2018 as a foodtech startup in a dark-kitchen format (no dining room, no signage, focused on speed and operations), and in 2021 joined X5 Group and began scaling: beyond delivery kitchens, corners appeared in Perekrestok, and the brand expanded to new cities.
Over time, the team realised a simple thing: speed and quality are the “entry ticket.” What comes next is brand: why people choose you, what your voice sounds like, and how clearly the team understands what is “allowed” and what is “not allowed.” The FANATIC team helped Mnogo Lososya understand and structure its brand.
In your view, what are the signs that a business needs a brand “rebuild”—or even to reinvent it from scratch? What breaks, and at what stage?
It’s time to act if: the brand relies on discounts; marketing exists but growth doesn’t; you keep copying others.
There are only three scenarios:
The shell has broken: the product is strong, but the packaging is outdated. Here you rebuild the visuals, tone of voice, and focus.
Positioning has broken: it’s unclear who you’re for and why people should choose you. Here you need to dig deeper: revisit the audience, value, promise—sometimes even the category.
The core has broken: you depend on a single channel or “feature,” the team doesn’t believe in the brand, and without the logo there’s nothing left. This is “reinventing from scratch”: a new idea, business logic, sometimes even a new name.
One question that shows whether a brand needs a “rebuild”
“If tomorrow we remove all the visuals and all the advertising—what will people love us for?”
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if there’s a clear answer → rebuild
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if the answer is vague → deep rebuild
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if there’s no answer → a new brand
Tell us how Mnogo Lososya started and how it has evolved over time. What stages did it go through, and what became the turning point in rethinking its idea and role?
It all started with our founders sitting in the kitchen and sketching Mnogo Lososya’s business model on a napkin. Then came a long period of building: for three years, the brand operated without a marketing department and without its own delivery.
The turning point was 2025, when we realised that basic attributes like quality and taste no longer work as differentiators. We decided we wanted to find something emotional—something that reflects us, our projects, and the customers who choose Mnogo Lososya.
What is naming for core products and special projects usually based on? Do you have a system and principles? If so, how do they relate to the brand idea?
We don’t have a single fixed system, but we do have three anchors we rely on.
Three anchors for naming
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Brand meaning, values, and tone of voice (TOV)
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Consumer emotion and insight (if there is one)
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Product and communication context
Names are small brand touchpoints: they set the mood and reinforce the brand idea in every project.
How much creative freedom does the marketing team have, and how do you balance it with the brand idea? How do brand (image) channels interact with performance today?
The team is as free as its understanding of the brand is strong. If you have to prohibit a lot, it usually means the brand hasn’t been articulated—not that the team is “wrong.”
The biggest shift of 2025–2026 is that brand and performance are no longer parallel worlds. Marketing’s strategic goal now is to connect meaning and action into a single chain.