So where were you for the SNP’s National Campaign Day on Saturday? Were you one of those who answered the First Minister’s call to join him on the streets, or did you wait, and wait, for a knock at the door from one of Humza’s army? We know what this is: it’s an attempt at a refresh, a new approach. But look at history. We can see what happens next.

The day of campaigning, or attempt at a rebrand (for that is what it is) suggests that a number of things are happening in the SNP, some public, some definitely not. The most obvious, and most pressing, is Humza Yousaf’s attempt to portray himself as super-progressive and lefty, hence all the chat about increasing taxes on higher earners. The reason he’s doing it is because his advisors can see the polls. Labour could win 15 seats next time, maybe 20 who knows, and the Tories are nowhere. And so the SNP turns left. Or appears to at least.

The second, and more undercover, part of the rebrand is on independence. We know now that Mr Yousaf has no faith in the whole de-facto-referendum malarkey favoured by Nicola Sturgeon. There are also signs from within the party that they’re shifting to longer-term and are acknowledging – at long, long last – that for another referendum to happen, you need a large and consistent majority among the population, not some slim majority of MSPs (if you include the Greens).

Michael Gove said something interesting on this subject the other day. Speaking at the Scottish Tory conference, he suggested the SNP was seeking a rebrand because they realised the case for independence had been compromised by the failures of the Scottish Government. I guess he would say that wouldn’t he, but his suggestion that the SNP will pitch itself as “Scotland’s party” with independence on the backburner for now has the ring of truth about it.

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Of course, what makes the strategy harder to spot, particularly deep within the woods of the Yes movement, is that Mr Yousaf must implement it while still pretending that imminent independence is still possible/likely/any-day-now-folks. That’s why he demanded another referendum when he met the Prime Minister the other day. But did we really think Mr Yousaf’s heart was in it? Did we really think he meant what he said?

The trick for the First Minister, if the SNP really is to recover to some extent, is that he (or the man or woman who’ll succeed him sooner or later) needs to pay attention to some of the lessons on branding, and rebranding, we can learn from the world of politics and commerce. Brands that look unbeatable can suddenly disappear and brands that look like they’ve had their day can revive. It means the lessons aren’t necessarily easy to spot but a party that ignores them is probably going to run into trouble.

For the sake of making things easy, let’s divide the possible lessons up into four, named after brands that have had, how can we put it, mixed fortunes: Debenhams, Ratner, the Tory party, and Bud Light. The point about Bud Light, if we can start with that one, is that the company’s recent controversial collaboration with the trans influencer Dylan Mulvaney appeared to backfire (sales tanking, all the rest of it) because it misunderstood, or ignored, its audience.

What the company was trying to do was logical in a way: it’s called micro-marketing and it’s about targeting very specific parts of the potential customer base using people they like or listen to. But it also shows that your core audience will only tolerate so much divergence from what they think your brand is about. The Bud Light market is socially conservative and hasn’t moved as fast on issues such as trans rights as 18-year-old students have and the same applies to a large chunk of the SNP’s support.

The second part of all this could be called the Debenhams lesson, although a better word might be warning. There was a time, when our mums went there every weekend for a wee browse and a cup of tea, when Debenhams seemed unassailable (the same could be said of Woolies or any other number of brands from the past). But, quite quickly when the ground shifted, Debenhams disappeared forever and their big, forlorn, empty stores are still on the high street to remind us it can happen.

I’m not saying there are always direct parallels between high street brands and political ones, but the Debenhams story can act as a reminder of something that’s also true in politics. There have been political parties who people might have assumed would be around forever: the Liberal party in the 19th century for example or the Labour party in Scotland in the 1990s. The point is that things can change and parties that seem dominant and undefeatable can (slowly bit by bit, or fast in a puff of smoke) disappear, and disappear forever.

The third lesson is named after Ratners, the jewellery chain that tanked big-time when its former boss Gerald Ratner described its products as “total crap”. The obvious message here is that you should never slag off your own brand and must remain loyal to it at all costs (and, until recently, the SNP has remained pretty good at that). But the deeper lesson is that it only works if the facts match the message. Mr Ratner could have said his products were “good value for money for people on a budget” and we’d have believed him; no harm done. But if the SNP says “everything’s fine” when it isn’t and refuses to accept the truth about the current state of its brand, the denial can do just as much damage.

Which brings us to the last lesson of all, from a perhaps surprising source: the Tories. There was a time, when the party was led by William Hague and Iain Duncan Smith, when it looked like it was doomed to extinction and would never return to power. But the truth is that, even for a successful party like the Tories, there are peaks and troughs, ebbs and flows, smooth bits and potholes, and the same applies to the SNP. The temptation among unionists is to assume, or hope, that the current crisis might be the beginning of the end for the SNP, but Mr Yousaf is right to point out that they’re still out in front in the polls. It’s a trough but not a particularly deep one.

Does the SNP understand all of this though? I’m not sure. Mr Yousaf still has a tendency to talk as if it was five years ago. He also needs to realise, as Nicola Sturgeon herself did, that momentum for the new regime includes making a public break with the past, however painful. On the other hand, he does appear to accept that the SNP brand is not as shiny as it once was. You can no longer see your face in it. It needs buffing up. A polish. A rebrand. Problem is: there’s no guarantee it’ll work.