Dear 9 to 5, we need to talk. The revolution got sold.
You can keep your half-price desks, bowling alleys and fluorescent lights. We’ll keep the humans, the heart, and the reason people joined coworking hubs in the first place.
According to the Australian Financial Review, coworking is “back with a vengeance.” But somewhere between the kombucha taps, the bowling alleys and the obsession with square metres, the industry — the one I’m part of — has lost its plot.
From rebellion to real estate.
Coworking once stood for something. It began as an intentional, community-led movement — a rebellion against cubicles and corporate beige. Built on freedom, trust, and creativity, it was a human-first way of working before human-first became a LinkedIn cliché. It was about people connecting, belonging and growing together.
Now, alongside cocktail bars and wellness studios, we have operators offering 50 per cent off memberships to fill desks before the end of the year.
That isn’t a comeback; it’s a clearance sale. And it reveals a deeper issue: a brand problem.
The brand problem hiding in plain sight
According to the AFR article, WOTSO opened five new sites, grew earnings by 14 per cent and lifted revenue to $32 million. You might call that success. Yet it still reported a pre-tax loss of $4.4 million. The Hub has posted similar results, with $64 million in revenue and a $33.7 million loss.
That’s not growth; it’s the illusion of it.
And as a brand strategist, I see what’s really going on: a category caught in a branding crisis.
This isn’t just about coworking. It’s what happens when a business model starts chasing occupancy over meaning, visibility over value.
When brand strategy disappears, marketing becomes a band-aid: a discount code, a new fit-out, a bowling alley. The irony is that these gimmicks look like innovation, but they’re brand erosion in real time.
The discount trap
Across Meta ads, eDMs and billboards, the coworking industry has entered a full-blown discount war. “50% off for the first three months” has become the norm. This is a war we are actively avoiding at ko&co workhub. Because connection, work and belonging are not something you can markdown. They are also not sound brand or marketing strategies; they’re margin giveaways disguised as growth.
In brand theory, this is known as short-term activation bias: the obsession with quick sales at the expense of long-term brand building and sustainable growth.
Les Binet and Peter Field proved in their landmark IPA study, The Long and the Short of It, that brands that over-invest in activation and under-invest in brand building may enjoy short-term revenue spikes. Still, they sacrifice long-term profitability, trust and pricing power.
Loyalty erodes. Price sensitivity rises. Distinction disappears. And when distinction disappears, a bowling alley appears!
The Ehrenberg-Bass Institute’s work reinforces the same pattern: sustained market share comes from mental availability and distinctive brand assets, not constant discounting.
Sound familiar? That’s exactly what’s happening in coworking.
Discounts might fill space, but they empty meaning. They create transactions, not trust; clicks, not community. In marketing terms, they’re not a strategy — they’re brand erosion disguised as growth. And the bowling alleys, kombucha taps and wellness studios? They’re symptoms of the same problem — trying to buy a connection instead of building it.
From brand building to brand dressing
The most telling part of this moment is that none of these new perks —the free barista, the bowling lane, the kombucha tap — have come from what the audience asked for.
As the AFR article points out, many of the people “coming back to coworking” are doing so because they don’t want to work from home anymore. They want structure, human energy, and focus. Not a cocktail bar. Not a bowling alley.
This is what happens when marketing replaces listening.
Instead of designing spaces around people, the industry has started designing attractions — and, in doing so, has forgotten the brand truth that made coworking different in the first place: it was human-first.
When a category stops listening to its audience and starts performing for attention, it loses meaning —and, with it, long-term value.
That’s brand erosion, and no fit-out can fix it.
The future of work — and brand — isn’t for sale
Strip away the gimmicks, and coworking’s purpose is simple: to bring humans together to do meaningful work.
Most small-business owners don’t need shopping experiences or an in-house barista (especially when you live in Melbourne!). They want focus, structure and belonging. A place to feel part of something again while they are building and growing their business.
That isn’t a facilities problem; it’s a brand opportunity.
Because the strongest brands — whether in coworking, services or consumer goods — are built on understanding what people genuinely need. When brands stop listening to people and start designing for optics, they lose the very empathy that gives them value.
Brand strategy is how you prevent that. It’s the compass that aligns purpose, people and product. It turns culture into consistency and meaning into momentum. Without it, you end up with square metres and benefits — but no soul.
A different way to work — and to brand
Coworking doesn’t need to be louder. It just needs to remember who it was built for, and why.
ko&co workhub is a boutique brand, marketing and coworking hub in South Melbourne. We help founders and small businesses make sense of their brand, marketing and workplace — so everything else flows.
Whether you’re looking to shape your brand or find your place to work, let’s start with a conversation. Book a 30-minute discovery call or come and visit us at the workhub.
