Rebranding – here’s what you need to think about before moving forward:
Is your brand’s look, feel and messaging consistent with who you are today? Or is it out of date and off the mark? Things change quickly in the business world, and if your brand doesn’t match your brand promise and differentiators, then it’s definitely time to refresh. Brand updates are crucial to keeping your brand relevant to consumers. What worked last year doesn’t necessarily work this year. Think of rebranding as more of a facelift, leveraging existing brand equity while expanding the look, feel and messaging with fresh treatments and positioning.
Before moving forward with a brand refresh, there are several things you should consider:
1. Connect the rebrand to real change
Does your business now offer different products and services? Has your company changed direction and is trying to reach a new demographic? Your brand has to reflect these changes in a meaningful way for your audience. If you’re launching a new product or service, you need to consider how this fits into your brand and your customers’ expectations. Changing your offerings or adding something new changes how people see your organization. You need to ensure that your brand’s key messages and visual identity accurately reflect what you have to offer so that new changes will be well received. Remember, the strongest brand refreshes are those that communicate a real change in the brand’s strategy and experience.
2. Build on your current brand strengths
A rebrand doesn’t mean throwing out the baby with the bathwater. Keep the brand attributes and graphic elements that resonate most strongly with your customers and think about how to offer them up in a new, fresh way.
3. Make sure internal changes are reflected externally
Often internal changes in a company can warrant a brand refresh and new identity. Whatever the reason for these changes, they need to be communicated to your external audience. If your firm now looks different on the inside, it also needs to look different on the outside.
Develop a corporate narrative for your employees that supports the rebrand. By creating a refreshed corporate narrative to go along with the brand refresh, you’ll help everyone understand who you are, what you do, why you matter, and what the future holds for your business. If your employees understand this, communicating your company’s strengths and differentiators will become easy, clear and consistent for everyone.
Throughout the rebrand process, keep in mind that your company’s brand is more than the products you sell or the services you offer. Your brand is what you stand for as a company. It’s your belief system, your philosophy and your credibility. Those points all translate into the perception your targeted audience will see and experience, and ultimately drive their decision to align with your company as a customer.