When to re-brand
3
Posted under: Design
Most small to medium business have heard the term ‘branding’ thrown around before. Some think it’s a meaningless buzzword, others know that having a healthy brand is vital to the success of a company. But somewhere in the life of a business, it is essential to take a step back and re-brand, at least from a visual standpoint. But when does such a drastic decision need to be made?
When not to re-brand
Some small businesses when starting out, get a quick-and-dirty logo designed from a friend or relative. Eventually, they realize the short-sightedness of that decision when they receive negative feedback, or when they see that the identity doesn’t truly represent who they are.
Other times, a business will go through the right steps and contract a reputable, qualified freelancer or agency to brand their new company, looking at not just a logo, but the entire visual strategy that represents the goals, reputation and audience of the company. Some clients will then roll out this new brand, and then get antsy because they are not seeing instant results. This is not the time to re-brand.
Brands take time to become established. Did McDonald’s or Nike enjoy instant recognition when the golden arches or the check mark first came out? No. Will your well-thought out visual strategy instantly achieve success after six months and a few ad spots? Never. This is not the downfall of the designer or marketing team; all brands require time to grab hold of their market. Definitely keep an eye on it’s success level and act accordingly, but don’t jump the gun and re-brand if it’s not warranted.
Is your visual brand properly defining your business goals?
When you think that your brand may be losing it’s freshness, one of the key issues to ask about isn’t, “Does my logo still feel cool to me”. Personal aesthetic sensibility is never a true gauge of effectiveness. When you first branded your company, you would have received a brand strategy document and perhaps a positioning statement. At the time you may have thought that this was meaningless fluff to justify the high price tag of your brand session, but in reality these documents serve as wonderful guides to continue to point you in the right direction.
Has anything changed in your business goals? Are you now widening, or perhaps narrowing your target. Is one of your customer groups responding better than the previous markets you initially focused on selling to? Do you offer different products or services than you did when you first branded yourself? If the answer is yes, then you may want to look at revisiting your visual brand to help match your new values.
Has it been out for years and people still can’t recognize it?
If you have been out there in the public, and your customers and target audience have seen your ads, your website, signage, and stationery, and still can’t seem to remember you—this may be a time to reconsider whether your brand is working.
Remember that your brand is your reputation, not just your logo. If you can’t retain customers, it may have nothing to do with how you look visually, it may have to do with poor service, lack of supply, or whatever other reason people look to other companies to meet their demand. This is where survey’s and focus groups can come in handy, perhaps invest in some marketing research, a usability test, or any other professional way to gather information and learn why you are having problems attracting and/or retaining customers.
If the reason is just that your visual marketing pieces are boring, and not interesting your target audience, it may be time to refresh or re-brand entirely.
Has a competitor stole your thunder?
Sometimes, there’s nothing wrong with your design identity. In fact, sometimes, it’s pretty good. But one thing about humans is they adapt, their interests switch. Sometimes, you need more than just good, especially if a competitor has come out with a strong, attention-grabbing way of marketing to your customers. In this situation, simply looking professional isn’t enough. You need to jump up and down, and make a scene… in a good way.
Big companies do it all the time. Any massive BTC corporation needs to fight continually to retain market share. This is why car companies come out with new ads instead of running the old ones. It’s why phone companies who previously had little competition come out with a re-brand all of a sudden. If the big guys need to do it, you’ll need to as well.
Can you salvage anything?
A word of caution; If you decide it’s time to re-brand, be careful not to throw out the brand equity you’ve built up over the years. Even if your previous brand wasn’t working, obviously some people have seen it, maybe some have even liked it. If there is anything to salvage in your brand identity, see if there’s a way to retain it, but to take it up to a whole new level.
Take a look at some examples of classic redesigns of large companies, and notice how many times, they retain existing qualities to their old identities.
A more dynamic version of the simplistic burger icon.
Same log, new sleek look for Apple.
A recent redesign for Bell. They lost the uninspired icon, and kept a simple, but effective word mark.
For some more great versions of redesigned, check out this post on stunning examples of a great redesign.
By Condominiums Mississauga
on July 14th, 2009
Rebranding can be applied to new products, mature products, or even products still in development. The process can occur intentionally through a deliberate change in strategy or occur unintentionally from unplanned, emergent situations, such as a corporate restructuring.
By aimée andré
on August 03rd, 2009
Nice post about reband. I like your blog very much because it has very interesting articles of different topics like testking N10-004, internet, testking CISSP and testking EX0-101 and their tips and tricks. I am a very big googler and search on different topics. Between searching i found your nice blog. Thanks for your this great blog.
By Custom Web Design
on August 26th, 2009
Nice article.It’s really interesting read for me.Hope this will be useful for every one.Thanks for sharing this interesting one.Keep posting.