It used to be common opinion that when a company was looking to change direction in business or give a dated logo a face-lift, that it would be facing a complicated and expensive 'Re-Branding' exercise. However it has become far more common these days for a straightforward ‘Brand Re-Fresh’ to be a better solution.
Some people think of a brand as a company’s logo or tagline. Others think of a brand as the image an organisation wishes to project. Professional marketers often define branding as having to do with the perception a company or an organisation holds in the minds of its audience.
Every interaction a person has with a brand either reinforces their perception of what it stands for, or detracts from it. This Brand Experience determines how people think and feel about a company or an organisation.
How Brand Experience can change over time…
For some companies, the Brand Experience their customers currently have may be out of alignment with what the company would like it to be.
Depending on the age of a company, there’s a good chance things have changed since it was first established. Plus, it is highly likely that marketing materials have been developed by different people with different objectives both internally and externally of company. These factors can lead to the gradual removal of focus, clarity, and continuity of the brand.
A key thing we commonly find with businesses, is that they have had to adapt and extend certain services into different areas to remain competitive and differentiate themselves from their competitors; you may have done this yourselves over the past 5 years.
What this means for the business…
What this means is that there may be some new services or areas of your business which are becoming increasingly hard to market and promote to your audience because they do not fall directly inline with your brand or original business strategy.
This is where a Brand Re-Fresh could be ideal as there is no need to change the core elements of the original brand but instead create what we would call “Sub-Brands” that sit underneath the core brand but give an identity to certain key areas of the business. This allows you much more freedom to market and promote those areas to your audiences without confusing the message with other services.
Your brand/identity is your voice to the world when you cannot speak to them directly so make sure it is saying the right things in the right way.
Quick overview of a Brand Re-Fresh against a full Re-Brand:
A Brand Re-Fresh can help when you want to:
- Reinforce your existing image
- Enhance the brand’s personality
- Prevent customers from confusing your brand with similar options
- Adapt the communication to reflect new products, services or delivery methods
- Invite new people to interact with you
A Re-Brand is what your company needs if you need to:
- Communicate a new sense of purpose, or realign customers when your company’s vision has been clouded
- Respond to a change of vision and/or values
- Introduce a new core business
- Announce a big move into a new market or business sector
- Address the global marketplace and respond to customers in different cultures
- Refocus your brand around a single name, trademark and visual identity
- Consolidate two brands into one
- Split your business into two or more core brands
- Reposition the company against your competition
- Reinforce a good reputation, or reestablish trust after a setback
Below is an example of the Viewpoint Business Services logo having a Brand Re-Fresh. The core elements are the same but it has evolved to enhance and grow the company's brand.
If you think your company could do with a Brand Re-Fresh or Re-Brand, then please contact us to arrange a meeting to discuss how we could help you – email [email protected].
