Branding is a powerful tool for businesses looking to grow and evolve. At a high-level, branding refers to the brand elements that shape the perception of your organization. Essentially, branding is what people say about your brand. Branding is much more than beautiful design and a catchy tagline. Branding forms opinions and experiences with regards to your brand.
What you can expect to learn from this article:
Reasons for a rebrand
Elements of a successful rebrand
Examples of strong branding
Working with a rebrand agency: The process
7 Reasons for a Rebrand
A full-service rebrand is an investment for any organization. It begs the question, when is it appropriate to hire a branding agency for a 360 brand overhaul? There are several reasons organizations require a rebrand. We’ll cover the most common factors that lead a business to seek out a brand strategist or rebranding consultancy.
Outdated brand identity
Ineffective branding leading to poor performance
Evolution of company strategy, mission, or values
Acquisitions and mergers
Market pivot or expansion
Inconsistant branding
Scaling and rapid growth
Let’s dissect each reason and the importance of branding within each scenario.
Outdated brand identity
While branding can be timeless, that’s often not the case for many organizations. It’s possible that a company’s branding was exactly what the organization needed when it was created. However, it may now look like it belongs to the 80’s. Styles change, and if your brand visuals were intended to fit in with market trends, your brand identity likely will need a refresh or rebrand.
The difference between a timeless brand and a trend-forward brand is that one brand becomes a staple and an icon, while the other gets pushed to the side for the next best thing.
In addition to aesthetics, world events and a change in social norms may make an existing brand identity obsolete. For example, a luxury car brand using only male-dominated brand campaigns would alienate the female segment, which now holds significant purchasing power and influence in the market.
Another example would be a beauty brand catering to traditional forms of beauty when the current market calls for inclusivity and diverse beauty standards. Dove’s real women branding was a catalyst for change, and a refusal to adapt to industry and cultural change could be detrimental to a brand.
If you’re looking to keep the bones of your branding while adapting to market changes, a brand refresh is appropriate. Key components to modernizing a brand:
Research
Visuals
Messaging
An easy pitfall for branding is to create a brand based on what you think you know rather than leaning on research for data-driven insights. While it’s important to consider your vision, mission, and values, it can be dangerous to build a brand off assumptions you have surrounding your consumer base.
For example, stakeholders might hold the belief that a mother would buy their car seat for safety reasons alone. While safety is a non-negotiable, mothers may be looking for car seats that provide comfort for their child to sleep well in the car while they run errands. Now you have a brand with features and relevant benefits that speak to your target audience’s desires. When you understand a buyer’s motivation, you can frame your brand strategy to touch on their pain points.
Brand Identity visuals are perhaps the most obvious branding component. A logo mark, brand colors, typography, and brand collateral, all contribute to brand recognition. A logo itself accounts for up to 80% of brand recognition. Effective logo design and brand visuals will help consumers quickly identify brands. It should be simple, scalable, and easily digestible.
To update the colors, a design team could either create a modern take on existing colors or change the primary or secondary colors. An established brand would likely not stray too far from existing brand colors as they’ve typically built brand awareness based on their current brand color and logo. For example, MailChimp updated its branding logo and colors to maintain a cutting edge look as a leader in the technology industry.
Brand communication spans into messaging. Naturally, over time, brands will adopt trends and tweak messaging to stay relevant. However, when it comes to rebranding, this typically involves a more abrupt change in brand messaging. A pivot typically involves a series of brand campaigns with the updated messaging. Changes in messaging should be reflected across marketing channels to achieve a cohesive brand experience.
Ineffective branding leading to poor performance
A strong brand strategy has the potential to unlock consumer behavior, increase brand loyalty, and build brand equity. Brand equity refers to the value a brand creates for an organization. A well-known and respected brand is likely to see more success than a lesser known brand. It’s the reason consumers buy a name brand product or service over a generic brand. You’ve likely heard the saying, “people buy from people they know, like, and trust”. The same goes for brands.
Branding can be very profitable when done well. When branding is ineffective, you’re simply leaving money on the table. While branding is often considered a lagging indicator of success, it’s advantageous to be proactive and plan out the direction your brand is going through rebranding, brand campaigns, etc.
In order to be effective as a brand, it’s important to understand what motivates consumers. Then you can speak directly to your target audience and create content that resonates with their needs and desires.
Evolution of company strategy, mission, or values
If you’ve pivoted as an organization, your mission and strategy has likely shifted. A rebrand could help you break out of outdated consumer perception. Additionally, it will help you align your brand messaging, visuals, and collateral to align with your new goals.
Considering that your audience needs may have changed, it would be fortuitous to adapt your brand to meet their current needs and expectations. Rebranding allows organizations the opportunity to reconnect with their customers through a targeted approach to increase engagement, brand loyalty, and overall brand equity.
Acquisitions and mergers
If a company is acquired or merges with another, a rebrand can bridge the gap, creating a cohesive brand. Refreshing your brand can signal growth and innovation as well as strengthen company culture. These factors can make or break an organization during mergers and acquisitions. Safeguard your organization with a strong brand that sets the tone and reassures stakeholders, consumers, and employees.
Market expansion
When expanding into new markets or industries, a rebrand can position you for success. Ensure your brand is relevant and accessible to these new audiences. They may or may not be familiar with your brand, but it’s crucial to frame your brand in the context of your new offerings.
Inconsistent branding
Inconsistent branding is most commonly found in smaller businesses and start-ups. It happens when multiple team members handle various marketing channels without a unified approach. This can lead to fragmented brand identity, which confuses customers. An inconsistent brand erodes credibility and weakens brand recognition.
It’s important to have a brand guide and style guide to illuminate team members and brand ambassadors on how to present the brand across platforms. This will achieve a streamlined audience experience anywhere they interact with your brand.
Scaling and rapid growth
During periods of growth, brands often outgrow their original branding. Organizations may have been focused solely on hitting their targets and driving business growth, which is an admirable approach. However, as your business grows and scales, the need for strong branding increases. It’s important to align your brand with your short-term and long-term goals to ensure longevity. As you move into a more competitive market landscape, your brand position works to set you apart in the market.
Elements of a successful rebrand
Clear brand strategy
Market research
Updated brand visuals and messaging
Brand rollout
Performance monitoring
Clear brand strategy
A strong brand begins with mission, vision, and objectives. Once you define these, align the brand with your business goals, values, and audience needs for a clear direction and successful brand strategy.
Market research
Conduct a thorough market research, analyzing the market. Identify your position in the market and how you can set yourself apart from the competition. Additionally, research your target audience to understand audience needs and pain points.
Updated Brand Visuals and Messaging
New brand visuals include logos, color palettes, fonts, updated web design, messaging, imagery, and brand collateral such as merchandise. Implementing the updated branding across all platforms such as website, social media, digital marketing and print materials will create a cohesive brand across all channels.
Brand Rollout
A brand rollout involves internal and external brand roll out plans. Internally, you want stakeholder buy-in. Internal alignment involves bringing leadership and employees into the rebrand process for feedback and input, creating a sense of ownership.
Externally, a brand rollout campaign is an effective way to share your new brand with your existing audience. A successful campaign can tease the rebrand, notifying your audience that change is coming. You can drip release to ease your audience into the new brand. Alternatively, you can drop the rebrand all at once for an impressive brand rollout. Sharing the ‘why’ behind the rebrand, the new direction, the process, and the result, are all powerful ways to create engagement and excitement around your brand announcement.
Performance Monitoring
Track the success of your branding efforts, monitoring performance metrics and adjusting your approach as needed post-launch.
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Examples of strong branding
**When brand identity is strong, each element of the brand should be able to stand on its own and trigger brand recognition. For example, if you think of red and yellow, what brand comes to mind? If you said McDonalds, millions of others would agree. If you see an apple with a bite missing, what brand does that surface? Apple. While those are established brands, the point is that strong brand identity visuals should connect your consumers to your brand in an instant.
Working with a rebrand agency: The process
Work with a top rebrand agency for best results. An experienced team can elevate your branding through brand strategy, design, UI/UX, a brand rollout plan, and more. When you work with a branding agency like Never Settle, here’s what you can expect:
Discovery call: We learn about your business, your goals, and your needs.
Market research: A competitor analysis is conducted, evaluating the market and identifying target audiences to inform the brand strategy.
Present findings: We’ll present our findings and recommendations to you based on your branding needs and our research findings.
Initial concepts: You’ll review a first draft with multiple versions, and you’ll have an opportunity to provide feedback.
Lock in brand strategy and brand identity: This stage finalizes the brand position, messaging, and visual elements.
Develop brand guide: We create a polished brand guide as a digestible branding handbook for your organization. For example, Never Settle partnered with a 100-year-old nonprofit on a brand overhaul, where we provided an internal brand guide to help their team navigate the rebrand. This guide educates anyone representing the brand on how to use the brand effectively and consistently across platforms.
Website update: Depending on your project, we can design and develop a website for you aligned with your new branding. This involves creating a content plan and following the same steps for initial design concept review. We can migrate and optimize your site for performance as well.
Launch: Roll out your brand to your audience! Launch your new website, update social media, implement email campaigns, and look for any press release opportunities to increase brand awareness and exposure.
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