As a brand you will, at some point, have to refresh your identity. In a fast paced world full of consumers who know what they want and how they’re going to get it, it’s important for your brand to stay ahead of trends and market forces that may compromise your position if you don’t act.
Talking about a refresh of a brand identity doesn’t necessarily mean a complete rebrand. There are many examples of brand refreshes that change the look and style of a company without losing their core identity at heart. In this blog post we’ll look at how to tell if it’s a good time to refresh your brand identity – and how you should go about doing so.
Your company is evolving
You started out in a garden shed or a kitchen table, but you’ve now hired a couple of employees and you’re upping your production schedule. A brand refresh is a perfect time to tell the world that you’re taking a next step up, without changing the attitude or the outlook of the company from scratch.
You want to reach a bigger audience
This is especially true if you’re working in a B2B or niche brand and you want to open up the amount of people you expose your product to. A simple logo change, website refresh or minor change of colour palette can help with this.
You want to shake off previous connotations
Sometimes this is unavoidable – it may be that the industry you’re working in is no longer in vogue, or it may be that you’re trying to get rid of previously negative connotations of an old company. Whatever it is, connotations are easily shifted, and people’s viewpoints can help to be changed by a subtle change of brand identity or messaging.
Don’t change for the sake of it
There should, in every case, be a clear business decision behind a reason to refresh a brand identity. You will always have some equity tied up in your logo – it is after all the way your business presents itself to the outside world. That being said, a well thought out refresh can change not only a brand’s appearance and what they offer, but the way potential consumers view the brand and the confidence they have with it.
There are of course some potential risks in terms of timing – but sometimes it’s the right thing to do to refresh a brand identity even if you think people are happy and comfortable with what you’ve already got. There is however some very clear times it’d be right – if you’ve become indistinguishable from your competition for example. Sometimes the biggest gains can be had by taking risks, and a small brand refresh can often be a very small price to pay for some potentially great rewards.
If you’d like find out more about rebranding visit our branding section or to talk to someone about how a rebrand could help your business take the next step, call 0117 973 9326 or email info@meetbob.co.uk