Rebrand Now or Forever Hold Your Peace

Branding is big. When it comes to the identity of your business, your branding is what people think of first. If the current rendition of your branding has a few years worth of miles on it, your brand relevancy has faded. Meaning, it may be time to revisit whether you need a brand refresh or a full rebrand. We’ll also explore the value of your brand as a small to medium-sized business (SMB), and establish why NOW is the best time to tackle your business’s branding challenges.

Does Your Business Need a Brand Refresh or a Full Rebrand?

Distinguishing whether your brand requires a refresh or a rebrand makes all the difference when understanding the scope of what’s needed to receive accurate quotes from agencies. Let’s start by defining our terms.

Branding is an alignment of what you want people to think of your company with what they honestly think. Branding is not your logo. Branding establishes the “why” of your business—and no, this isn’t another Simon Sinek book club blog post. Branding grounds the look and feel, message, voice, unique values, vision, mission, and positioning of your business.

Unless you’re nerdy about branding like we are it’s likely that when you think of rebranding, you’re actually thinking about a brand refresh. Take a recent real-world example of a brand refresh by Pentagram design for Yahoo’s new logo.

This new logo and brand identity are an example of Yahoo's new brand refresh. Major corporate acquisitions, on the other hand, often require full rebrands. For generations, Old Spice was known as your grandfather’s deodorant. Old Spice wanted to shift the perception of their products in the minds of consumers so they rebranded and rolled out a full campaign to target younger demographics alongside the release of a new line of scents. Soon they became one of the most popular men's deodorant and body wash brands on the market thanks to an iconic, comedic, and self-aware re-positioning campaign.

Conversely, for the vast majority of small to medium-sized businesses, the itch for fresh branding is often an indication of growth. If that’s the case for you, kudos to your team. Branding begins with determining the motivation behind a new identity. With a rebrand, everything changes. You might sell the same products, or provide the same services, but your value to clients shifts as a result. So, how far do you need to go to revitalize your company? Reflect on the following questions when determining whether or not you should rebrand:

• Have you outgrown your current brand?
• Does your brand need to catch up with your growing business?
• Are you targeting a new demographic?
• Do you want a new domain to make your site more easily accessible?

Answering “yes” to any of these questions provides legitimate grounds for a possible rebrand.

With Great Capital Growth Comes Great Branding Responsibility

Whether you’re a B2C or B2B business, your branding significantly influences the likelihood of a new customer choosing to do business with your company. That’s because first impressions are strong and lasting impressions. Does your branding still reflect the perceived values of your audience? As businesses achieve success and grow larger, it’s easy to slip into an impersonal visual brand identity with jargon driven communications. It happens to plenty of successful companies that grow quickly. The sterilization of growing business occurs when branding isn’t prioritized within the growing foundation of your business’s image. But don’t fret, we assure you it’s alright for your brand to show a little personality, in fact, people love it.

Times change quickly, and although it’s important to remain firm in your core values and identity, a regular realignment of how your business communicates its positioning is often overdue. You’ve likely seen it yourself, companies that don’t adapt tend to struggle because yesterday’s success doesn’t equal tomorrow’s success. Innovating your brand means future-proofing your business with a customer-facing marketing strategy that positions your company to flourish and grow. So, how can you begin innovating your brand right away?

Start by revisiting your messaging framework and brand platform. Discover the developments of your brand that uniquely make up your company’s identity. Your brand platform, for example, consists of your brand values, brand promise, USPs, and more. Your brand may already be unique, but the relevance and effectiveness of your messaging fade over time. We work with you to update and completely transform the way your brand is expressed, from high-level messaging to brand placement, we make your brand more personable in the process.

So, how can you identify the right time for a rebrand?

The Best Time to Rebrand is Now

If you know that if sometime within the next five years you anticipate you’ll want to move toward a new brand identity, then now is the best time to take the first step in rebranding. The longer you wait, the longer it will take for your customers and your employees to adopt the transition across all touchpoints. This either delays the rollout in the first place or increases the odds for pushback if your rebrand isn’t strategically executed by a team of experts. Not to mention, the more pain you’ll potentially occur by losing out on new business and the compound return you’d receive from reassessing your branding sooner.

The world is continuously evolving with new tastes and innovations within your marketplace and new demands from customers. Although good branding takes time, the decision to take action today can preserve the active longevity of your brand’s relevance and perceived value well into tomorrow. Don’t let your brand become obsolete by postponing the inevitable. If you’re a disruptive force in your industry, then to continue to stand out from your competition with a brand that’s ready to take on tomorrow.

Our team serves as brand consultants to small to medium-sized businesses who look to revamp their branding and refine their messaging. However, before we help brands like yours spread the gospel about your business, you need to begin with the word. That’s where we can help. We partner with medium-sized enterprises and big companies that want to become more accessible to their clientele, develop brand awareness, and develop preeminence within their marketplace. How? We put the personality back into their branding and marketing communications. Many restaurant suppliers, logistics companies, tech suppliers, and other commercial and industrial suppliers are all still relying upon the fading impact that their once potent brand had. Eventually, every brand needs to upgrade. Don’t delay and detract from your business. Reach out today!