branding

Props to this British Guy for Selling hardcore why your brand is important in the first place

….now let’s talk about the “Re-brand”

Things you need to consider..?

1. What’s the reason behind the rebrand?

BUT FIRST. Branding 100:  Brand – A brand is a name, term, design, symbol, or other feature that distinguishes an organization or product from its rivals in the eyes of the customer.

Now continue.

When deciding whether a re-brand is the right solution for your business or persona, you need to considering why you are doing it, and what communication problems the re-brand can help solve?

A re-brand can be a major mental undertaking when stressing about business operations, but lining up with a professional marketing and communications firm can help with many of the concerns. Reasons why you might need to rebrand include:

1. Brand new Company (okay….it’s not a rebrand, just brand development, but we thought it would be good to put here).
2. Damage to your company’s reputation (Have multiple examples of these issues, especially from online).
3. Confusion with another brand or lack of differentiation from competitors
4. New ownership or buying a business from an old owner and now making it your own.
5. A shift in your target audience
6. A change in  product and service offering
7. Need for a brand new brand strategy

All this is meant or reasons to take companies from the Now and the “When I’ve made it moment” we talk about in the Environmental Scan booklet. If you haven’t did that process yet, make sure you talk to Ryan or one of the team members at Market*TING about how to go through that process.

Do a re-brand because you want to increase profits, or just want a new look is fine. Our company helps all types and sorts, but having a clear vision of results is important as well and will make the process easier for us, and for your business.

2. Brand perception and what is the real, and what is the fake?

Pregunta?  (Question in Spanish)

What do people hear, think of, or say when they mention your brands name? Do the identifiers do it justice? If not what identity do you want them to have, when thinking of you? Do you think your brand is the top of the class, but on the street people value your products and services like the blue light special (dating myself….maybe), or just as comparable to every one else.  The environmental scan might resolve some truths or perceptions customers, and people have about your business that you did not know.  A Qualitative Research Perception study might also dig into what your clients, customers and others are thinking about you brand.

Alternatively, if you’d like us to conduct a environmental scan,  investigate a perception study, and/or re brand! That’s a lot right, but we  would like to leverage our experience and expertise. So you know what to do…send us an email to rscott@market-ting.com or give us a buzz at: +1 317.847.3904 We will work anywhere (But we prefer a tropical paradise, and meetings on a beach…and we are serious).  Let’s talk today!!!

If you’ve gotten this far in the article you might already be ready to pull the trigger, and I commend you. Not for just making the next move in your re-brand decision, but continuing to read through this, cause writing NOT my labor of love. But also the reason why we hire content writers for our PR and Communication strategy projects!

3. What am I working with (Resources)?

Some say a re-brand is no just a graphic designer churning out a new logo, well that is a re-brand to some, but you already know when working with Market*TING you just don’t work with a graphic designer, but you are taken through an entire creative process.

I like to separate the re-brand into two different phases:

I. The Visual re-brand.

II. The psychological re-brand (when you really change the game on how people thing of you)

This might flip some of my clients out! You don’t have to do a logo re-brand to re-brand, we just love getting rid of old logos that really do need to be updated, or changed, but it’s not impossible to remain with the same logo (even even same visual identifiers and not change the logo…it is detrimental though that messaging is different. Topic for another day.)

A re brand is definitely a multiple phased approach that can include aspects that affect or even change: your business name, business associations, taglines, company culture, brand values, brand identifiers, mission, vision, value and position statements. Along those lines your messaging and content, and hopefully marketing material (digital and print) will also change, although so many people keep things the same….sometimes to their detriment.

Don’t forget the  original questions I tossed out to you in the beginning, “Why the heck am I about to do this?”

Other key tidbits at this point include:

1. Who is going to be involved in the process?
2. Who is the main decision maker?
3. Who is the final decision maker (Because sometimes these first three people are all different, and that really makes a marketer rip his hair out.)
4. How will you give and receive feedback.
5. How do you plan on telling customers of these changes….don’t surprise them like The Gap.

Here’s a stupid thing that I guess I have to tell people, but I am never sure why..? You need a budget to pay for a re-brand, and NO having your wife and kids sit down and ask them what they think really isn’t the same value as a professional companies consulting time on this….I promise.

 Costs and efforts YOU should be thinking about:  Market Research (informal/formal qualitative/quantitative), photography, video, content writing (copy/messaging), production of NEW LOOK branded collateral, campaigns (to announce new brand), and intellectual property costs and fees (we are not lawyers but know you will get sued if you don’t do things correctly).

4. What’s my timeline?

Let’s be honest Mr./Mrs. Client you will drag this process out traditionally longer than I (The consultant) but before we get started please DO consider what’s the timeline that you not only want to come up with the finished product, but also how and when you launch it to the public (not to mention what that looks like). I have had a pretty good record with clients going through the re-brand process, but things haven’t always been perfect. Sometimes people have aggressive time frames (but not the patience to follow through on finishing the process).

The biggest mistake would be throwing out a random number on how long the re brand process might take….and that is a hard thing to answer because not all re-brands are created the same. Market*TING personally has gone through the process multiple times and the process can take a few months to 1 year or 2 depending on how many stages you take to reveal elements of your brand.

Some would argue a brand re-fresh is maybe a quicker option, and that is possible. But that could mean just changing the design of the logo, updating materials, or  1. Communicating the same messaging, but switching the look and feel OR  2. Keeping the same look and feel, but switching the messaging.

IF you are looking for  STRONGER BRAND LOYALTY, MORE FOCUSED MARKETING STRATEGY AND MORE LEADS, A re-brand might be the right move for your organization.   What can a bigger, SMARTER brand do for you?

What ever steps or direction you take, give us a call! Market*TING was started to give companies great ideas! Send us an email to rscott@market-ting.com or give us a buzz at: +1 317.847.3904 We will work anywhere (But we prefer a tropical paradise, and meetings on a beach…and we are serious (2X)).  Let’s talk today!!!