In our last blog post, we shared a quiz to help you figure out whether it was time to modernize your brand. If you realized your brand was overdue for an update, you might be wondering: What comes next? A rebrand or brand refresh is a big project, and it can be challenging to figure out where to begin — especially if you’ve never done one before. So to help you start off on the right foot, we’re going to discuss exactly which steps you should take after deciding your brand could use a revamp.
Rebrand or Brand Refresh Next Steps
Create an Audit
Although branding agencies will often guide you through the creation of an audit as part of a brand refresh or rebranding, getting a head start on one beforehand can provide you with valuable initial direction on your project as well as help you gain internal buy-in (more on that later). It may also save you money when it does come time to hire an agency by allowing you to narrow the project scope, making it an especially attractive option for smaller or budget-constrained companies.
The audit should focus on where the gaps are in your brand and how they could be improved. Make sure to use data — such as market research and customer interviews — to back up your findings and recommendations whenever you can. Here are a few elements in particular that you might want to include in your audit:
Purpose: Having a “why” behind your business is critical to growth and success. If you don’t have a clear one at the moment or aren’t in agreement across your organization, you’re missing out on a huge opportunity to align your team and motivate them to do their best work.
Narrative: Similar to your brand purpose, your brand narrative describes who your organization is and what you stand for. It may include your history, promise to customers, or your perspective.
Positioning: Positioning is all about how your brand is represented — is your brand enforcing the right message? Is it helping the company grow? Do you think it should change in any way? Key to answering these questions is a thorough, data-backed understanding of who your target audience is. Otherwise, your strategy may be entirely off-base.
Brand Architecture: Many companies have more than just one core product or service. While it’s important to keep your brand largely consistent, you may want to alter it slightly for certain product lines or services in order to differentiate them from one another. A brand architecture is a visual hierarchy that helps you organize all of these variations of your branding and ensure that they all work well together.
Competition: First, identify the brand category you fit into (e.g. data analytics platform, eCommerce clothing retailer, fast-casual restaurant). This may have changed over time, and given how critical it is to your audience’s understanding of your company, you’ll need to check in on it every once in a while. Then, list all of the other companies that you compete against within that category, paying close attention to the strengths and weaknesses of their respective brands.
Creative Assets: Creative assets are the most tangible representation of your brand, and often take the form of templates for different use cases — digital banner ads, social media cover photos, logo lock-ups for your homepage. Take stock of which creative assets you currently have and which ones you’ll need in the future.
Find more ideas here
As you gather this information, take note of how much of a disconnect there is between where your brand is now and where you want it to be. If the difference is drastic, you may want to go all out and pursue a rebrand. If you’re within range of where you want to be, though, it may only take a brand refresh to help you reach your goals.
Make Your Case
In order to go through with a rebrand or brand refresh, you’ll need approval from your larger organization, including your leadership team. This can sometimes be a challenge, as results-driven business leaders don’t always see the immediate value of a strong brand. But if you’ve put together a thoughtful and thorough brand audit, your job will be much easier. Here are a few tips for presenting your audit and persuading your audience:
Explain what a brand does and how it impacts you: It can be hard to define what exactly a brand is, but describing what it does is much simpler. Discuss how a strong brand can lead to better ROI, a more aligned team, higher employee engagement, and consumer affinity. To support this, try researching how rebranding or brand refreshes have helped other companies in your sector, or draw on your own experience. Share a time when a new or updated design led to improved business results, like an ad campaign or social media revamp. Remember: The more you can concretely cite how a brand update would benefit you, the more likely it is that you’ll get the go-ahead.
Focus on what’s most useful for your company: Design needs vary significantly from organization to organization, so highlight the specific ways in which revamping your brand would be beneficial for your company in particular. At Google Play, for example, we did a ton of promotions for mobile gaming. When I was pushing for a refresh, I pointed to the market research we had gathered on our different customers’ wants and needs, then connected that to specific visual examples in our collateral that were misaligned with their feedback.
Do an alignment exercise: This is a good strategy for getting a team that is new or hesitant to branding updates on board. By surveying different members of your organization on their understanding of the brand, you can highlight any misalignments to those who feel the brand is fine as it is. You can ask questions like “what’s our competitive advantage,” “which three adjectives would you use to describe us,” and “how does our audience see us?” If you’re in need of a rebrand or brand refresh, the answers will likely vary. Share those results with senior leadership for a quick and easy way to demonstrate that you’re not fully aligned and, as a result, struggling to move forward.
Envision Your Future
Once you get the green light to update your brand, it’s time for the fun part — envisioning how that might look. There’s no limit to the number of directions you could go in, but before you commit to one, I recommend trying a couple of exercises for guidance:
Brand mapping: Brand mapping exercises are perfect for helping you figure out which traits you want your brand to embody, and our brand mapping worksheet is a great one to start out with. This worksheet contains an assortment of scales for different brand attributes — mechanical to human, quiet to loud, casual to formal, to name just a few — and allows you to use stickers to pinpoint where you fall on that scale now and where you want to in the future. It can also be helpful to add your competitors to the chart so that you can think about how to best stand out from the crowd.
Mood boards: Put together a presentation with examples of brands and design that inspire you and try to identify the elements you think could work for your company’s brand.
A quick note — it’s important to find balance between authenticity and aspiration when modernizing your brand. You’ll want a design that reflects your organization, but ups the ante. If you choose something too similar to your current branding, it might not feel different enough to your customers and employees. On the other hand, be careful about choosing something drastically different than who you are. A tax firm, for example, probably shouldn’t try to emulate the whimsical branding of a trendy beauty product company.
If you’re ever unsure about whether your desired branding authentically reflects you, don't be afraid to reach out to employees, customers, and design professionals for feedback.
Look Around You
Design is a crowded space. If you really want to stand out from others, you’ll need to search far and wide for inspiration. Design blogs are a good place to start. I like AIGA’s Eye on Design and siteInspire for websites. Thumbing through design books works well, too. Fortunately, almost every major city has a cool art bookstore (in San Francisco, I like William Stout Architectural Books). If you want to dig deep, you can even attend design conferences or festivals.
I also suggest just keeping an eye out for the design you encounter in your daily life. If you come across an ad for a brand with a great social media presence, for example, like the post so that more of their content appears in your timeline. If you see an ad that you like on the metro, snap a picture of it with your phone. Museums are another excellent source for inspo — head to one with a notebook and pen, and jot down which pieces speak to you. All of this will help you generate ideas when it comes time to pick a particular design direction.
Find the Right Partner
With a project as big as rebranding or a brand refresh, you’re almost certainly going to want to work with an agency rather than just relying on your in-house team. Before you identify specific agencies, though, make sure to think about your budget, timeline, and goals. You should also identify which assets are the most important for you, whether it’s a new presentation template or branded whitepapers.
Next, it’ll be time to start your agency search (read here for a few tips on how to do that). Create an agency shortlist, and reach out to them to learn more about their approach, find out the cost, and provide some context around your project. Even early on, you should be able to tell if their work aligns with your visual preferences.
Branding isn’t just a one-off investment — it’s a continually ongoing process. And if you want your brand to stand the test of time like Apple, Nike, and Google, you’ll need to update and modernize it from time to time. The good news? If you’ve got a strong foundation, a strong brand can make you virtually unstoppable.
Anastasia Salazar Ltd. is an independent design studio for tailored branding and digital designs. Reach out to learn how we can help you fuel growth and maximize your brand’s impact.