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A strong brand is crucial to the success of your business. Your brand isn’t just your logo or business name, it’s every unique factor that differentiates you from the competition and earns the loyalty of your target audience. Unfortunately, customers and markets are constantly changing, meaning the branding that worked for you ten years ago, may have lost its shine today.
As your business grows, and your market transforms, it’s important to ensure your brand resonates with your target audience. In some cases, companies need to build entirely new brand identities, like Facebook when it became Meta. However, it’s also possible to preserve the core components of your brand, and still realign yourself with the current landscape.
Here’s how you can determine whether your brand needs an update, or “refresh”.
Before we dive into the signs that your brand is in dire need of an update, it’s worth noting there are different levels to “refreshing” a brand. A rebrand is a comprehensive process, which can include everything from changing your name and logo to updating your mission and values.
We’ve seen examples of this from Twitter, which became “X” after it was purchased by Elon Musk, and Mailchimp, which updated its entire identity to resonate with its audience of smaller customers.
A brand refresh or update is a less intensive strategy. With this method, you preserve the elements of your brand that still work, such as your core values and mission statement, but modernise your messaging, visuals, and other factors. It’s all about tweaking your identity to align with the changing preferences of your target audience, without losing your brand essence.
Your brand is the heart of your business. It’s the philosophy you embrace, the things you sell, the culture you adhere to, and so much more.
Strong brands attract the right customers and give you an edge over your competition. They also help you earn the trust of your customers, by showing your values align with theirs. This is crucial when 46% of customers say they’d pay more to buy from a brand they know they can trust.
But even a great brand can’t last forever without the occasional tweak. Studies show most companies consider rebranding every 7 to 10 years. That’s because markets, businesses, and consumers are always changing, and the relevancy of your brand can diminish over time.
However, a full rebrand can be a risky business. Studies show that more than two-thirds of business leaders believe “consistent” branding has increased their revenue by 10% or more. The older your company is, the more likely it is that you’ve already built a relationship with your target audience, based on a specific brand identity.
Updating your brand is a way to retain your existing brand equity, while still adapting to changing times. For instance, Dunkin’ Donuts changed its name to “Dunkin” and refreshed its messaging, values, and visuals in 2019, to appeal to an audience of younger consumers.
Old Spice refreshed its brand imagery, messaging, and packaging to shed its status as a company for “old people”, while still preserving the core elements of its products and its brand values.
While refreshing or updating your brand is less risky than a complete rebrand, it’s still not a process you should enter into lightly. Updating a brand takes time, money, research, and strategy. So, how do you know whether it’s time for a refresh?
While there’s more to a brand than a logo or colour palette, your visual identity plays a crucial role in establishing a market presence and attracting your customers. An outdated visual identity significantly influences how much customers will trust your company. That’s why most businesses update their logos every few years, to adhere to changing expectations.
Hootsuite updated its logo in 2022 to make its company appear more fun and friendly, replacing a black and white design with a bright red combination mark, and a more dynamic mascot. Intuit took a different approach, changing its logo to become more minimalistic and adhere to the simple design trends taking over the tech landscape in recent years.
A strong brand is built on a unique identity, shaped by your purpose, vision, mission, and values as an organisation. Your brand assets, from your name to your logo, and even your marketing messaging, should constantly articulate those core concepts. If your business focus has changed lately, then there’s a good chance your brand needs to change too.
For instance, when Facebook decided to focus more on the digital landscape and the metaverse than just “social media”, it updated its name to Meta. While many of the core elements of the brand’s identity remained the same, the name, logo, and core message of the organisation changed.
Businesses grow, and many find themselves branching into new markets and landscapes over time. If you’re expanding into new international markets, the chances are your existing branding will resonate differently with specific groups. After all, different generations and cultures respond to different messages, logos, and even colours in unique ways.
If you’re branching out into new landscapes, extensive customer research may show you that you need to make some tweaks to your branding to make it more universal. You might need to rethink your tagline or slogan, adapt your brand personality, or even update your logo.
Just as your target audience can change over time, the position you hold in the market can also evolve. When you first started your company, you might have positioned yourself as a budget-friendly alternative to some major market leaders. However, as you’ve grown, you might have discovered new ways to differentiate yourself with unique products, or a specific approach to customer service.
Updating your brand can be an excellent way to ensure you reach your new audience, and articulate your position to the right market. For instance, you might decide to update your branding to showcase a more luxurious, professional image, so you can more easily charge higher prices for your products. Or you may just want to appear more authoritative. For instance, when CNET redesigned its logo, it introduced a more sophisticated image for its brand.
A merger or acquisition will always have an impact on your brand. When you welcome new companies into your portfolio, you’ll need to think carefully about which brand elements you want to retain from both entities, to connect to the widest possible audience. A merger or acquisition pushes you to re-evaluate how you can adapt your brand identity to capture two distinct customer groups.
For instance, after a series of international acquisitions, Federal Express updated its branding to the “FedEx” we know today. This allowed it to create a more comprehensive brand image, that resonated with a broader collection of global and international consumers.
Brands aren’t static. They’re living, breathing, and dynamic concepts that evolve with your business and audience. Leading legacy brands don’t achieve success in their market by refusing to evolve. They adapt to the times and ensure their image and identities remain fresh.
Whether you’re investing in a complete rebrand, or just updating elements of your identity, make sure you understand your target audience, mission, and values, and how they should be reflected in your new brand. Carefully define which aspects of your existing identity to keep, and which need to adapt based on what you know about your evolving market.
A brand update can be a daunting prospect, but done correctly, it can give you the strength you need to continue surviving and thriving in a changing world.
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