Branding is Never Ending
It’s not easy to build a brand that’s unlike any other. A lot of thought goes into writing down the mission, vision, and values of a business that become the foundation of its unique identity. Then there is the logo which must use the perfect colors, fonts, and icons to become the visual embodiment of an abstract idea. This is why when you do successfully build a brand from the ground up, you want to preserve it forever. However, is that a good idea? Well, not really.
The Fundamentals of Branding
One of the top characteristics of successful brands is “consistency”. In other words, a brand is expected to be following certain standards, service quality, color palette, voice, and personality. However, this doesn’t mean that it doesn’t have to change ever.
It’s true that brand consistency is important but as trends and market dynamics change, a company must also adapt accordingly to meet the growing demands and stay ahead of its competition.
If you will look into the history of famous brands like Walmart and Visa, then you will see that they have changed a lot from the time they started. Even their logos have evolved over all these years and you can see that they have adopted newer design elements along their individual journeys to stay relevant.
Evolution and Rebranding
To grow and expand your brand, you often have to rebrand. The following are some of the reasons why:
Tapping into a New Demographic
Your business is only limited by the number of customers you have. So, if you think that you are losing a considerable volume of sales by focusing on only one demographic, then you can rebrand to attract new groups. Old Spice makes for an excellent case study to illustrate this point.
In the 1950s, Old Spice came up with marketing campaigns that glorified stereotypical and “manly” males. This worked well for the company for a long time until recently when it realized it was losing the young customers who had by now started associating the brand with older men. Realizing that it was getting overtaken by other brands like Axe, Garnier, etc. that appealed to the young adults, it rebranded itself and started completely different marketing campaigns that used humor and touched on subjects that the youngsters can easily relate to.
Modernization
To ensure that your business not only maintains the level of success it has today but also becomes bigger and better over time, you must re-evaluate your short-term and long-term goals. In fact, it’s planning 101, so much that it’s also a part of the morning rituals of most of the business leaders and innovators like Steve Jobs.
Now, it’s usually easy to meet the short-term goals as they don’t require a lot of guesswork or business-model rearrangements. However, for the long-term goals, there are times when you have to change them completely and go for brand revamping. For instance, if you are still using the same taglines and visuals from two decades ago when they made sense but now they just feel dull and borderline cheesy, then it’s best to modernize and give your brand a fresh new look.
Brand Dilution
Your brand can start to lose its power if it’s not consistent on all the marketing channels. The color palette, image, communication tone, etc. should be exactly the same in your website, blog, sales videos, social media, email newsletters, etc. However, if there is an absence of a comprehensive strategy, then you may find your brand trying to do a lot of things but not succeeding in any. If and when this happens, it’s usually better to go back to the drawing board and start from scratch rather than fix the components individually.
Failing to Change Can Result in Failure
It’s not hard to understand why you would feel reluctant to take the path of branding makeover. Scrapping something that you built with passion and dedication is easier said than done. However, any branding professional worth their salt will agree that brands must not fear change. Instead, they must embrace it, and look at it as an opportunity to breathe new life into an old business and explore new ventures that may take the company to the next level.
