5 steps to an updated brand
History shows that successful brands evolve in some way or another. Whether it’s a subtle logo change, new strategic platform, or a storefront redesign, updating your brand takes purposeful planning and discipline.
In our March blog, we talked about some important signs to help determine if—and when—it might be the right time to modernize your brand. Here we’ll talk about a structured and strategic five-step approach to ensure internal consensus, alignment with current market dynamics, consistency and resonance with target audiences.
1. Audit before action
A comprehensive brand audit is a first essential step. Before making changes, it’s important to assess where your brand has been and currently stands. This includes evaluating performance, strengths, opportunities and weaknesses. And modernization doesn’t mean abandoning your brand, it’s about reinforcing it. Therefore, considering your values, vision, mission and messaging serves as a strong guardrail to ensure you don’t compromise the integrity of what you stand for. Stakeholder input from those who use, lead and care about the brand most is part of this phase.
Equally important is an external audit to understand how your brand has been most recently perceived by your target audiences and prospects. While your future audiences may change or expand, you won’t want to alienate yourself from your core customers. The external audit includes a competitive scan of direct competitors and industry leaders (if they are different).
From there, do a thorough review of your touchpoints. This includes your website, social media, creative campaigns, sales materials, promotions, retail outlets, etc. It serves as a smart reminder of where people see and interact with your brand, and where you need to prioritize and be consistent.
2. Research and insights inform your strategy
A consumer-based approach adds scientific validation that your brand will resonate with your most important audience. Surveys or focus groups can uncover current perceptions, needs, preferences, and how they consume your brand. As we like to say, let your consumers lead the way. In addition, consider how your audiences might shift depending on the scale of your evolution. Once you’ve defined your target audience(s), you can test updated messaging and visual cues when ready.
Staying aware of cultural trends and doing competitive mapping will help you uncover relevant insights and identify overused and similar market strategies. This can help you better prepare to seed, plant and grow unique points of differentiation for your brand.
3. Define goals and clarify strategy
No doubt your organization has had countless discussions that led to modernizing your brand. A key component of those conversations most likely included defining what success looks like. While win metrics vary in number and by company, here are some common goals and questions we see brands identify to determine if their effort is a success.
- The brand must align with a new company direction or mission.
- Does it support the brand’s growth strategy long-term?
- Will the initiative improve relevance with current audiences as well as new ones?
- Does it hold up better to what our competition is doing?
- Will this increase brand equity and recognition?
Cementing and reinforcing your strategic brand platform is part of defining your goals as they must align with who you are. Foundational components include:
- Brand purpose and positioning: Where do you sit in the market now—and where do you need to be? Is it ownable and unique to your business?
- Brand personality: How do you describe your brand tomorrow versus yesterday? Is your brand personality evolving from traditional to progressive? Brainy to brilliant?
- Brand pillars and messaging: Your primary benefits and reasons to believe. How do you talk about them with your audiences (same or differently) and ensure consistency in your communications across all touchpoints?
4. Visualize brand assets
Your brand identity is the most visual part of your modernization. Once you have a clear sense of purpose and audience, ask yourself some of the following questions before you determine if you’re on the path towards a revolution or evolution.
- If revising your logo, is it a refresh or overhaul?
- How much of your identity system is being updated – color palette, fonts, icons, photography? And why – to look more contemporary, digitally-savvy, improve usability?
- Does anything feel outdated or irrelevant?
- What’s sacred about our brand?
- What new areas must we explore to ensure inclusivity?
- How do our messages need to shift?
- How much visual change is appropriate?
5. A systematic rollout for your brand
A brand modernization undertaking is rarely a single launch moment; it’s a phased process. We recommend always starting with an internal launch to ensure your employees and key constituents understand, embrace and can articulate the new brand. It also helps them feel part of the process and can lift morale.
The external launch can involve an exciting debut, such as a flashy event or unveiling. That said, it may take more time to roll out and update all touchpoints for physical assets like storefronts and packaging than internal materials or digital assets.
Whatever the rollout schedule, your success hinges on how well you communicate the “why.” Without a clear narrative behind your renewed brand, audiences might see the change as superficial or confusing. Frame your modernization around a compelling story, what inspired it, how it reflects your values, and importantly, the value it provides to them. The more transparent and thoughtful your communication, the easier it will be for your audience to embrace the new version of your brand.
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No matter where you are in your brand modernization process, CCF is here to help guide your brand into its next chapter with success.
