For businesses large and small across many different industries, strong visual branding is a key part of an overall marketing strategy.
However, no company can expect their branding to stay effective or relevant without changes in the long term. From time to time, some tweaks will be necessary to keep the colours, typography, iconography and messaging in line with the current business goals and the spirit of the times.
Rebranding can sometimes be a complicated and expensive process, so it’s important to pick the right moment to undertake the project. Let’s take a look at some good reasons why you might decide a rebrand is right for your business…
Reaching new customers
Most businesses have, and depend on, a core group of dedicated repeat customers whose patronage sustains the company on a long-term basis – and it is a well-known piece of business wisdom that it is easier to retain loyal repeat customers than to earn new ones.
Even so, new customer acquisition does become necessary at some key points in the lifetime of most businesses. This might be because the numbers of repeat customers may be decreasing for whatever reason, or perhaps it would be due to a desire to reach a different type of consumer.
If your company needs to expand its horizons and bring in new prospects, a rebrand may be just the thing for catching the eye of buyers who weren’t grabbed by your old look. Sometimes, a smart repositioning of your business with a fresh lick of paint is enough to cause new customers to notice you, and feel inspired to give you a try.
Unification across multiple channels
In recent times, most traditional brick-and-mortar businesses have started to use newer marketing channels in the form of social media accounts, websites, podcasts, and other digital platforms.
If these have been added to your marketing effort without much thought for how these different channels work with one another, there may well be a mismatch of branding styles between them. It’s quite common to see a physical retail shop with storefront signage that doesn’t match the logo on their Twitter page, and this can cause a muddled public perception of your brand.
In these cases, rebranding is a great way to present a unified identity to the customer by updating all of the different channels with a fresh and consistent look and feel, and getting your physical signage redone to share the same graphic design elements as your social icons and other digital assets.
Rebranding for modern sensibilities
Times change, and a business that doesn’t adapt can eventually become somewhat stale or old-fashioned in the eyes of the public.
We can find well-known examples of this in the stories of many famous brands:
- Old Spice was seen primarily as a traditional cologne for the older generation until it underwent a modern facelift and became a viral Internet hit (appearing as the focus of numerous surreal commercials with the bodybuilder Terry Crews).
- Guinness faced declining sales in the early 1980s and undertook an extensive rebrand to position it as a stylish drink for the younger generation, a decision that essentially saved the company and turned it into the extremely successful beer it is today.
- Lego was seen as an outdated children’s toy brand that was losing money fast in the late 1990s, laying off 1,000 employees at a low point in the company’s history. The Danish business then decided to reposition itself as a more multimedia-based brand that would also appeal to older generations, creating movies and videogames that would eventually breathe new life into the world of Lego. (Today, Lego has even been crowned “the world’s most powerful brand”.)
It’s a very good idea to update branding now and again (even for a business that has continued to do well throughout its entire history) to keep up with the ever-changing landscape of graphic design trends. After all, a font face that was the height of cool twenty years ago may not have the same effect today.
In short, if your business has been around for a while, it can be a good idea to rethink whether your brand messaging still speaks to your customers as powerfully as it used to – and to be open to the possibility of giving your company a new look.
It’s also a good idea to consider the context of your positioning in the wider market. New competitors may have arrived since you first launched (or existing long-term competitors may have updated their look), and you may need to tweak your branding to more strongly differentiate your business from theirs.
Showing your evolution
Very few businesses are set in stone. If you’ve been active in your industry for more than a few years, chances are good that you’ve adopted new practices, technologies, methods, approaches and even specialisms over time.
Therefore, it makes sense that the visual branding style you first chose all those years ago may not perfectly represent your business as it is today. In fact, on a long enough timeline, a company that has had the same brand assets for years could be perceived to be a bit stuck in its ways or old-school.
Don’t let your customers think your business has been stagnating – give your signs and logos an update to show that you’re as current and relevant as ever.
As an aside, a rebrand can also make a lot of sense for a business that may have been unfortunate enough to attract negative press or a bad local reputation in general (as seen in the early 2000s when BP decided to update their logo to look like a sunflower after a slew of eco-disaster scandals).
In these cases, a redesign of branding assets can send a message of ‘turning over a new leaf’, of starting a new chapter in the company’s history, and distancing itself from former troubles.
Overall, going ahead with a rebrand can be a very powerful step for any business. It can allow you to grow your customer base and present a unified, updated style to new customers and visitors, setting you apart from competitors and communicating your brand ideals.
With cutting-edge, consistent branding, your company will be able to show the ideal visual identity to the public – and truly make the most of its signs, logos, and other brand assets.
This post was contributed by Medash Signs. Established for over 40 years, Medash provides high-quality, affordable sign making services in Kent and across the UK.
