Creating and nurturing a lasting brand
There are many reasons to consider a rebrand for your organization. A shift or expansion of services, products, and markets; a change in leadership; or an evolving internal culture that no longer aligns with the current brand are all good reasons to evaluate whether your brand is meeting your current and future needs.
Before you take on the process of creating a new and (hopefully) lasting brand for your organization, however, it’s important that you analyze your organization’s motives for doing so.
Creating a lasting brand requires much more than just committing your organization to using a new logo, and it shouldn’t be viewed as a quick fix to your marketing or reputation problems. It requires an investment of time and resources to align all aspects of your organization in a way that can be effectively communicated to both internal and external audiences. And this communication can’t just be lip service. Companies that align their brand with specific values only to betray those values in day-to-day operations create distrust in consumers and bigger problems for their organization long-term.
What follows are a few things to consider as you explore the possibility of rebranding and what it will (and won’t) do for your organization.
Don’t confuse symptoms with problems
Lots of organizations roll out the idea of a rebrand as a solution when they begin to experience slumping sales, stiff competition in a mature market, or hiring and retention challenges.
These issues are just symptoms of a larger problem. You can create a prescription to relieve these symptoms, but if you don’t address the underlying problem, the symptoms will just return when the meds wear off. Sure an edgy, modern visual identity will provide you with some instant attention, but unless you address your lack of differentiation from the other 100 companies making similar widgets, those slumping sales will persist.
Which leads to the next point.
Your brand is not a logo
Many people confuse their organization’s logo — the visual representation of the company’s brand — with the brand itself. Your logo is certainly a tool of your brand, but it isn’t your brand. Your brand is what people think of when they see your logo. And your brand should be a growing, evolving organism that you carefully nurture and shape to fulfill your values and the promises you’ve made to your customers.
Creating a lasting brand that can grow and evolve is a bit like raising a child. All are full of tremendous potential, but each has characteristics that make them unique. Most of those unique traits happen organically, and no amount of teaching or nurturing can change them.
For example, if the original core of employees are straight-laced, suit and tie individuals, then chances are, prospective employees who are attracted to your company will be of the same mold because they feel comfortable and at home. There isn’t a Casual Friday or “shorts in summer” policy that’s going to change that. So this straight-laced suit and tie culture will continually build on itself.
Provided that these organic traits are healthy for your business operations, you should encourage and embrace them. If they are genuine, they will endear you for the long-term to a dedicated subset of customers.
Other traits must be taught, learned, and nurtured as you work to create a brand that attracts customers and cleanly differentiates you from the competition. Depending on the work your organization does, you may teach and nurture this brand by conducting annual customer service training, providing paid continuing education for employees in highly innovative fields, investing in community initiatives, or making any number of other efforts that continually reinvest in the brand you are creating.
Just as with a child, if you neglect to invest time and extra resources into teaching and nurturing your brand, it will act out in unexpected ways. Wells Fargo’s 2016 scandal, in which employees were caught creating millions of fraudulent accounts with customer information, is just one such example. A company that built a 160+ year reputation on reliability and consumer trust, touting Ethics and “What’s right for customers” as two of their core values, shattered that by failing to nurture these values in all employees and company practices.
Your brand is not a sales tool
At least some of Wells Fargo’s issues began when they started treating their brand (the core values, vision, and long history of customer service) as simple lip service and a sales tool rather than a guiding force for how their business should operate.
If you develop a strong, relatable brand, it will undoubtedly help you sell your widgets, gadgets, and services, but a true brand is more than that. It’s a roadmap and guide to what’s important to you and how your organization will operate.
A well-developed brand adds value to the products and services you’re selling, because your customers can relate to your organization, connect with you, and feel good about supporting you. In this sense your brand does help you sell, but if you don’t live up to the promises your brand is making, those sales won’t last.
Where to start
Hopefully it’s clear by now that if you’re considering a rebranding effort, the place to start isn’t creating a new logo.
A great deal of time and research should first go into identifying the intricacies of your brand, discussed above. If you are closely connected to the current brand or have never conducted this type of research before, it can be very helpful to hire an experienced agency to provide expertise and an outside perspective.
Some things to consider include:
- What are those unique organic traits or differences in your organization that customers find endearing?
- What values and vision (if any) have previously been implemented and nurtured? It’s not uncommon for young or small organizations to have never implemented any such efforts, but for your organization to grow sustainably, this has to be a conscious focus.
You might be surprised what you find when you start talking to employees and customers about their experiences with your brand.
If you’re a senior leader within your organization, it’s at this point that you’ll have the ability to begin building and nurturing the things you believe are missing from the current brand and integrating those with the organic systems and beliefs that already exist.
Only after this research, analysis, and strategy are you ready to begin focusing on how to communicate your brand internally and externally through written messaging and visual identity.
