Planning a Successful Brand Refresh

After months (and possibly years), you and your team have made the decision to refresh your company’s brand.

The planning process is in motion and you’re at the helm. No pressure!

An organization-wide effort to update the overarching brand strategy and logo is one of the most exciting times in a company’s life. Aside from new product launches or reaching significant revenue milestones, a brand update brings the company together around shared values and beliefs and can re-invigorate productivity and innovation. The process is part cultural rallying cry and part marketing strategy refinement. There is not one single employee, partner or customer the results don’t influence and because of it, efforts to update it are often met with one of two reactions: excitement or fear. 

When approached thoughtfully, the outcome feels “right” to everyone, regardless of their initial reaction. It rings both familiar and inspirational and creates new avenues of possibility and growth across the entire organization. Here are five tips to ensure a successful outcome:

Goals

A brand update should have both clear rationale and specific ambition to direct the process. These can include challenges like reversing customer attrition, evolving customer needs or lost relevance, expanded product offerings, new competition…the list can be quite varied. Regardless of the reason for the update, having a clear vision for the goals of the update is critical to driving the brand’s new strategy.   

CEO support

A successful brand update has a supportive and engaged CEO behind the scenes. Asking the hard questions can be difficult in some companies. An involved CEO keeps the focus high-level while ensuring an inclusive environment for sorting out the hurdles and opportunities. They will also encourage truth-finding as it relates to the higher purpose of a more powerful brand voice which will ultimately drive market presence and customer engagement.

Planning

Updating a brand is roughly an 18-month process for a soup-to-nuts brand refresh at a 500+ person organization. The process incorporates a brand diagnosis, a lot of planning and development, design excavation and updates, internal and external marketing strategies, employee engagement, and then roll-out.

What is nearly as important as the diagnosis itself is the time spent to organize the brand activities around normal business, events and product lifecycles.  A successful plan plays off normal business flow and should leverage significant business events to increase impact.

Internal communications

Your board and staff are your biggest brand ambassadors and your most powerful asset in shepherding a brand refresh. It’s critical to craft an inclusive plan of communication about the process and activities along the way. For employees, work is where they spend 1/3 of their life and even if they are not in sales or marketing, their buy-in and support will be instrumental to the life of the new brand voice.

Discussion

Make time for thoughtful discussion at all phases of the process. You are charting your brand course forward and to skip or shortchange the space to listen and debate the opportunities which present themselves is to waste both costs and limit the outcome. Count on findings along the way that will challenge at least a few institutional bastions. With time embedded in the process, these will always yield unique solutions that strengthen your brand’s evolution. Take the time to chart your brand’s refresh course and feel confident in the coming results.

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