The Ultimate Guide To A Strategic Brand Refresh

Branding is the foundation of a business. It helps shapes how people see your brand and sets you apart from the competition. Without a strong brand image, no matter how good your product is, you won’t be able to compete in your market. In other words, you won’t win new customers and retain the loyalty of the old ones.

However, growth can leave gaps between who you are and how you want the market to perceive you. One of the ways you can close these gaps is by revisiting and making strategic adjustments to your visual identity to remind your target audience who you are and why you’re still relevant. This is a process called brand refresh.

What Is A Brand Refresh?

A brand refresh is a process of revamping a brand’s visual identity—specifically by modifying the logo, colours, typography, and other surface elements—to keep up with the current market trends while retaining the brand’s core identity. Instead of completely changing a branding strategy, a brand refresh aims to make the brand look fresh.

There are many factors that make a brand refresh imperative and worthwhile. But it always starts with a deep dive into your customers, competitors, and industry trends. This means that you must clearly understand what your customers care about and why they should buy from you rather than someone else. The result of this research will help you create a fresh visual identity that reflects these values and makes them memorable.

6 Steps In Strategising A Brand Refresh

An excellent way to ensure your brand refresh is seamless and successful is by hiring a top-notch brand strategist, like Northwest Brand Design, who can help you with all aspects of your brand refresh, including designs of logos, website, interior, graphics, and digital content creation.

Once you’ve chosen a team of experts, you can work with them by following this five-step guideline:

1. Clarify Your Goals

Delineating your goals and motivations will help all the parties in the organisation gain a clearer understanding of all your goals with a brand refresh. Then brainstorming and strategising will produce better outcomes.

2. Conduct A Competitive Analysis

Analysing your competitors should also be part of conceptualising a brand refresh. Competitive analysis will help you identify what makes your competitors different, what they have in common, and how to differentiate yourself.

An excellent way to do this is by studying the competitive landscape, which will let you know whether you’re still part of the rest of the pack. A competitive analysis allows you to discover what similar brands are up to and find ways to differentiate your brand. This also involves assessing their value proposition, content marketing, taglines, visual elements, and online presence.

3. Assess Your Message Strategy

After researching and gaining market insight, it’s time to brainstorm critical messages highlighting your unique value. The message should invoke an emotional or logical response from your target market. That shows that you’re leaving an impression on a personal level.

Using this information, you can create a roadmap of how you want your brand to evolve. You don’t have to stress about who you are and what you do in the marketplace. Instead, pinpoint why you do what you do, what makes you stand out from other brands, and how you can help meet consumer demands. This way, the value you are offering stands out and you don’t risk sending the wrong signal that you’re too focused on promoting your brand.

4. Review Your Visual Identity

Once you review and rectify your brand message, you must consider redesigning your visual elements. This is crucial because you want loyal consumers to recall your brand even with a new look.  Revamping your brand visuals involves redesigning your logo, typography, or colour palette.

Your logo should be a compelling image and somehow reflect your organisation’s personality. For instance, to impart a regal and stable impression, you can go for designs with angular shapes. Smooth and curved designs, on the other hand, can show that you’re approachable and friendly. Your logo must be easily identifiable when printed on various company materials, such as business cards, letterhead, and T-shirts.

5. Promote Your Brand Refresh Launch

After successfully recreating brand visuals, craft a new marketing plan. This may include teasers to create a buzz around it before the official launch. You can post these teasers on social media and other platforms and begin conversations about the new design with potential customers. Consider partnering with influencers because they can make conversations with your target market easier.

You can also write a press release to tell a story about why you’re doing it and how it could affect your organisation’s future. This may include explaining the change in your brand and why it’s important to you. You may also share how this will benefit your employers and employees to create a sense of excitement around your refreshed brand image.

Key Takeaways

How your target audience perceives your company is mostly a product of your branding strategy. However, over time, it’s natural for a brand image to lose its appeal because of the constantly evolving market dynamics. So if you fail to keep up, your revenue may suffer, and gaining and retaining customers can be difficult.

But you can turn things around quickly through a brand refresh. A brand refresh is a facet of branding that involves revamping a brand’s physical image to make it feel new and relevant without losing its core aspects and values. A brand refresh is ultimately an effective, timely approach to market dynamics.