A brand redesign can help captivate the right audience

A brand redesign may be undertaken for a number of reasons. But in all cases, it should be done with the right audience in mind. Rebranding a company (or a smaller-scale brand refresh*) provides an opportunity to realign your brand’s visual and messaging elements with the always-evolving preferences and values of your customers.

And they absolutely will evolve. New people will age into your audience, while others will age out. Preferences and sensibilities will change. Trends will change. The competing options available to them will change. Change is constant.

“But some brands are timeless,” you say? That’s true, but those companies work very hard to remain ‘timeless.’ A timeless brand is atypical, it seems (but isn’t) static, and it certainly doesn’t happen through neglect. And it probably indicates a large initial investment of time, money, and effort over decades.

*Brand refresh vs. rebrand: At Chalkbox, we would consider both of these to be a brand redesign, but at different scales. A brand refresh is typically a smaller scale effort where we only focus on the brand visuals and/or messaging. A rebrand is a deeper process that includes a reexamination of the underlying foundations of your brand.

Below are some of the ways a purposeful brand update can help you connect with your audience. And remember: anytime you make adjustments to your brand efforts, lean into your business strategy and aim for your future state. If you rebrand for your current state (today’s customers, market, and services), you may limit yourself. It’s like dropping anchor at launch; it limits you from reaching deeper waters. If you rebrand for where you plan to be, you’ll get there sooner, and you’ll be ready when you get there.

Better alignment with customers

Your brand will engage your audience most effectively if it aligns with their needs and expectations.

Credibility and validation

If you don’t meet the basic level of credibility within the set of options available to them, you won’t ever hear about it. Nobody will call you to tell you they’re not going to call you. If you make sure your business meets and/or exceeds the branding table stakes for consideration, you remove the obvious reasons for NOT calling you.

“But all our business is by referral,” you say. That is wonderful and enviable! Remember, though, that referrals will still do their homework. A business that appears more credible will find it much easier to close sales with those referrals.

Emotional connection

Most buying decisions are partially driven by emotion. Connecting emotionally with your audience helps them feel like your solution is more relevant to them. It can take some effort to really understand an audience’s emotional needs, but once that is clear, all messaging and visual brand elements can be tailored to meet them in that state of mind.

Meeting deeper needs

Deep understanding of your audience also allows you to align with what they find important outside of the problems you solve. For example, if your business actively and visibly supports B-corporations, you can attract those who feel strongly about corporate social responsibility. If the local music scene is your thing, associating yourself with that ecosystem will call out to a slightly different audience. Your behavior and messaging are crucial for this to work; if it’s not genuine and goes no further than a social media banner, they’ll know you’re pandering.

The visual components of your brand offer another way to demonstrate understanding and empathy with your audience, reinforcing your genuine behavior and messaging.

Distinction in the marketplace

Meaningful and relevant differences can help your brand catch the ever-shortening attention spans of your audience.

Meaningfully different

It makes sense, rationally, that the business that looks or behaves or communicates differently will stand out from its competitors. That’s why grocery shelves look like they do, with everything striving to look different from its neighbor on the shelf. There’s a limit to “different,” though. Because those items striving to look different still have to look like they belong with those others. The differences still have to fit and make sense.

Balancing these considerations correctly requires an awareness of who your audience is and what’s important to them. Imagine two customers in the aisle. First is an affluent person who values quality and healthy ingredients over all else. Second is the budget shopper whose primary concern is checking that item off their list at the lowest cost. They’ll be picking up on different cues in that aisle, and will probably choose very different products to purchase.

Branding for meaningful difference is a great way to ensure a business is visible in exactly the right way to attract a specific audience.

Memorable

If those meaningful differences are also memorable, even better. A position, action, phrase, color, shape, image, or other trait can anchor that brand in an audience’s mind. Done well and over time, this can lead audiences to skip past anything that doesn’t display those meaningful memorable differences. Consider how many parents walk down the aisle looking for that particular blue/yellow combination of their kids’ favorite macaroni and cheese. It’s become a subconscious behavior; without knowing, they ignore the other options.

Responding to big changes

Why rebrand when other big changes are already happening? Because significant changes in a business can present an opportunity to change the perception of that business. If the big changes will somehow change your relationship with your audience or the marketplace, a brand redesign can demonstrate new levels of relevance or distinction to your audience.

Here are just a few examples of big changes that can present opportunities to reimagine how you connect with your audience.

• New ownership or leadership might have new plans for the company that will affect audience perception.
• Renewed energy or purpose stemming from other changes may prompt efforts to rejuvenate branding along with other aspects of the business.
• New philosophies or approaches might change how business is done or who it is done for.
• New products or services might trigger bigger changes in the business that render past branding obsolete.
• New regions and markets mean new audiences, which may change how the business needs to think about brand perception.

Responding to technology

Evolving technologies are part of life for nearly everyone. How your audience responds and how quickly they adopt these new technologies will place new demands on your brand. Whether that adoption is fast or slow, a brand redesign can help your brand evolve to feel relevant to your audience and genuine to your business in that new technological context. It shows them that you’re aware of their considerations and the world around them—that they’re important to you.

If we listed all of the ‘old’ and ‘new’ technologies here, this piece would be obsolete by next week. And really most of it is a slow build. Especially as digital communications have evolved, the opportunities for branding and the demands on a brand system have grown together.

Here are a few things that we didn’t have to think about until we did, and now they’re table stakes:

• Animated logos for video and social media
• Brand videos
• Shorter, punchier brand messaging for changes in digital media consumption (devices, platforms, character counts, and attention spans)
• Optimized layouts for different screen sizes, ratios, and resolutions

And soon to be table stakes (we’re guessing—don’t hold us to these):

• Three dimensional brand components for augmented and virtual reality (AR/VR)
• Virtual avatars (or clones) for ourselves, our companies, and our AI assistants
• Voice ‘avatars’ for customer service conversations
• Holographic brand elements
• Ever-evolving websites (if they’re still called that) and user interfaces within AR and
• VR ‘spaces’

Make that connection

A brand redesign is an important decision and investment. It can and should reach deeper than simply changing a logo or updating colors. Done right, it aligns everything you show and tell with what your audience needs (in all the ways that they need it). And done right, it also supports your business strategy to deliver new customers, growth, and continuing success.

So do it right with a proven team, and reevaluate on a regular schedule. Ensure your brand remains relevant in the ever-changing minds and lives of your audience.

A few ways we work with clients