Brand refresh is a term you'll probably find yourself repeating a lot. It's the process of freshening up your brand—changing how people perceive it and updating its visual identity to better align with your current strategy and goals for growth. Brand refreshes can be an effective way to re-energize your business, but it's important to do them correctly. They're less expensive than a full rebranding campaign and have less risk involved, but they still require careful planning, execution and maintenance if they're going to deliver lasting results.
There are several ways to begin this process. If you’re fortunate enough to have an existing brand library, it will likely contain all the information you need about your company and its products.
If not, then you might want to start by researching the company’s history: How did it come into being? What were its goals when it was founded? When did those goals change (and why)? Who were the founders/early employees like and how did they contribute to building up the business? Where did they come from originally? Why was this particular product or service created in the first place—what was lacking in the marketplace at that point in time?
If you're thinking of refreshing your brand, the first step is to understand the market. To do this, research trends and customer needs. Identify areas for improvement in your products or services, as well as what makes your brand stand out from others in the same industry. It's also important to identify the strengths and weaknesses of your existing brand so that you can consider ways to improve it when making changes.
To refresh your brand, you first need to understand your customers.
What do they want? What are their needs, wants and desires? How are they perceiving your brand right now? Without this information, it's hard to make any meaningful decisions about how you should change or evolve.
If possible and appropriate, try to gather opinions from a wide range of people who can provide insight into what would make them happy with the product or service that you're offering.
It's important to identify your company's strengths and weaknesses. You might be surprised by what you find! To get started, consider the following questions:
Once you've decided on the messaging and visual elements, it's time to make sure that they're consistent across all touchpoints. When I say "touchpoints" here, I'm talking about anything that represents your brand: website, social media, email campaigns, print collateral, etc. Your messaging needs to be in line with your brand values—and the same goes for visuals. If you're a luxury brand, for instance (like Chanel or Jimmy Choo), then it might make sense to use high-quality materials and imagery of beautiful models wearing those products on social media. If you're an edgy streetwear company (like Supreme or Stüssy) then it would make sense to use gritty ads featuring skateboarders wearing hoodies from those brands or breaking bottles over someone's head.
The next step is to maintain consistency across all touchpoints. Consistency is crucial for building brand recognition and trust, which are key in making your customers feel like they're part of something special. One way you can do this is by using a consistent tone-of-voice across all communications, whether that be through email marketing campaigns or social media posts.
One of our favorite examples of this is from the beautiful little store called Thimblepress in Brooklyn, NY. Their Instagram account has over 23k followers (and growing), but it's not just because they post adorable photos every day—it's because they actually have a voice; a voice that makes its followers feel like they're sitting across from their best friend at home drinking tea while she tells them about her day at work.
A brand refresh is a great way to test the effectiveness of your current brand. It can be done quickly and easily, but it will require a lot of planning. This approach is less expensive than a full rebranding campaign, which involves creating an entirely new identity for the company. A full rebranding process can take months or even years, and that's assuming you don't run into any unforeseen problems along the way.
As you consider whether or not it's time for your business to freshen up its image, keep in mind that there are many ways for companies—large and small—to refresh their brands without completely overhauling them from top to bottom.
There’s no denying that brand refreshes can be a pain. But if you keep the end goal in mind—to keep your company relevant, memorable and attractive to customers—then it will be worth all the work. If you want to refresh your brand successfully, remember these tips:
Make sure you have enough time for the refresh (and money for it).
Don’t forget about visual consistency across all touchpoints; from social media profiles through packaging materials, everything should look like part of a whole.
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