How to Refresh Your Brand in 2023: A Practical Guide
Can you tell Rebranding and Brand refreshing apart? Aren’t these two processes about the same thing?
Well, not necessarily. We can see businesses are evolving, changing, and reacting to the market, but are they rebranding, or are they simply refreshing? These terms are often used interchangeably outside the design world, which can be confusing.
Usually, companies need to realize that their branding needs to change quickly with the trends in the market. Even though there are vast differences between rebranding and refreshing the brands, both can assist in keeping the brand of your business current and relevant.
Rebranding Vs. Brand refresh?
Even if the two names appear similar at first glance, closer examination reveals that they differ drastically. While “rebranding” entails knocking down everything you’ve established and starting over from scratch, “brand refresh” is like enhancing your favorite dish with contrasting colors, textures, edible garnishes, decorations, etc. The same principle applies to refreshing your brand, namely updating your company logo, your tagline, changing the color scheme, updating marketing collateral, using a fresh font, and so on.
Our goal here is to help you distinguish between “refresh” and “rebrand” and give tips to help you choose the best option.
What a brand refresh can do for your business?
Instead of a total rebrand, businesses frequently favor a straightforward brand refresh. Maintain the integrity of your brand, for example, by making small adjustments to your positioning and branding. Compared to a complete redesign, a solid brand refresh approach is less risky while still effective and helps you to
- Find new customers by extending your reach.
- Bring fresh energy to the company.
- Keep your company’s image updated as the market changes.
How do you know when to refresh your brand?
The short answer is that you might require a brand refresh if you find yourself in one of the following situations:
Outdated website and logo: Even though your logo was cutting-edge when you initially established your company, you can now find yourself stuck in the past. By carefully evaluating your branding, determine whether your image helps you advance or impedes you.
Changes within the company: Does your brand messaging accurately describe who you are and what you have to offer? Make sure your customers know what you are currently about. Adapting to current trends is a common practice for companies.
Inconsistency in branding elements: For those who have been playing with different color schemes and logos for some time now, there is a good chance they are confusing their audience. A refresh can help you to find your focus.
Change of target audience: Since your market has changed once you originally started your branding efforts, you might no longer be reaching your target demographic. After a brand refresh, you can target the people you need with more precision.
Business expansion: It’s a good idea to reevaluate your brand if you anticipate a business expansion in the future, whether as a result of a merger, the introduction of a new product line, or marketing initiatives.
Refreshing your brand: steps to follow
- Research
As always, it all starts with thorough research. You must know why you need to conduct a brand refresh and what for. At this point, you can ask yourself a few questions:
- Is my brand still relevant?
- Does it reflect what I want to show people?
- Does it fit the current market?
- Establish your goals
It might be to engage your existing customers, increase sales, update your organization’s look to align with a new product release or update your tone to fit your market. A company’s goals vary depending on its needs, but the key is establishing a solid set of plans to use as a reference point when determining what needs to change.
- Determine what works and what doesn’t.
Because you’re not throwing your entire brand identity out the window, you’ll need to assess what’s working and what needs to be changed. Your list of objectives should assist you in identifying the weak points in your company’s identity, but conducting a brand audit is an important next step in narrowing down what needs to change.
Think about key questions in your brand audit, such as:
- Which strengths does your brand possess?
- Is there anything that shouldn’t be changed?
- In what ways does your company need to improve?
- Is your brand facing any challenges?
- Is there anything unique about your company?
- What makes your brand appealing to your target audience?
- Analyze your Target Audience
An important reason for a brand refresh is to ensure your brand is aligned with your target audience and attracts new customers. If you haven’t already done so for your brand, now is the time!
- Understand your competitors
Examine how your direct competitors position themselves and see if any elements of their brand identity have recently been refreshed. Then, use this analysis to spot industry-wide trends and determine which aspects of a brand’s identity are most important in your industry.
- Update your mission statement and core values.
A vital component of a successful brand refresh is updating your brand’s mission statement and values to better reflect today’s world and the needs of your customer base.
- Refresh the visual elements of your brand.
Updating your brand’s visual identity and aesthetics is an obvious way to refresh and modernize your look. This could include replacing your brand’s fonts, redesigning your website, or updating your logo to look more current or professional.”
- Examine your brand’s tone and voice
A brand refresh should include more than just changes to the design, logo, color palette, and fonts. Your tone and voice will influence how customers perceive the “person” behind your brand, so ensure they are consistent with your values and company mission. Use this refresh to assess how you communicate with the rest of the world and update your voice or tone to avoid sounding stuffy, old, or out of date.
- Ensure that your content marketing is consistent with your brand.
Content marketing is essential to a successful marketing strategy, so ensure your content is consistent with your brand identity. Ensure that all social media content you create follows the voice and tone established by your new brand guidelines. You’ll also need to collaborate with your design team to ensure that your new logo, colors, and fonts are used in new graphics and videos and that they are consistent across all your channels.
- Launch your brand refresh strategically.
A solid launch strategy will also assist your organization in controlling the narrative surrounding your brand refresh, which is especially important in today’s online, interconnected world.
What a branding company in Dubai like puneet.ae can do to shape your brand identity?
Our team of brand experts is passionate about every aspect of the branding process, whether you are starting from scratch or revitalizing your existing brand. If you are interested in discussing branding needs, please get in touch with us at contact@puneet.ae.
You can turn to our team for assistance with choosing which direction is right for your business, and they are skilled and knowledgeable enough to guide you through your branding project through workshops, strategy sessions, and more. By gaining a deep understanding of your business, challenges, and vision for the future, our team will create a rebrand or refresh that will ensure your success for years to come.
