How to rescue a lost brand with simple killer insider hacks

The only constant in life is change and in order to stay vital in our ever-changing consumer market, you need to keep up to speed with that change. Sometimes it can be as simple as creating a mobile site for your website, taking advantage of consumer trends or adding social media to your marketing strategy.

However, other times staying current requires a refresh of your brand. But it doesn’t have to be scary, in fact, if you approach it right it can be the best thing that ever happened to your business.

Find your roadmap

The first thing you need to do before you refresh your brand is to review and assess what you currently have. What works and what doesn’t? Start with the reason for the refresh. Is it because you’re losing sales? Or is your customer base shrinking?

What you’re doing with this assessment is creating a road map and itinerary with an outline of all the points you want to hit with fresh, new branding. Without this review it would be like embarking on a road trip without the safety net of a map or your trusted GPS —you can see how easy it would be to get lost.

Simplify, simplify, simplify

Simplify your logo. Countless companies have refreshed their brand simply by modernizing their logo and creating a more streamlined symbol. In 2013, Harvard University Press updated their logo from a complicated, albeit scholastic, looking crest to six blocks aligned in rows of two. The result was an ultramodern symbol that has the potential to be timeless.

In 2011 Starbucks refreshed their logo by removing a lot of the bulk surrounding their iconic mermaid. But a refresh doesn’t always mean you have to change your logo. If it’s not broken, don’t mess with it.

Change your attitude, change your world

Refreshing your brand doesn’t have to be complex, in fact, it’s best to keep it simple. CVS pharmacy did just two things to refresh their brand and the results were spectacular.First: they stopped selling cigarettes, and second: they changed their name from CVS Caremark to CVS Health. With these two simple steps they were able to align themselves with a more health conscious market and change the way people saw the pharmacy —from a place to buy things to a company that truly cares about their health.

When Old Spice refreshed their brand, they didn’t even change the logo or colour scheme. Instead, by creating a few viral commercials they were able to change the public’s perception of them. When you think of Old Spice today, you don’t think of it as your grandpa’s deodorant, you think of the Old Spice guy and scent vacations.
Refreshing your brand is an important stepping stone to understanding your company and how it relates to your customers, but it’s also a great way to get back in touch with your objectives as a business and how you view yourself in the marketplace.