A brand refresh is one of the straightforward and most impactful ways to bring charm to your brand. It will improve your brand’s effectiveness, add life to it, and get new relevance to your customers’ eyes. A brand refresh is not about changing the market position of a brand. It is about adjusting to the brand’s culture, services, and slogans.
Many well-known brands have been around for decades, but their brand image has never remained the same. For example, Taco Bell ball has changed its logo design six times since it was launched in 1962. Over time, your brand may no longer accurately reflect the objectives and values of your business. In that case, you need to adjust your brand’s image and identity to make it more impactful.
If you’ve not planned a brand refresh yet, it is the perfect time to do so. Your brand might not deliver the intended values to your customers as it expands. Collective changes in your brand can make a huge impression.
If you’re interested to know what a brand refresh is and why it is suitable for your company, then you’re at the perfect place. Please continue reading to uncover everything you need to know about brand refresh.
What is a Brand Refresh, and Why Is It Important for Companies?
A refresh updates your brand’s appearance, look, feel, and identity. Brand refreshing may include slight tweaks to your brand’s marketing material, color palette, typography, logo, and slogan. All these changes aim to make your brand more appealing to your buyers.
Although brand refresh usually involves redesigning your brand’s visual identity, it may also entail changes to your company culture, products, or systems. Rejuvenating the overall feel of your brand can inject a new life into your employees’ morale and business performance.
A brand refresh has become more essential than ever as it can boost your company’s performance in the following ways;
- Raise the prices of your products/services
- Broadcast your value proposition and attract investors
- Update your employer brand and attract top talent
- Improve your customer retention rate
- Improve your sales funnel
- Create a buzz around your brand
Brand Refresh Vs. Rebrand
It is worth mentioning that brand refreshing is utterly different from rebranding. Understanding the difference between these two business aspects is vital to get started with a successful brand refresh.
Brand Refresh
Brand refreshing is a tactical maneuver to ensure your brand keeps pace with the customers’ demands and current market trends. You may lose your competitive edge in no time if you’re not evolving your brand with the ever-changing business market trends.
A brand refresh is a broad-range initiative that may entail redefining your brand’s verbal and visual language across several touchpoints. Some companies also include jettisoning outdated or underperforming offerings during their refreshing period.
Rejuvenating your brand may not address deep-seated problems such as a significant shift in the company’s positioning, broken brand architecture, internal misalignment, and widespread false perception among employees and customers.
Rebrand
Rebranding is an entirely different business aspect than a brand refresh. It entails a complete repositioning of your business to a new level. Rebranding is a fundamental practice for companies struggling with systematic problems such as shifting of business model and an unmitigable PR disaster.
Beyond tweaking your brand’s messaging and visuals, rebranding includes creating a new brand identity. When companies target a new audience, prepare for a merger, or expand to a new market, they usually use rebranding instead of a brand refresh. A practical and thorough rebooting of your brand lets you eliminate the false perceptions associated with your brand.
5 Reasons Why a Brand Refresh is Good for Your Company
No one of the business markets remains static. Whether in the food sector, fashion industry, or a financial brand, you need to make changes in your products to tailor them to your customers’ needs.
The context that you used in your original creative decisions may not remain relevant over time. A brand refresh becomes inevitable when new business trends and challenges demand considerations. It can help you incorporate new strategies and optimize your winning formula’s already existing design choices.
If you’re considering a brand refresh project, you need to understand the benefits you can expect from your efforts. Below we have listed the five main perks that your company can reap from a brand refresh project;
1. Stay up-to-date with the Customers’ Needs and Current Market Trends
Businesses need to evaluate their operations and products with time. It becomes more challenging to keep up with the ever-changing business trends and customers’ demands. Companies must understand the difference between staying consistent with the customers’ needs and pandering to the latest trends.
Maintaining customers’ wants includes staying up with modernity as branding and marketing change over time. Redefining your brand’s look can help companies stay updated with the challenging market trends and fulfill the customers’ needs more effectively.
Keeping up with the latest trends in the industry can benefit your company in the following ways;
- It will help you better plan for future projects from all angles. When you implement the latest trends in your business strategies, it will become easier to predict things that can hinder your plans.
- You can position yourself as an authority by integrating new trends into your business operations.
- You can get new opportunities to market your brand by participating in the market trends as they come up.
Rejuvenating your brand’s feel as trends change is not flip-flopping but about staying current. It is critical to ensure that your changes fit well with your brand’s vision and identity. You must conduct thorough research on how new developments in the market can change what people think about your business before making significant changes to your brand. Instead of chasing the latest trends, do good work to identify which direction can bring positive changes to your company.
2. Design a Strong Foundation for All Your Marketing Activities
Establishing a solid brand identity is vital before making more public marketing endeavors. A strong brand identity can provide a starting point for your marketing strategies. The guidelines you design for your brand entail everything from the color palette you’ll use in advertisement to website design, landing pages, and social media pages.
A brand refresh can touch every point beyond the marketing doors if done accurately. A solid marketing foundation is essential to connect with the audience and let them know how your product/services can make their life easier.
Designing a robust marketing foundation can help your company in the following ways;
- Statistics highlight that nearly 81% of customers need to be able to trust a brand/business before making a final purchase. A solid marketing foundation can take your brand from unknown to well-known.
- It allows you to communicate with around 4.66 billion internet users through various channels and increase your brand’s awareness.
- It is no wonder that 70% of buyers say that brand trust significantly impacts whether they should buy from the brand. With a robust marketing foundation, you can convince consumers that your brand is unique and offer everything you expect from a well-recognized company.
Redefining your brand’s identity helps you better understand your target audience and which channel you should use to get more from your marketing efforts.
3. Raise Your Product Prices
The inflation and soaring supply chain costs have left companies to find a way to raise the prices of their products/services. A brand refresh is one of the simplest and most proven ways to increase the prices of your offerings.
Lower prices will offer better value to customers and attract more clients. But business coaches always suggest companies package their services and position themselves to provide maximum value to customers and themselves. Raising your product prices while justifying why you’re doing this can take your brand to a higher level.
- Switching to premium prices and positioning as the best in the business market can help attract buyers who value your unique offerings. These buyers tend to take responsibility and have only realistic expectations about what they can achieve from your products/services.
- Raising your product prices is more effective than selling more products.
- Raising prices can help you increase profits from your business operations and achieve your true goals.
Before raising your product prices, you must communicate with customers and clients about the price increase.
4. Improve Your Customer Retention
Customer retention is one of the essential things that decide the long-term success of businesses. Business experts say attracting new buyers is about 60% more expensive than retaining the existing ones. A brand refreshment is a proven way to signal your current customers that you’re evolving to satisfy their needs and requirements.
Preventing customer churn is the main pro objective of every brand to stay in the long run. You can improve your customer retention with a brand refreshment and reap the following perks;
- Only a few frequent and loyal buyers can ensure sustainable company growth. For instance, only a 5% increase in customer retention can improve a company’s profit by up to 25%.
- It can help you get more valuable insights into your loyal customers’ preferences and needs and develop more strategic solutions.
- Improved customer retention can also strengthen customer loyalty and boost referrals.
- It can reduce the cost of acquiring new customers.
A brand refresh is an ideal approach to increase sales and achieve your revenue goals, as surveys reveal that engaged customers spend 60% more per transaction and buy 90% more frequently.
5. Create Brand Awareness
One of the obvious reasons why companies should consider a brand refresh is that it gives customers something significant to talk about. For example, a new tagline or logo design helps remind your customers what your brand’s objective is.
You can get inspiration from Coca-Cola, the absolute champion of brand awareness. The brand often refreshes its feel; that’s why 94% of the world’s population recognizes its logo.
Creating brand awareness can help benefit your company in the following ways;
- It can help you eliminate the negative perception associated with your brand.
- It can assist you in building a lead at the top of the sales funnel
- It can drive more traffic to your business website
The Right Time for Brand Refreshing
Usually, companies ask what the right time to invest in a brand refresh is. It is necessary to do a brand refresh once in 3-5 years, but this timeframe may vary depending on how rapidly market trends change. The following signs can indicate that it is the perfect time to invest in a brand refresh;
- Your brand is feeling outdated and inconsistent
- Your marketing strategies are underperforming
- You’re looking for a proven way to appeal to your new and existing customers.
Tips to Successfully Refresh Your Brand
Are you ready to dust off your brand and rejuvenate it with a new look and feel? Let’s share some valuable tips on how to get started with a successful brand refreshment.
Identify your Current Brand’s Perceptions
Like your marketing efforts, a successful brand refreshment starts with deep market research. It is always better to understand the current perceptions of your brand and the preferences of your potential customer before making a significant change in your brand’s look and feel.
You can arrange online surveys or conduct customer interviews to understand better what they expect from your brand.
Redesign Your Brand Identity
Updating the visual identity is the central part of any brand refreshing project. It can include redesigning your brand’s logo, photographic style, typography, and color scheme. Your brand’s visual identity is your company’s most visceral and immediate representation. An attractive visual identity can help buyers develop strong perceptions of your brand and offerings.
You can refresh your old logo with a new and clean one to help customers understand your brand has set its gaze firmly on the future.
Redefine Your Brand Strategy
Redefine your brand strategy to get more intended results from your refreshment projects. A brand strategy includes everything from your brand personality to your brand compass. Updating the essential components of your brand’s framework is the most significant aspect of a successful brand refresh.
Reactivate Your Brand
Reintroducing your brand is the final step to completing a brand refresh successfully. Use effective marketing tactics to get your rejuvenated brand in front of your target audience.
The Bottom Line
A brand refresh is the most straightforward and proven way to take your brand to a higher level. A successful brand refresh can help companies improve customer retention, increase sales, keep up with advanced market trends, and avoid customer churn.
Investing in a brand refresh is also effective in boosting your brand awareness. It is an ideal approach to develop a product/service that can cater to the needs of every customer. With a brand refresh, you can also increase the prices of your products, resulting in higher revenue.