Chapter 16

Revitalizing Your Brand with a Full or Partial Makeover

In This Chapter

Evaluating your need for a brand update

Aligning your brand to current tastes, times, and market conditions

Launching your revitalized brand

As you open to this chapter, the word rebranding is probably on your mind, but chances are good that revitalizing better explains the brand revision you’re looking for.

Rebranding is the go-to term that marketers use when they talk about updating their brand identities and reputations. It involves basically erasing your current brand identity (along with much of the considerable value that goes with it) and starting the brand-development process all over again, following all the steps explained in this book.

Sometimes rebranding is called for (like following a major acquisition, a major image disaster, a merger, or a major change in business direction). For example, Phillip Morris rebranded itself as Altria to distance itself from the reputation of a tobacco company and Malaysia Air began talking about a rebrand after back-to-back air tragedies in 2014. More often, though, brand owners aren’t in need of rebranding. Instead, they seek brand revitalizations to make their brand identities more contemporary, more competitive, and a clearer reflection of the businesses they represent.

In most cases, brands can be revitalized by retaining the core and valued elements of their identities while updating the execution with current styles of image, typography, and colors. For instance, when FedEx revitalized its logo over a decade ago, it did so by retaining and updating the symbol with fresher versions of the same basic colors and a cleaner expression of the thick sans-serif typography.

This chapter helps you to determine what kind of a brand revision you need and how far you want and need your identity update to go. Then it helps you plan the steps involved to make the changes you have in mind while protecting the brand value you’ve built to date.

Brands Grow Old, Too

Some brands age gracefully, gaining stature, esteem, and strength in the process. Others show their years in less distinguished ways, becoming out-of-step, a little dowdy, and no longer able to command the interest of those they most need to inspire — whether that means consumers, investors, employees, or other brand supporters.

With attention, many brands come back to life quickly. Some require only cosmetic attention — ranging from a design nip and tuck to a full brand facelift — along with some message and marketing realignment. Others need to be resuscitated with heroic rebranding efforts. Still others — a rare few — need to be put on life support while their owners prepare for their graceful departure from the big, branded world.

As evidenced by the fact that most brands never see their fifth birthdays but others live well into the second century of life, there’s no timetable to rely on as you try to plot your brand’s growth curve.

What you can count on, however, is that sooner or later your brand will go through all or most of the life-cycle stages illustrated in Figure 16-1.

Spotting brand aging signs

Times change, businesses change, consumer interests change, culture changes, and sometimes brands need to change, too. To evaluate whether your brand may be in need of an update, ask the questions listed in this section on an annual basis, at the very least.

If you answer “yes” to these questions during your brand review, you definitely need to take action by following the steps detailed in the rest of this chapter.

Has your business changed dramatically?

Most rebranding or brand revitalizing is triggered by internal business changes. When the nature of your business changes, the nature of your brand changes, and realignment becomes necessary. To determine whether your situation merits branding attention, ask these questions:

• Have ownership or leadership changes led to a new company culture? If so, does your brand identity still accurately reflect your company mission, vision, and values?
• Has your product line changed, or are you about to add products that will dramatically alter your offerings? If so, does your brand promise still apply to every product and service you offer or plan to offer?
• Have you changed your distribution channels (how and where you offer your products)? If so, does your brand identity represent you well in all channels, particularly online?

Has your market changed dramatically?

To assess whether changes in your market environment have sapped your brand strength, ask these questions:

• Are you facing new or stronger competition? If so, how well do your brand identity, promise, and experience stand up to the challenge?
• Has your brand message and experience become out of sync with current consumer interests and tastes? If so, can you update your experience to make it compelling and competitive?
• Is your brand identity — your name, logo, tagline, and other identifying elements — out of step with design and cultural trends? If so, can you update your identity while retaining the highest-value elements?

Brand change-of-life warning signals

When your organization (the heart and soul of your brand) undergoes major change, most often your brand identity (the face of your brand) needs to undergo change as well. Otherwise, the core of your brand is out of alignment with the promise you make to your market, and a brand credibility crisis is likely to follow.

Likewise, when your market (the reason for your brand’s being) undergoes major change, your brand probably needs to change, too. Otherwise your image is out of sync with market needs, tastes, and desires, and a brand relevance crisis is likely to follow.

To avoid a brand disaster, frequently scan your business situation for four warning signs that the strength of your brand may be at risk:

• Rapid business expansion
• Major product or channel diversification
• A merger or acquisition
• A brand identity that hasn’t adapted to your changed business and market

The upcoming sections describe the symptoms of each of these brand-health red flags. Scan them, and then complete the questionnaire in Figure 16-2 to assess your brand’s vulnerability.

Rapid expansion

In the race to roll out new products, seize new opportunities, open additional outlets, add new distribution channels, or expand into new market areas, your business can outgrow your brand identity. Suddenly, your core brand message is outdated, you can no longer keep your brand promise, and your brand experience is unpredictable. Even your name and slogan become inappropriate fits with the current realities of your business.

If your organization has experienced dramatic growth in the most recent six-month period, schedule a retreat — soon — to evaluate whether your brand identity still reflects the character, values, and attributes of your evolving business situation. Don’t wait until an identity or credibility crisis sets in. Use the questions in Figure 16-2 as your assessment guide.

Major product, channel, or strategic diversification

The marketplace is in flux. Digital communications have upended how businesses communicate, present offerings, and even sell products. At the same time, market territories, even for small businesses, have expanded almost without limits. Even self-employed freelancers in home offices can now serve market areas that span the globe.

Amidst this change, brand owners refocus or change strategic direction — and brand identities — to adapt to their changing environments. Among the examples are businesses that have moved their bricks-and-mortar businesses online; businesses that have shifted emphasis to address environmental realities; and companies that have altered product lines, distribution approaches, and business strategies to serve global markets.

UPS is a case in point. Over the past decade, UPS shifted its emphasis from fleets of delivery trucks to teams of global logistics experts. In the process, the company changed its marketing message, redesigned its logo and website, and developed a new tagline to address the company’s changed structure and market. In the 1990s, UPS marketed under the slogan, “The package delivery company more companies count on.” Today, the company presents itself as “a leading global provider of specialized transportation and logistics services,” eliminating reference to packages and shipping, instead opening the consumer’s mind to the company’s expanded market and capabilities.

BP (British Petroleum) is another business that restructured strategically and then realigned its brand accordingly. After multiple mergers and acquisitions, BP declared itself more than a petroleum company. It unveiled a revolutionary visual update, announced a transformation from “a local oil company into a global energy group,” redefined itself as a “green” leader, and even changed the meaning of “BP” to stand for “beyond petroleum.”

On the product-brand front, the cars we know as Nissan were called Datsuns until the mid-1980s when the manufacturer rebranded to align all its cars, in all global markets, under one brand name. In 2009, Microsoft rebranded its search engine Live Search with the easy-to-recall name Bing, invoking the sound made following a discovery: Bingo. And in our own backyard, the Oregon-based beverage brand Humm Kombucha was known as Kombucha Mama until the owners quadrupled production facilities, expanded distribution to serve a national market area, and unveiled a name that captured the essence of the brand as “a vibration of music and laughter…made with love and positive energy and the best ingredients on earth.”

A merger or acquisition

When you hear the word merger, most often you’re hearing a euphemism for the reality that one business has been acquired or taken over by another. On occasion, two businesses participate as 50-50 partners in a merger, but even then one company usually emerges as the dominant force.

Whether companies are acquired or merge, their brands rarely blend into one. Essentially, a brand is an organization’s promise. If merged brands try to merge promises, most often they end up with a two-pronged promise that confuses consumers and rattles confidence.

In most acquisitions or mergers, the two organizations assess the value of each brand and the equity of each brand’s identifying elements before adopting one of the following brand approaches:

• The acquiring or dominant company keeps its name. It emerges as the prevailing brand, often with a revitalized identity to reflect the benefits of the merger. (This is what happens in most cases.)
• The seller’s name prevails. For example, when SBC acquired AT&T, it adopted the high-value AT&T name and updated the identity to appear more agile and youthful. Changes included a redesign of the brandmark to more closely resemble a globe — the market served by the new entity.
• The combined brands merge their names. This solution works but only once in a while. For example, FedEx acquired Kinko’s and announced the new brand name FedEx Kinko’s, but within years the merged entity was renamed FedEx Office. And then there’s the Time Warner and AOL merger that resulted, briefly, in the merged brand name AOL/Time Warner, which confused consumers and investors alike until eventually the two entities separated back into independent brands: AOL and Time Warner. When Price Waterhouse merged with Coopers & Lybrand, the new brand name became PricewaterhouseCoopers, a memory test that was formally shortened to the brand name PwC in 2010.
• A new brand name emerges with no apparent link to either of the merged brands. For example, the name Verizon emerged from the merger, way back when, of Bell Atlantic and GTE.

A dated brand identity

In the low-budget start-up days, many businesses resort to brand identities that are either self-designed or whipped up by an aspiring artist recommended by the friend of a friend of a cousin of a brother-in-law. The result is usually a make-do identity created with all the best intentions in the world at a price that seemed right at the time.

Fast-forward several years, though, and what seemed to work fine at startup no longer represents the culture or sophistication of the organization or fits the nature of the market it serves or the environment in which it survives.

When that’s the case, brand revitalization is in order, and it’s a process you can’t take lightly. Simply designing a great new brandmark isn’t enough. At the very least, you need to take the following actions:

1. Assess how much you want or need to change your identity.

   Brand identity redesigns span the gamut from evolutionary to revolutionary depending on whether they move the current identity forward a little, a lot, or into an altogether new name and logo.

2. Determine the brand identity assets that contribute the most value to your brand.

   Assess and identify which identifying elements have the greatest marketplace awareness and affection so you know which aspects to protect and carry over to your revitalized identity. Turn to Chapter 3 for help with this task.

3. Invest in the counsel and talents of a good brand designer as you weigh your existing brand strengths and consider your options.

   Chapter 12 provides advice for interviewing creative firms, making selections, and getting design agreements in writing.

4. Adopt a revitalized brand strategy that can represent your brand vision for at least ten years, which is about the maximum frequency that the look of a brand should undergo major change.

Examining Your Brand’s Health

Doctors require X-rays and lists of diagnostic tests before determining health conditions and issuing prescriptive remedies. Brands deserve the same treatment. Before “fixing” your brand, put it through a checkup:

1. Start with a brand review, also called a brand audit.
2. Determine how far you want or need your brand revision to go in terms of changes to your current brand identity.
3. Outline your brand revitalization plan by defining your goals, objectives, strategies, tactics, and measuring sticks.

The following sections walk you through each step.

Conducting a brand review

A brand review takes your brand through many of the same steps you took when establishing your brand in the first place. (For an overview of the brand development process, see Chapter 3.)

As you review your brand’s condition, give every one of the questions in this section the attention it deserves. Your answers will help you pinpoint where your brand is ailing so you can direct repair efforts toward fixing what’s broken rather than overhauling strong and valuable brand attributes.

What do you want to achieve through your brand revitalization program?

Prioritize your goals by selecting from the following brand functions:

• Create greater awareness of your brand
• Enhance emotional connection with those in your target audience
• Clarify or redefine brand distinctions
• Build or rebuild credibility and trust
• Motivate product preference and purchases

Chapter 3 includes a worksheet that helps you assess how well your branding priorities are supported by your current brand strengths. If your brand is strong in your priority areas, your need for brand revitalization is low. If your brand is weak in the areas that are most important to your future success, however, your brand likely needs assessment, repair, and rejuvenation.

How well does your brand fit in your marketplace?

Answer these questions:

• How do others — including employees, customers, prospective customers, investors, and suppliers — perceive your brand?
• Why do people choose your brand? Are their reasons strongly compelling and adequately conveyed in your brand name, logo, tagline, and brand communications?
• What attributes do people believe distinguish your brand from competing brands? Are those the same attributes that you feel best differentiate your brand and its offerings?
• Are the distinguishing characteristics of your brand of increasing or decreasing interest to consumers?
• Is your brand well recognized among those you target as customers? When asked to name top contenders in your market category, do all, most, or few prospects cite your brand?
• Do your brand name, logo, and slogan appeal to current market and cultural tastes and trends?

See Chapter 4 for advice on how to conduct research to unearth the answers you need in the area of marketplace perception.

Is your brand an accurate reflection of your business?

All great brands share one important attribute: They’re mirror images of the companies they represent. To assess how accurately your brand reflects your business, answer these questions:

• Does your brand identity mirror your business mission, vision, and values (see Chapter 6), or have ownership, leadership, or strategic changes made your brand identity out of date?
• Does your brand identity reflect the quality, character, personality, and voice of your business? (See Chapter 6 for help arriving at your answer.)
• Does your brand promise convey your strengths and distinctions, and is it believable and consistently reinforced through all brand encounters? (Refer to Chapter 6 again as you consider this question.)
• Do all products that you’ve added or that you plan to add fit well under your brand? Do the number of products and the nature of your offerings make sense to consumers? (Chapter 2 addresses brand architecture, and Chapter 15 touches on brand extensions.)
• Is your pricing a reflection of your brand image, message, and promise?
• Has your brand image been tarnished by events within or outside your control? (See Chapter 18 for help dealing with brand crises.)

Do customers and others accurately understand your brand?

Remember, your brand lives in the minds of others, so before you begin to revise your image, invest time and effort to discover what those who know your brand currently think of it. Answer these questions:

• Does the brand image that others currently hold in their minds reflect the image and competitive position you aspire to hold in your marketplace? (See Chapter 5 for help staking claim to your market position.)
• When customers rank the top competitors in your field, does the ranking of your brand fit with your desired level of market dominance?
• Does your brand attract the clientele you aspire to serve?
• Do those who work most closely with your business — including your employees, your business partners, your investors, and your most loyal customers — all describe your brand accurately?

Does your brand experience reinforce your desired brand image at all contact points?

Too often, brands undergo name or logo changes when what really needs fixing is the brand experience, starting with the way their products work.

People form opinions about a brand based on all contact with the brand, from marketing communications to staff encounter and, from the intricacies of the purchase experience to the experience of becoming a product owner. Determine whether your brand experience contributes to your desired brand image by answering these questions:

• Are your brand name, logo, communications, location, and experience consistent with the personality, character, message, and voice that you want associated with your business?
• When people encounter your brand, is the experience consistent, compelling, and competitive? (Turn to Chapter 13 for instructions on how to put your brand experience to the test.)
• Are your communications — from your ads to your website and social media pages to your phone, mail and in-person contacts — uniformly consistent in terms of look, voice, character, and brand message?

Does your brand compete well with the brands of dominant competitors in your market area?

As competitors enter your business arena, their brand offerings can change customer expectations. Determine whether your brand has remained current by answering these questions:

• Is your identity (your name, logo, tagline, and other identifying elements) distinctive and competitive in terms of quality, sophistication, and consistency?
• Are your website and social-media pages good representations of your brand and good reflections of your brand image? Is your brand findable and prominent in search results, which affect first impressions of your brand? Turn to Chapters 10 and 11 for advice.
• Is your brand promise clear, unique, and appealing when compared to promises extended by your competitors?
• Are your services outstanding compared to those of your competitors?
• Is your brand experience competitive and excellent?

Making the diagnosis: Retool or retire?

After you complete a brand review, the moment of decision arrives: Can your brand be revitalized, or do you need to put it out to pasture? To arrive at an answer, use the results of the brand review as you answer these questions:

• Is your brand healthy? Is it an accurate reflection of your business today? As you look at your plans and hopes for the next ten years, does your brand name, logo, promise, and message match your aspirations?

  If your answers add up to a resounding “yes,” recommit to your brand, and also commit to a double-dose investment of time and money to see that it’s well protected and well presented for years to come.

• Is your brand ailing? Has it lost its fit with your business and market? If so, is the gap between what your business has become and what your brand identity implies vast or narrow?

  If the alignment between your brand and your business is way off — if your brand is called Main Street Fix-It but you now offer business system reviews and solutions to a global market — you’re facing an identity crisis, and complete rebranding may be in order.

  On the other hand, if the alignment between your brand and your business is only slightly amiss — if your name is Global Advertising but you now offer global clients strategic planning, branding, and message development services in addition to advertising production and placement — a name adjustment and a brand revitalization may be the extent of your needs.

• Does your brand have high value? (Chapter 15 can help you make your assessment.) If your answer is “yes,” the worth of your brand as an established asset is reason enough to revitalize rather than rebrand.

  By revitalizing — or updating and polishing your established brand — you realign it with changed conditions while also, and importantly, protecting the brand value you’ve built over the years.

  By rebranding, you basically erase previously established value and start over again, building value from scratch. Rebranding is the way to go when the value in your existing brand is so low or in such negative territory that you’re better off giving yourself the equivalent of a golf mulligan and taking an altogether new shot. If that’s the case in your situation, turn straight back to Chapter 3, heat up your branding iron, and get ready to begin the branding process from square one.

Fixing a Broken Brand

Most brands break not because markets change but because businesses change.

Sometimes, names or logos need updating in order to keep pace with market realities, tastes, and cultural trends, but that kind of market-responsive change involves only a cosmetic update or name adjustment, not a brand overhaul.

Brand overhauls become necessary when business overhauls literally change a company’s heart and soul. When the core of the business — the base of the brand — changes radically, the face of the brand — the brand’s name, logo, and identifying elements — needs to change, too. Otherwise, there’s a disconnect between what the brand says it is and what, in fact, the brand is. And that’s a formula for credibility disaster.

Protecting your valuables

The most essential step in fixing or updating a brand is determining which brand assets carry the highest value in consumer minds. Brand assets include

• Your brand name
• Your brand’s identifying elements, including your logo, your logotype or script, your tagline or slogan, your color scheme, your packaging, and brand signature items such as a unique scent (think Cinnabon), a musical signature (United Airlines’ background music, for example), or even signature events that consumers link to your name
• Your brand’s core message and promise
• Your brand’s dominance in a defined market niche
• Your brand’s link to key customer groups

The brand asset analysis worksheet in Chapter 3 can help you determine the value of each of your assets and whether or not the strength of your brand would be reduced if you were to change or eliminate the asset.

For instance, if you discover that your brandmark has low awareness or that its usage has been mismanaged over the years, you may determine that replacing your symbol will serve only to strengthen your image. On the other hand, if you find that consumers have high awareness and regard for your name, you should think long and hard before abandoning it. (As a case in point, think back to the 2010 disastrous Gap brand logo change.)

Making the change

Start the revitalization process after you take the following steps to determine which brand assets you should keep and which are dispensable:

1. Get the leadership of your company involved right from the start.

   The person who leads your company should lead or be involved in the brand revitalization or rebranding process. Otherwise, you’re apt to face an uphill battle when it’s time to adopt the new identity.

2. Determine whether you’ll refresh or revise your brand promise.

   In essence, your brand is the promise you make to all who deal with you, your business, or your offerings. The degree to which you alter your promise in large part dictates the degree to which you alter your brand. (Chapter 6 has more information on brand promises.)

3. Determine whether you need to alter your name, slightly or drastically, to fit your business, market, and sales channels.

   Chapter 7 is all about naming your brand. Make it your guide if a new or different name is the next step in your brand’s life.

4. Decide whether you need to redesign your logo.

   Chapter 8 has advice on logo design, including why to involve an experienced professional. As part of the redesign process, rewrite your graphic guidelines and your brand management policies (see Chapter 8).

5. Decide how you’ll refine your brand experience so that every encounter reinforces your revitalized brand message, strengthens your brand promise, and helps develop your desired image.
6. Relaunch your brand, starting within your organization and following the advice in Chapter 9.

   Don’t leapfrog over this step. If you fail to gain understanding and buy-in from your internal team, nothing you do externally can save your brand from the ramifications.

7. When your revitalized brand is known, accepted, and adopted internally (and not a moment before), take your brand public.

   Begin with a publicity generation effort that shares the story of why you’re making the change, how you’re building on your brand’s heritage while simultaneously embracing your brand’s future, and how your new identity and brand strategy focus on a clear, strong, powerful vision. See Chapter 12 for publicity guidelines.

8. Launch communications and promotions to announce and amplify the message of your revitalized brand (see Chapters 11 and 12).
9. Invest the time and dollars necessary to build and protect your revitalized brand’s value (see Chapter 17).