“ I know my business, I know branding. This is going to be a cakewalk.”
I thought rebranding would be easy.
I was dead wrong... but here's what I learnt:
- If you're too close to your business you can't produce the solution
- Its OK to not know your brand's USP
- Give time for the right brand to ferment
- Have faith in the branding process
If you're too close to your business you can't produce the solution
That's not to say you shouldn't be part of the process, but it will be harder for you to distance yourself from the problem, and hence make objective decisions.
I have sometimes seen dynamic leaders try to hijack the branding process to drive their own agendas. I was wary of not falling into this trap. Unfortunately the ownership that drives such leaders to sabotage their own branding processes, is the same ownership that I took rebranding the agency.
I didn't think anyone else had real insight into what I dreamt this agency could become, or how best to communicate that. It was only after I became completely immobilised by the infinite choice of design options that I realised that I shouldn't be making those choices.
- Treat your own business as a client - even if you're intimately familiar with branding.
- Record and qualify your objectives
- Give the job to someone else and have a little faith
It's OK to not know your brand's USP
Many business arise from personal choice and opportunity; rather than unique offering. But these businesses still have something unique to offer - it's why they're still around.
Finding that quality that makes you unique is often the hardest challenge in a branding exercise. This is why you want the sales and customer service teams to be part of the discussion. They are the ones who are at the coalface, dealing with customers and prospects. They know what it is about your business that sticks in people's minds. And if you still aren't sure, its OK to call an established client and ask them for help.
For us, the realisation on how we differ came when we realised that it was our approach to dealing with customer's challenges that made us unique - rather than any particular methodology or skillset. We listen and partner with clients, rather than just take a project and run with it.
- Include personnel from all levels to provide input into your USP
- Its OK to call a client for feedback
- Try to keep an open mind while searching for your USP
- And remember: QUALITY and SERVICE can NEVER be your USP (they are considered foregone conclusions)
Give time for the right brand to ferment
While I didn't rush this branding exercise, the previous brand grew very tired, very quickly as I didn't wait the pre-requisite period to make sure that it was "long-term viable".
It is something I tell all my clients, but to be honest, most of them can't afford a month to sit on a potential brand, staring at it day-in and day-out to make sure they don't hate it by the end of the month. Some of them can't afford to hate it - because it would mean going back to a previous iteration and finding a new direction to finalise and get all key stakeholders to agree to - something that project time-constraints sometimes don't allow. This is obviously not the ideal - but it does happen.
My advice, especially if the execution needs to be expedited and you're trying to decide whether to run with the final concept - or even trying to decide between the last two concepts:
- Put the concept on as many surfaces (within reason) that you come across during the day - diary, desktop, fridge, back of your door, etc
- DON'T include family members, and people who haven't been through the design journey; they are probably not part of your target demographic, or won't provide objective feedback based on you having a pre-existing relationship with them
- DO speak to your branding agency about organising a focus group (budget notwithstanding) to ensure that you are making the right decision
Have faith in the branding process
While this issue didn't impact as much as the other points, it still played a part. And it is a common issue I come across during branding projects - probably because branding professionals often forget that their clients often can't separate the branding process, from the visual component.
We have lead numerous branding workshops and instinctively know that sometimes the client has a pre-imagined result in mind - which is a problem, since it runs counter to the experience of discovery and openness that a branding journey provides.
So try not to form a pre-imagined impression of what your new brand will look like. The more concentrate on trying to bring a pre-visualised concept to life, the more likely it is that the solution that would be most beneficial to your brand will slip through your fingers.
- If you have an instinct on what you like and don't like, try to pin it down and verbalise it.
- Try to figure out why you feel that way about your brand or its portrayal.
- If you have difficulty pinning it down, try to create a visual board of existing brands and executions, grouping by likes and dislikes, and bring it to the table for discussion.
Click here to check out some examples of our branding and rebranding work.