A logo is just the beginning. The full scope of what may need updating during a business rebrand includes everything from visual design to your mission statement. If your brand feels outdated, misaligned, or inconsistent, it might be time to refresh key elements like your logo, taglines, and core branding components like your vision and mission statements.
In last week’s article, we talked about some signs that it may be time for an update of your business’s existing brand:
- Your brand no longer reflects the reality of your business
- Your brand is no longer being used or is used inconsistently by your team
- Your brand looks dated or old
- Your brand has been unchanged for more than 8-10 years
If any of those statements are true, it’s time for a rebrand. But what does that mean? What do you need to change in a “rebrand,” anyway?
When most people think of a rebrand, they immediately think “new logo,” but that’s only one part of a much bigger picture. In this article, we’re looking more closely at what constitutes your brand and how to know which elements are up for discussion in your rebranding efforts.
What Constitutes Your Business’s Brand?
There’s a longer explanation of how to define a brand, but for this article, we’ll keep it simple: your brand is made up of everything you use to differentiate yourself in your specific market. It’s made up of dozens of different things, but the ones that we’re most commonly going to be talking about when it comes to rebranding are:
- Logo
- Brand design (colors, typefaces, design elements)
- Taglines or slogans
- Mission and vision statements
- Core values
- Value propositions
While you may think of some of these components as being “too core to change,” they’re really not. Any part of your business’s brand that’s no longer carrying its weight should be up for consideration when it’s time to think about rebranding.
Your Logo: The Center of Your Rebranding
While a business’s logo isn’t always part of a rebrand, it usually is. Having a new logo makes it unequivocally obvious that you’re turning a page and entering a new era with your business.
Depending on the nature of your rebranding, your logo may need a minor update or a complete overhaul. Minor changes, such as changing from a dimensional to a flat design or changing the logo typeface, allow brands with good recognition to maintain their identity while still getting a more up-to-date look.
If you’re rebranding because your old brand no longer reflects your business, then it may be time for more than just a logo refresh. While rolling out an entirely new logo can be a frightening prospect, it can also unlock an entirely new audience and open the door to incredible growth as new buyers discover your products or services.
Rebranding Your Look and Feel
While these changes usually accompany a logo refresh, changing up the rest of your brand design while keeping your effective logo is certainly an avenue worth exploring. As with a logo, these changes can be as dramatic or as subtle as you like.
If you’re rolling out a whole new look with a new logo, your brand design may radically depart from your old branding with a new typeface and completely new colors. For example, look at Instagram’s migration from the browns and tans of its old camera logo to the vibrant pink-blue-gold gradient of its newer, simplified logo.
If you want a more subtle shift, then making slight changes to make your brand colors slightly brighter or richer or to make your typefaces a little more modern without shifting to an entirely new font family can go a long way toward keeping your brand updated without making significant changes.
Rebranding Your Taglines and Slogans
Start listing off all of the Coca-Cola slogans you can remember from your lifetime. If you’re in your 20s, you probably remember at least two or three slogans, such as “Enjoy” and “Open Happiness.” If you’ve been around since the early ’80s, you remember dozens of taglines, from “Always Coca-Cola” to the Max-Headroom-delivered “C-C-C-Catch the Wave!” (The 80s were a weird time for American advertising…)
Taglines and slogans are some of the most commonly changed parts of a brand’s identity. Many companies don’t even use a single slogan for their business and only assign slogans to specific ad campaigns.
Your business’s tagline is one element that you may want to examine more frequently than your entire brand—and one you will almost certainly want to revisit during any rebranding project of any size.
Rebranding With Mission, Vision, Values, and Value Props
Sometimes, your brand has to change because the nature of your business has changed: your core offerings are different, your target audience is younger, your operating principles have changed, or some other shift has happened such that your brand no longer reflects your business. Sometimes, it happens so gradually that you don’t even realize it’s happening – until you read your mission statement one day and realize, “Wow, we haven’t been doing that for a long time now!”
When this kind of mismatch occurs, you need to review your core foundational statements and revise them to reflect the reality of your business.
Work with the rest of your team to rethink these statements. If you want some guidance on crafting a new mission statement, vision statement, core values, or value props, our Definitive Guide to Branding offers a great top-level walkthrough.
Time for a Rebrand? M&R Has Got You Covered. Call Today: 478-621-4491
Give us a call today at 478-621-4491 to hear from one of our Sales team members about how M&R can make your rebrand strategic, intentional, and—above all—effective for your business.
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