5 Reasons Why You Should Refresh Your Brand Rather Than Rebrand?
Your branding is your most valuable asset in your marketing strategy and as a business, as it is what audiences use to recognise you. Branding is a visual representation of who you are, what you stand for and your products or services. As these evolve, so should your brand. But often, this should be done through brand refreshes rather than a complete rebranding.
As a brand agency in Dorset, we are often approached by local businesses who feel their brands no longer reflect who they are. They want to rebrand and get a new look and feel to showcase their growth. However, more often than not, we advise against this, instead recommending a brand refresh. Why?
Brand refreshes are more cost-effective and allow you to retain brand recognition, all while reflecting the new you in an ever-evolving market.
Continue reading this blog to learn more about why you should consider a brand refresh rather than a rebrand.
1. Cost-effective
Brand refreshes are cheaper in most cases. This is because the process is slightly simpler.
A comprehensive rebranding will involve our brand agency in Dorset going back to square 1 and building it up from scratch again. This will involve redesigning logos and looking at colour schemes, font types, and image types. All of this work takes up a lot of hours and brain power, which you will pay for.
However, a brand refresh will utilise your existing brand identity as a starting point. Rather than completing a whole redesign, our team will simply rework what you have already.
The likelihood is, that we will use the same (or similar) font types and colours, meaning that the role out of the refresh will be easier as it is less complicated. For example, rather than having to change most aspects of your website, there will be small changes to make, as most of it will still be in keeping with the new look.
2. Maintain brand recognition
No matter how old your business is, you are likely to have put a lot of time and energy into getting your brand recognised, whether this is through attending events, posting on social media platforms or creating content and assets to push out.
A rebrand is likely to disrupt that. The rebranding will include a lot of changes, including potential name changes, which have the potential to confuse your audience and lose recognition. Let’s face it, we can all think of a time when a company has rebranded and left you confused about whether they still exist.
Simply refreshing your well-known brand enables you to keep the most recognisable parts of your brand identity so that your audience and prospective customers are still able to pick you out among the sea of other brands. You won’t lose customers, but you will reach new ones.
3. Evolve not revolve
It is natural for your company to evolve as you develop and expand after all, that is the aim of most businesses. Your branding should reflect this growth.
If something in your company isn’t working or is getting a bit old, you don’t ditch it and come up with something new. Instead, you work on it, figure out why it isn’t performing and adjust it. This is exactly what a refresh can be too.
Think of it as modernising and keeping relevant as a strategic update rather than a complete overhaul.
4. Don’t lose your sense of self
A good brand identity will reflect your business’s values and personality while also fitting in with the market and audience demands.
While your company grows and develops and the market changes, the core of your business is probably going to stay the same.
As a brand agency in Dorset working on a rebrand, we will work hard to keep these in mind so that your new brand identity still reflects these things.
However, with a brand refresh, this is far easier and unlikely to change as it is a minor change compared to a whole rebrand. A refresh will be able to take the parts that reflect your values and use them as the foundations of the new look and feel.
This is especially important in a market that is constantly changing as it will enable you to keep up with market trends and audience demands while holding onto your core values and USPs.
5. Easier for everyone to adapt to
It is no secret that incremental changes are easier to adapt to. This is the case in many situations, but especially in branding.
A brand refresh will be a journey of evolution over the lifetime of your business. The small changes will be easier for your audience to adapt to. This is what will maintain your recognition and the loyalty of your customers within your sector.
A rebranding is not incremental, making it far harder for all your stakeholders to get to grips with.