REBRANDING: A FRESH COAT OF PAINT vs. THE COMPLETE OVERHAUL

“Change, however slight, is necessary for survival. It is called adaptation.

In our day to day lives, we rebrand in small, subtle ways and other times in big, significant ways. The female of our species is known to dab on a little makeup in of varying degrees: ranging from a light, almost non existent touch up also called the no-makeup look (Case in point The Duchess of Sussex, Megan Markle, on her wedding day in 2018); to the complete make overlook, also known as the face beat for the gods, where the subject is almost unrecognisable from their original version.

On the male side of things, a subtle change is achieved by visiting a barber for a top up. While in the month of November a.k.a November, we note two extremes from the complete shaving of all facial hair; to growing out all follicles of one’s facial hair to enter into the elite and envious club known as the beard gang.

There are methods of changing one’s look by changing the style of clothes, shoes or accessories. Interior home design is an art of altering our living and working spaces either by just applying a fresh coat of paint or by demolishing walls and throwing in an entirely new kitchen plus the sink. The end game in all of these exercises is visual change.

Therefore, the question begs, if we can make subtle and extreme visual changes to our faces, styles, offices, and homes; can we apply the same to our organizations? The answer is a big YES!

There are two ways an organization can change up how it is visually portrayed to its staff, clients, customers, communities, suppliers, donors, and partners in a process of which is called Rebranding.

1. Subtle but sweet – In these harsh economic and extremely busy times, it might seem to be a lot of work to rethink your organization’s brand look and feel. However, there is a short cut version of the invasive surgery that rebranding might be known for. It is called a brand refresh which allows you to keep key elements intact but review items such as font selection and logo presentation. This simple switch won’t take much to do and is not time-consuming. The benefits.of a Brand refresh is that it helps you update the organization’s brand toolkit with different and more current formats of your logo for use on new age platforms such as social media & website. It also allows for the creation of best resolution options for sharper images in both small and large format print.
2. Structural and Significant – The more long-term rethink of your brand, known as 360 rebranding, requires what seems like long and tedious but very necessary process. As the leader of your organization, you must take the journey in understanding various facets of your organization. The process calls for deep introspection of where the organization and its people are in the now, and decide where both should be in the future. It means you seek your organization’s personality, character, reputation, and tone of voice. It requires that you conduct in-depth research into your internal and external audiences. While this deep dive process can be done internally, it does in great part require outsider hand holding because there are some things that are likely to be clearly seen from the outside looking in. Also, because the process of rebranding does not take place in a vacuum, business, as usual, is still ongoing, therefore engaging external assistance in varying degrees is key.

Whichever method you chose to rethink your organization’s brand presence and positioning, know for sure that it’s an exercise that won’t be in futility.

Rebranding shows that organizations are ever-evolving organisms as people who make them up also are.