Branding is more than your logo. Branding is more than your web site, your official colour palate, your product packaging. Branding is more than your social media presence, your blog, or corporate communications office. Branding is the heart, the soul, the voice, and the image of your business. Branding is your business as you wish it to be presented to the world, and how you wish your customers to know and relate to you. Is Your Company in Need of a Re-Brand?

Branding is the fuel that drives the engine of every successful startup, and every successful business.

Unfortunately, far too many businesses lose track of the importance of branding as an all-inclusive amalgam of their business ideals, goals and ideas. They allow their message to become diluted, or allow one element of branding to drop out of sync with the total branding mindset, leading to a discordant branding message and customer confusion. Branding is like an orchestra — every element has its proper place, and every element exists to complement and re-inforce the message of every other element.

Has your business been suffering from an Identity Crisis? Perhaps you are in Need of a Re-Brand?

Failed branding can quickly sink a company. Allow your branding to fall enough out of sync, or allow the discordance to grow to the point that your customers no longer understand your branding message, and your only hope may be a re-branding.

How can you tell when your branding has faltered to the point that you need a serious branding overhaul or re-branding?

To understand this, you first need to understand the core components and goals of a successful branding — and how far short you are falling of those goals.

Perform a comprehensive branding audit
A key step in determining the condition of your current branding effort –and deciding if you need to re-brand –- is to perform a complete, thorough, top-to-bottom audit of your current branding efforts. And this does not mean just a few cursory meetings on branding and brand message. This means a total, complete audit of every branding element your company uses, from logos to packaging to web site and social media, from letterhead to business cards. Does every element convey the same message? Does every element use the same logo, the same colour palate, and the same stylistic elements? Is your ‘official’ corporate voice consistent across all channels of communication, from web sites and blogs to printed materials? Remember, branding is about presenting a single, consistent voice and company image across all platforms. Changing voices and flip-flopping messages to communicate with specific client groups can be seen as pandering, fake, and insecure – all elements guaranteed to turn off customers.

Everyone stands for something – what about you?
Every company has a core belief system that they communicate to their customers through their actions, their products and their words, which combine to form the core of their branding message. What does your company believe it? Is this clearly communicated in your current branding, or has your branding drifted away from or diluted the core beliefs that your customers have learned to associate with your company?

Decide what is working – and not working — before jumping off the re-branding bridge
Re-branding can be an expensive, complicated, time-consuming process. It is not something that should be undertaken unless it has become unavoidable, either through a botched branding message or branding problem which threatens to slow your growth or derail your company. You need to make absolutely sure that your branding problem has risen to the level of needing a re-brand before making that commitment, because once you jump off that bridge, there’s no going back. Is there just one or two elements that need to be refined in order to fix your branding problem? Is it really just a question of getting the orchestra back into sync, rather than burning down the concert hall and hiring a new orchestra? Branding problems can be fixed, but only if you recognize the problems before it grows into a brand-destroying cancer, which brings us to our final point:

You wouldn’t perform surgery on yourself – so why try to fix your branding without professional help?
Branding is a serious, life-or-death project for any company. And the business of branding is a challenging, detail-oriented business that requires experience, expertise, and knowledge of how the many elements of successful branding can propel your company to new levels of success. Odds are that if you have appendicitis, you’re not going to try to perform surgery on yourself, so why treat your branding with any less seriousness? If you think your branding is in trouble, is in need of an overhaul, or if a complete re-brand is in order, you need to call in experienced branding professionals. They can help you evaluate where you are, guide you in what areas to fix, and help you build the comprehensive branding message you need to succeed.

Is Your Company in Need of a Re-Brand? Our branding professionals at Red Lounge Agency can help.

Contact us today for more information on the many services we can offer to help take your business to the next level.

Need of a Re-Brand?