Signs It’s Time to Rebrand Your Business

Rebranding your business comes with the territory of owning and managing a successful brand. Even corporations that have endured decades in a highly competitive market need to remain open to pivoting and adjusting their brand along the way.

Knowing just when to implement consumer-facing changes is key. In order to gauge the best time to rebrand your business, there are some common signs to look out for.

Should You Rebrand Your Business?

Read over the following signs to determine if rebranding is in your best interest.

Your Brand Appears Oudated and Out of Touch with the Times

This might be the most common and obvious sign that your brand needs a major refresher. Perhaps your visual brand standards are associated with old trends and appear dated to your target audience. If your products or services are intended for a particular age demographic, you need to stay current with what your targeted age bracket resonates with the most.

Should you lose touch with the values and expectations of your ideal target audience, you’ll see a drop in engagement, sales and overall effectiveness. Rebranding could mean visually updating your logo, website, social media presence, slogan, etc. It might also entail making brand improvements in customer communication and sales process preferences.

Either way, you want your brand to be easily recognizable, accessible and relatable to your target demographic. Taking them through the sales funnel and customer journey isn’t difficult when you’re staying in tune with the current trends and preferences of consumers.

You Have an Unclear Target Demographic

Yes, back to target demographics. This one is big. You might need to rebrand your business by first tightening up exactly who your customers are and identifying their needs, goals, pain points, triggers, communication styles, etc.

If you don’t have these key aspects defined, it’s likely that your brand is casting too wide a net and not coming back with the desired results. Once you’ve clearly defined and identified your brand’s target audience, you’ll better understand how to successfully lead them through the buyer’s journey. It is going to require thought and research, but once you have those details worked out, you can begin rebranding your business in a more bullseye kind of way.

You’re Experiencing an Acquisition or Merger

Anytime a business is undergoing a change in leadership through an acquisition or merger, it’s a good time to consider rebranding the business. These top-level changes carry ripple effects throughout the organization and foundational questions will inevitably emerge.

Ask yourself:

How does this (if at all) impact our target audience/demographic?
Will this acquisition or merger eliminate, add or modify any of our existing products or services?
Will this change impact a new geographical location, a new cultural aspect we need to consider?
Does this change the brand’s name, logo, or other brand standards currently in place?

Getting clear on the answers to these questions is the first step towards reshaping and cultivating a more successful brand as these leadership changes take place.

Rebranding is all about revisiting the basics of your brand and business. What worked in the past is not guaranteed to work moving forward and remaining open-minded and flexible will help your business stand the test of time.

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The Theory Behind Soylent and Other “Food 2.0” Branding

As I started to read a packaging design article titled “Why Do So Many Food 2.0 Companies Look Alike?” by Margaret Andersen for the AIGA Eye on Design blog – I was immediately captured by the subject, design theories and product backgrounds.
First of all, I love the term Food 2.0. There’s a futuristic quality to this term that lends to the theory that food has been redeveloped, or at least it’s packaged better.
I have a bit of personal history with these products, having tried a few different ones myself. This is one reason I was drawn to this article in the first place. Of the 3 different products that I have first-hand experience with, two of them are packaged with this new simplistic, modern look. Devoid of color, ornamentation and stylistic fonts, the packaging has a futuristic, utopian, almost homogenized look to it.

Food 2.0 Branding

The original article shared some direct quotes from the designers/design teams that were involved with developing and personalizing these different brands. Their design references ranged from religious iconography in Pisa to the minimalist labeling of NASA’s space equipment. I like to examine a similarly broad array of inspirational designs when I do research for a new brand identity project. I like to hear how other designers work to achieve their design solutions.
However, with all the “less is more” and “getting back to basics” identity system theories presented, I think they are forgetting that this brand look has been tried before by generic/store brands. Initially, these brands featured white packaging, with minimal text: some might say no design, no personality… no brand. Consumer’s often felt that these products were inferior, or made with inferior ingredients, which resulted in mistrust and lost sales. Today, generic brand companies have mostly dropped the all-white, minimal packaging, usually replacing it with packaging that mimics major brands.
Don’t get me wrong, I personally like the Minimalist Modern look for complete food systems, but I wonder if their resemblance to the generic brands of years ago will prevent them from gaining market share as fast as they otherwise would.
I have seen other design solutions and have brainstormed some of my own that fit the Minimalist Modern aesthetic while staying clear of features that can make a brand feel generic. There is a lot of room to be more expressive, but still keeping to the principals of the Food 2.0 movement.
We’re eager to dive into this arena, so if you’re a complete food system company looking to take your products to the top then shoot us a note today!