Ever come across an old picture of yourself? What were you wearing? How about that hair? And your reaction?
Exactly :)
We’ve all been there and we’ve all had the same reaction: Wow. I was awesome! (We’re actually laughing because we only wish that’s how it went. It usually ended with something like, “Please don’t post this anywhere”).
Honestly, the analogy alone is enough to answer the question of why it’s important to evolve your brand – evolve lest people laugh at you. Kidding aside, there is actually some good psychology (and as much business sense) behind our desires to grow and evolve, and as in life, so in business.
People change slowly and gradually in relation to their environment. Brands are no different. Though it’s way easier for a person to vary their look, amend behavior or completely reinvent themselves literally overnight.
Doing so with a brand isn’t feasible (or even practical). Think: large, waterbody vessel. The larger it is, the longer and more room it takes to turn, stop, start and get up to speed. In the oceans of marketing, brands work in much the same way. The longer you’ve been sailing it, the larger the presence, recognition and interaction left by your wake.
Making changes to your brand takes some strategy as it’s quite the ship to maneuver. However, it might be time if you’ve found yourself pondering any of these:
“Our brand was created during a time when people had more time to get to know me. With attention spans and schedules shorter than ever, I’m not sure my brand immediately communicates who we are.”
“We’ve dipped our toes into the waters of Brand Change with smaller tweaks to the brand over time. It was a good way to gauge response as the changes were small enough to allow for a quick reversal if not well received or continue full steam ahead if they were.”
“We would if we didn’t have so much collateral, stationery, tchotchkes and the like with our branding on it.”
Every day you can find examples of logos, branding and marketing that have gone untouched. And just as many that have changed – like ours.
We recently made the move and did just this: went under the hood to rework our backend development; enhance and tailor our look and feel; and re-tool the UX so that it all – the UX, design and development – works seamlessly and effortlessly.
Past Branding
Current Branding
