5 signals telling you to take a look at your brand

In today's rapidly evolving market, staying attuned to your brand's health is more important than ever. But how do you know when it's time to take a closer look?

There are several signals to look out for that we consider to be key triggers for a brand ‘renew’ or ‘rethink’. Here are Jones and Palmer’s 5 signals to keep an eye out for.

When there is a new leader at the helm of the business, a visual signifier might be exactly what is needed to fly the flag to your stakeholders. The new leader may have a new strategy, a more diverse team, or maybe bring with them more experience and expertise, with aspirations of a new look and feel for the company.

When building a brand, it should have a degree of flexibility to accommodate a growing business as it pulls on its new horizons. But has the group offering completely changed? Is there a wholesale shift in how you generate value for your stakeholders?

Paypal is a fantastic example of how changing up their brand signified their shift from a transactional corporate business, to a people-powered economy. They modernised their look, subtly, but effectively, and paired the launch with a global campaign to push the message of trust and innovation, aligning the corporate and consumer identity of the business.

The business is doing well, it has grown over the years and now plateaued. Figures have become the main focus and potentially that connection to why the business started and what it hoped to achieve has fizzled out. Reconnecting with the ‘why’ of the business and the roots of where it came from may help rekindle this spark.

Tesco reported their biggest corporate loss and lowest trust scores and sought to address this in 2015. The horsemeat scandal had broken, the market offered consumers so many other grocery options, and the connection with ‘Every Little Helps’ no longer seemed relevant. Tesco addressed this by shifting its focus as a brand to serve its customers, instead of running shops. The brand overhauled its approach from in store experience all the way to their ‘Food Love Stories’ campaign work. Shifting to focus back to the consumers and getting back to the roots of serving their customers, and moving from ‘running stores’. It isn’t surprising that they are now back to being one of the most well-loved corporations in UK retail.

You may have been the only company in your area when starting up, but chances are, there’s a lot of competition in your market now, and a few like-for-like businesses over your shoulder. Or alternatively you are an established leader in your market and others are emulating you. So does this mean you should differentiate your positioning, or maybe even use this opportunity to reinstate your company status of being the ‘original’? We say yes - go for it! Really get under the skin of the market and who you serve to build a proposition that makes your business sit head and shoulders above the rest. It may feel a little like you’re going back to those agile start-up days at the beginning when reassessing what is most important to you. But it’s that type of energy that generates ideas, passion and ultimately, success.

Have you looked and sounded the same for the past 5+ years? But the cogs in the background are whirring and the business is moving along at a pace that no longer matches what you look and sound like? It’s important that your brand is a signal to represent your company and its actions in the present day.

A great example of a business who were doing fantastically well but had a visual style and customer interface stuck in the past were Airbnb. Their start-up identity got them so far (6 years in fact!) and were generally doing quite well. It became apparent that they were selling a feeling, an interaction, something entirely unique from stakeholder to stakeholder - not just an accommodation booking service. And their brand didn’t align with this. The case study is a stalwart in any designer's mind of successful brand redesigns. Airbnb completely turned their story on its head and produced a truly successful sounding, looking, and feeling brand all the way back in 2013. And it still has that very familiar look and feel today. They created a community and brand that expressed the founder's vision, something that focused on the people and not necessarily the places they visit, but the experiences they have.

And so, that wraps up our 5 signals to watch out for. Each signifies that a good poke at your brand might be on the cards. Here at Jones and Palmer we have a rigorous Brand Framework that’s tried and tested on our brilliant customers. Whether that’s as part of a rebrand, or during their corporate communications journey, to help solve potential problems spiralled from a brand misalignment. We’re a passionate team of problem solvers who love nothing more than talking through a challenge, so if you would like more information, get in touch.