What are the best practices for creating a brand refresh strategy and roadmap?

Do not do a brand refresh for the sake of changing something. You need a strong differentiating narrative before starting this complex process.

Setting goals is step one in rebranding. Dive deep into your brand's current vibe and figure out the 'why' behind the makeover. Think about your unique edge and how you want to resonate with peeps out there. It's all about crafting a personality that stands out and speaks directly to your crowd.

Defining clear objectives is crucial for a successful brand refresh. It involves understanding challenges, opportunities, market positioning, and differentiation from competitors. Additionally, consider how you want to communicate your brand personality, voice, and tone to resonate with your target audience. Objectives should be specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound (SMART). By establishing clear objectives, you can ensure alignment throughout the brand refresh process and measure the success of your efforts. Regularly revisiting and refining objectives based on market feedback and performance metrics is essential for ongoing brand optimization and growth.

One thing that I found extremely useful, if you are rebranding and you want your team to live the brand, is to get team buy-in from the get go and invite them to take part in a brand strategy brainstorm session. You'll learn from the internal grass-roots where your brand can improve and learn valuable insights from the sales and customer teams who deal with customers directly; what your current customers are saying. Diving deeper into human insights before big data is an element I always bring into the mix. Team support and work ethic will soar.

This is the stage where you need to connect the brand witht the business objectives because the brand is just one tool the organization uses to reach its goals.

It’s helpful to collect data from every department within the organization to ensure all perspectives are represented and avoid information gaps.

In addition to the mentioned methods, conducting a brand audit also involves reviewing internal brand assets like brand guidelines, marketing materials, and employee training documents to ensure consistency. It's essential to assess brand perception not only among customers but also among internal stakeholders like employees and partners. Furthermore, analyzing industry trends and benchmarks can provide valuable insights into areas where your brand can stand out or improve. Regularly conducting brand audits helps maintain brand relevance, identify emerging opportunities, and stay ahead of competitors in an ever-evolving market landscape.

Never create a brand strategy on your own and in a silo. Lead the process, but get a core team of stakeholders together to shape the brand strategy. Ideally you don't rush through it within a few days. Have downtime days where no one actively works on the strategy. Use this time for the ideas to seep in subconsciously and see how time off the process will help creating new perspectives and insights.

In addition to the mentioned components, a comprehensive brand strategy should also include guidelines for brand architecture, visual identity, and brand voice. It's crucial to define how your brand will be structured, including any sub-brands or product lines, to ensure clarity and coherence across all brand assets. Moreover, outlining specific tactics and initiatives to achieve your brand goals, as well as assigning responsibilities and timelines, can help ensure successful implementation. Regular reviews and adjustments to the brand strategy based on market feedback and performance metrics are also essential for maintaining relevance and effectiveness over time.

In my experience one of the best rules around creating a brand identity is to be completely honest with your own abilities. Do you have the skills as a brand designer to create a brand identity with whole puzzle thinking? If your answer is no: do reach out for help and commission brand designers or brand agencies to help you with this. It will cost more in the short time, but will save you money in the long run as it's less likely you'll have to think about another refresh in half a years' time.

As in-house marketers, sometimes we are too close to the brand to be subjective or ask the correct questions as ironic as that sounds. Don't underestimate the power of a talented copywriter to take your average brand to a memorable one.

In addition to the mentioned elements, it's crucial to consider the emotional and psychological aspects of your brand identity. Your brand's personality should resonate with your target audience and evoke the desired feelings and associations. Consistency in applying your brand identity across various platforms and touchpoints helps reinforce brand recognition and trust. Moreover, incorporating storytelling elements into your brand identity can help convey your brand's values, heritage, and unique selling proposition, fostering deeper connections with your audience. Regularly reviewing and updating your brand identity ensures it remains relevant and resonant in an evolving market landscape.

In my experience as a Brand Alignment Strategist, creating deep emotive connection and symbology with colour, typography and imagery becomes a powerful tool when building brand assets. Enhancing the brands purpose and ultimately igniting curiosity and human connection from your customers and internal teams can boost your business and drive meaning in everything you do.

I have found in working as a brand identity designer that rolling out a brand refresh in digestible portions rather than introducing the entire update all at one time can be an easier way to get your clients on board with the changes that were implemented. It all depends on a given situation. In larger firms such as financial institutions, unfolding a rebrand was particularly challenging, though knowing how to handle that is an excellent skill.

For a successful brand refresh strategy and roadmap, begin by conducting thorough research to understand current brand perception and market trends. Develop a clear vision and objectives for the refresh, and create a detailed plan outlining key milestones and deliverables. Implement the refresh by rolling out updated brand elements consistently across all touchpoints, ensuring alignment with the new strategy. Launch the refreshed brand with a strategic communication plan that includes internal and external announcements, and monitor feedback closely to make necessary adjustments for optimal impact and engagement.

The work doesn't stop once your brand refresh has been launched. There will always be things that slip through the cracks (old social media posts being reused, old document templates that haven't been updated yet). Customers and long-time followers of your brand may have questions. They'll want to know that you're still the same brand they know and love. Finally, remember your brand will keep evolving after the launch period. Things may not feel quite right in practice, so you might want to make little tweaks here and there, but if you've followed the process in this guide no big changes should be needed.

The final step in your brand refresh project is to monitor and evaluate its success. Track metrics like brand awareness, loyalty, recognition, and customer satisfaction. Collect feedback from stakeholders and customers through surveys, reviews, and social media mentions. Analyzing this data helps you assess whether the refresh met its objectives and achieved the desired results. Continuously monitor these indicators to ensure your brand stays relevant and resonates with your audience.

I have found that while monitoring and evaluating the impact of a brand refresh is crucial, it’s also important to consider the potential impact on internal stakeholders. Employees, for instance, are often overlooked during a rebranding process. However, they play a critical role as brand ambassadors. Therefore, it’s essential to ensure that internal communication strategies are in place during a rebranding process. This not only helps to ensure consistency in how the brand is represented across all touchpoints but also aids in fostering a sense of ownership and commitment among employees, which can further enhance the success of the rebranding effort.

Evolution vs. Revolution. A rebrand represents a shift in your core messaging. This starts with upstream business and brand strategy considerations, including your long term vision—deciding what spaces you want to compete in, how you're positioned and defining your most compelling and ownable differentiator(s), brand values and key messaging pillars. A refresh is more of a visual, surface-level update. In this scenario, your brand values and positioning (the strategy stuff we're focusing on during a rebrand) still holds true, but your identity and packaging may just need some level of updating. 

The work will generally build on, or evolve, your existing identity. So it’s not a sweeping change, but an evolution.

Finding the balance between our brand's specialized solution and the explicit need of our target audience. After verifying the verifiable existence of both components, it is time to list our client's problems in order to access the solution to the problem. Direct communication with them is the only key. After this, study creative and optimal solutions in terms of their quick and feasible execution according to the current possibilities of our company.