Keys to Ensure a Smooth Rebranding
If you have a weak brand, your brand may be severely damaged. Even scarier: your margin for error is negligible at best. But you can significantly improve your chances by changing the brand according to these seven principles.
1. Make sure what the brand is.
A lot more brand than your logo. A brand is a set of messages, interactions and experiences that a customer has with your product, service and people.
For customers, a brand promises an experience as well as their experience of that promise. A brand is a valuable asset that must be nurtured by providing valuable content on social media. Friendly and fast customer service; Personal and valid answers to every customer who contacts you. And respecting the wishes of customers to choose or eliminate direct marketing links with your brand.
2. Maintain control of the brand change process.
Because a brand is the equivalent of a company’s crown jewels, people can be sensitive to any change. As a result, trying to change the name can easily turn into personal interests / frustrations of managers or owners (or even what their spouses think). Consider hiring an impartial consultant or agency to facilitate the process and outcome.
As your efforts manifest, put your brand into a strategy that reflects not only the origin of the brand but also its ultimate destination in the current and future market. Some aspects of your brand (great emotional appeal, great customer service, great education, deadlines, etc.) will probably never change, but keep your mind open. Small ideas can get bigger, and seemingly big ideas can diminish over time, depending on market demand, competition, technological advances, and the like.
3. Understand that a brand has two owners: the marketer owns 50% and the customer owns 100%.
Yes, I know this is 150% – and that’s the reason. The marketer produces messages, products and services. But your customers experience the brand, and in the digital age, they have the ultimate control over whether they ignore, see / listen to your messages, share them, or buy with or without positive feedback.
Tip: Communicate with customers when changing your brand, and include the employees who have the most customer contact as key players. Use the knowledge of exemplary insiders who provide your brand experience – on-line helpers, installers, referral staff, and even backup staff, line workers and warehouse crew. Their feedback can be very important to ensure a positive customer experience.
Another benefit of inclusion: When you request, listen to, and acknowledge the many contributions of your employees, people within the company feel heard and then less criticized, and more likely to succeed. They will be. The worst way is to decide on high-level branding issues and then dictate to the forces that should provide the brand experience. You run the risk of losing your shopping and being relevant.
4. Your logo, tag line, typography and design should tell a single-minded story.
The look, feel and message of a brand should tell a story. Every brand is a kind of hero. Think about what your brand is fighting for and against. Consider what is at stake for customers, their problems and how you solve them. By becoming a hero to your customers, you make them heroes when they present at work, in the family, among friends, and so on.
The FedEx and national car rental are good examples of this focus. “When absolutely, positively, there’s to be overnight,” is the famous quote from FedEx. And the FedEx logo – with its distinctive letters and color contrast – has a fixed presence on boxes, envelopes and trucks. The national car rental greens everything from its logo and signs to its heroic line, “Go like a professional.” Landlords receive a “green light” to select any car on the land. Both companies have truly integrated customer images, promises and experiences.
5. Always remember that a brand must remain fluid – but be careful.
Changing your brand is radically dangerous. If the attempt fails, it can be costly and destructive. Consider the image correction fixed on the packaging of orange juice by Tropicana in 2009 – the drink straw is stuck in a fresh orange. TV commercials had hammered this image of straw in orange for years. In addition, this smart device supports the key advantage of Tropicana: “Never concentrate – freshly squeezed orange juice”. The design of the new packaging showed a cleaner and probably more general image of the juice in a glass. Consumer rejection was quick. According to some estimates, sales fell 20 percent in about seven weeks. Tropicana had changed a brand asset that had bad results and had to reverse its course. However, in 2011, Tropicana avoided a drop in sales when implementing another major change – the change from paper cartons to clear plastics – labeled straw in orange.
External factors such as fierce competition, industry trends, and changing consumer preferences force you to constantly re-evaluate your brand. Think of your brand as a float that is firmly anchored to the ocean floor, but can weave and weave in the waves. So create and invest in opportunities that are broad enough to be relevant today as they were yesterday, and flexible enough to be relevant in the future.
6. Never stop supporting and promoting your brand.
Successful brands have a live presence in the market and have a tangible relationship with their customers. It is easy to support a brand in times of prosperity, but repeated studies have shown that brands with continued support in times of economic downturn gain more sales and market share than companies that reduce support.
In 2013, Cadillac recorded its best year since 2007, as it steadily improved design, performance and technology, even during the recession, as new models were introduced. The investment paid off because General Motors reported that more than 60 percent of Cadillac buyers traded with a brand other than Cadillac. GM’s luxury brand surpasses Audi, Infiniti, Volvo, Lincoln, Land Rover and Jaguar.
7. Protect your brand.
Apply a brand champion when you refresh (or design) your brand. This key leader is usually a senior in marketing and publishes a brand style guide. This person also monitors internal and external communications (advertising, public relations, sales, retail sites, correspondence, etc.) to ensure that all employees use the appropriate logo, symbol, sticker and template for advertising, emails, direct marketing, and social media. Media – Any output message on any media. A brand that is united in appearance, feeling and message is the goal wherever the customer is involved.
Use these principles and at the same time be strategic, stick to your company’s cultural roots, stay connected and always focus on the interests of customers.
5 ways to strengthen branding management
Every employee should strive to be better than their co-worker.
Some of the strongest teams are employees with a healthy and competitive mindset. When employees want to be better, it does not mean that they want someone to fail; the direction leads. Competing to get better requires hard work – a sacrifice that the executive team will eventually realize and in many cases lead to promotion. But when you are in front of a teammate, being in a situation can be frustrating, especially if your co-worker is also a close friend. Your team can be happy or jealous, two results that make this transition a unique experience for each employee.
Here are some global ways to lead a new managerial role:
- Find a coach
Whoever is in the company, a friend or someone on your network, look for people who have been in a similar situation and have successfully completed it.
Meet with them before the transfer and then every week in the first step of the role change. Issues and questions will no doubt arise, so meet once a month in the first year. You want to continue this micro conversation.
- Have a tough conversation
To address this change, take your peers out for a drink or coffee – outside of work. It’s okay to ask, “This is a little weird, right?”
Make your insecurities feel more comfortable by sharing them. Tell them you want honest feedback because you are learning. Good and valuable employees see this as an opportunity to grow and develop and build a close relationship with their new manager.
- Be yourself
You have been promoted for a reason, and most likely, your former peers know your hard work and participation.
Do not try to change previous work habits as this is a new role. Adjustment alone should work harder and smarter. Stupid employees should not change their personality and create a serious personality for their purpose. If you and your team are already very close friends, keep building these relationships – do not think that managers can be friends with employees to some extent. Obviously, what happened before the promotion worked, so stick to it.
- Remember personal experiences
Use everything you have learned in your previous role – worries, stressors, how to win – and that information to help your team grow.
Some of the greatest leaders are those who start from the bottom because they understand the struggles, have been in the trenches and empathize with the team.
- Create new relationships
Not all teams get along, and that’s just a fact of life today. If relationships are not strong at first, try to cultivate them by contacting them and finding ways to build teamwork.
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