Your organization just went through a big rebrand. It should be an exciting and energizing moment, but something feels…off.
Here’s some reasons, based on our experience, why you and your organization are unhappy with your rebrand.
⚒️ It isn’t functional to daily needs
Perhaps the visual elements are difficult to implement in your product. Perhaps your partner left you without guidance or tools to infuse the new brand into your tools and processes for marketing, design, and sales.
This is the brand implementation gap many organizations experience. It happens because your design partner did not work to understand those teams, tools, and processes, or did not include this work in your scope.
💁💁 It makes you look the same, not different
Almost all rebrands include a step to survey your space to identify what your competitors are doing. In that moment, you and your design partner should be asking, “what are they trying to communicate and achieve? How does that compare to what we’re trying to communicate and achieve?”
If, instead, you looked at the landscape and said, “Here’s how we can do those same things a little differently,” you’ll probably end up with a brand that looks like your competitors.
It can feel like the safe choice. But the purpose of your brand is to differentiate you in the minds of your audience. Looking the same is really the most dangerous choice.
⛔ It doesn’t feel like you
This is the trickiest issue because it’s the most abstract. But something about your new brand feels uncomfortable.
Perhaps you disagree with the strategic aims of the new brand. Perhaps you feel like the brand is telling you to be someone you are not. These issues arise when you and your design partner fall out of alignment and complete your work together without getting back on the same page.
When you are uncomfortable with your brand, you won’t feel comfortable embodying or deploying your brand. It’s difficult to tell compelling stories using a brand you don’t embrace.
❓ So what do you do?
Good question! I’ll tackle that in my next post and drop the link in the comments.
