Like shedding skin, brand evolution is a natural process. It involves reflection and dealing with some hard truths. It involves some change! But it is rewarding and ultimately profitable. The initial considerations can be split into three parts:
BRAND ASSESSMENT
You need to start with your own brand. Most businesses or owner have little idea about how the brand overall looks across every brand touchpoint. Over the years different people do different things: alter the colours, fonts, tamper with the logo, write different headlines and the brand loses its shape. It loses the consistency of the Brand Value Chain. Aspects to cover:
– Holistic view of your brand
– Know who you are
– Assess consistency
– Leverage strengths & powerful design elements
CONSUMER INSIGHT
Understanding your consumer is critical. The best way is get an independent agent to talk to your customer on your behalf – customers like being asked! If it is done well then it doubles as a marketing exercise anyway. It’s amazing what you can find out from asking some simple questions:
– Consumer perception of your brand. Weaknesses & strengths
– Consumer needs per target market
– Brand awareness
– Competitive comparison for brand and service delivery.
MARKET ASSESSMENT
Lastly, but equally important is know the competitive environment you’re playing in. By understanding who the competition are, how they are positioned, what are they saying and what they look like so you can identify a unique space to move in to. Aspects to cover:
– Research competitors: brand look and feel, positioning, language, claims
– Market mapping
– Opportunity analysis
This three-pronged attack gives you a strong basis of how to add value to your brand. From there, aligning these insights versus the company strategy helps steer the ship on course. Of course it’s not that simple but at least by starting with these aspects means you’re getting ahead of the game.
