Rebranding: when to fix it. Even if it ain’t broken.

There’s something warm and fuzzy in the familiarity of old brands that have been a part of one’s household for years. At the end of the day, this is what makes a brand, right? A well-known look. Recognizable packaging. A jingle you’ve heard when you were 10 years old, and are still singing…

It takes a while for a brand to build its desired level of recognition, so why would one want to change the way their brand looks? Why confuse the public with a new colour palette, or a new logo?

Here at Cucumber, we help our clients to nurture their branding ideas into life. We co-create new, and we reinvent or freshen up the well-known “old.”

Some might say – if it ain’t broken, why fix it… So how do you know when it’s time for your brand, your website or your marketing message to get a breath of fresh inspiration?

Change in the direction

This is one of the most natural things that happen to a business. A business gets sold, things don’t work out between partners, the vision changes. Every time changes happen, you will want to communicate them to your customers, and what better way to do so, if not by rebranding; by telling the new story the new way. You might choose to do so through a redesigned website, launch of a new social media campaign, or by getting an overall redesign of your brand (logo, slogan, marketing collateral, etc.).

One of the goals of any business – as you grow – is to bring your product, your ideas, your services to new markets, or a new target audience. Just like one of our fabulous clients – Frog Friendly Wild Coffee did. After a decade of supplying their amazing coffee on a wholesale basis, they updated their vision and expanded to the retail side (keep your eyes open for their coffee in stores across Canada!). With that, of course, they needed to rebrand their coffee packaging, website and the way they presented themselves externally through their marketing materials. Here’re some examples from this project:

You want to stay contemporary

Branding is not only a reflection of your mission and values of your company, but also it’s a reflection of how you translate your message based on what is available in your marketing toolbox today. If one of your brand promises is innovation – how do you show that in your day-to-day marketing? While innovating directly in your field, in your work – is what builds your reputation in your customers’ eyes, there’s an excellent saying: “the way we do anything, we do everything.” If you promise “innovation” you have to “be” innovative in how you do your marketing, your PR and, yes, your website design. A website that was build in 2,000 would have little to offer in 2014.

While this is not our design, this is an excellent example of packaging rebranding. It speaks: fresh, new, clean, exciting, modern. And most importantly, it gets people to notice it — the main goal of marketing / branding. With a fresh new look, this bottle brings a promise of staying up-to-date, a desire to deliver the newest, the best.

Your business matures, but your target audience doesn’t

Grow your brand. Stay cool. Click To Tweet

If you are in a B2C business, your target audience will be growing with you. For a while. And then, perhaps, they outgrow you. Literally. They just get older… If you, for example are targeting 25 – 35 year olds, what happens after you’ve been serving them for 10 years? They’ve moved on to a different brand, in their age category, and you are still targeting the same group of people with the same social statuses. Is there a chance that your *new* 25 – 35 year olds have a different way of doing things? Are their shopping habits the same as they were just a few years ago, for the previous generation of your customers? Are there new marketing tools, that could be helpful for you to reach your target audience, and meet them where they are today? Is your marketing message using the same language your current target audience uses?

Stay fresh. Stay current. Get noticed. Grow. [Check out more before and after examples in our portfolio or get in touch – we love chatting branding.]