Reclaiming Your Audience: When and How to Refresh Your Brand A rebrand is often a catalyst for injecting some much-needed fuel into business performance

A regular brand review is just as important for your business as a financial health check, but when is the right time to take on the task? When business is buoyant, there seems little logic in disrupting a winning formula, and when times are tougher, budgets are tight.

A rebrand is often a catalyst for injecting some much-needed fuel into business performance. Refining your positioning, narrative, and visual identity helps you to remain relevant, engaging, and future-proof.

What's more, it doesn't necessarily mean a complete brand overhaul, it might simply be a case of exploring a fresh perspective, reigniting your brand identity and unlocking its untapped potential.

When should you refresh your brand?

Engaging and retaining your audience is a constant challenge in a crowded marketplace. Brands sometimes find themselves in a state of inertia, held back by outdated perceptions, inconsistent messaging, or a lack of modern appeal. It's likely that, at some point, you'll need to recapture attention with a new look or tone. Here are some indicators that your brand needs a refresh.

• When your brand no longer reflects your values A brand should mirror the core values of a company, and your team should embrace and apply that brand effectively. If there's been a shift in mission, vision, or workplace culture, it's time to consider rebranding to ensure your identity aligns with who you are now.
• When your brand no longer stands out in the market If the market has evolved but your brand hasn't kept pace, it risks getting lost amidst a crown of competitors, ultimately impacting your market share. Your identity needs to translate well across digital, print, and experiential platforms.
• When the audience has evolved Over time, your target audience may grow, change, or shift demographics. In this case, rebranding can help you connect with your new audience by speaking directly to their needs, preferences, and aspirations.
• When you need to modernise to stay relevant A brand that looks tired, dated, or disconnected from modern audiences can lead to business stagnation. Rebranding allows you to refresh your look, tone, and messaging to stay current and resonate effectively, without losing the essence of your business identity.
• When there is a reputational crisis or challenge If a brand has encountered a significant challenge, like negative press or controversy, rebranding can offer a fresh start. It provides an opportunity to redefine perceptions and reintroduce yourself with a renewed purpose and story.

How to refresh your brand

A brand refresh doesn't just mean changing your logo; in fact, that's often the last thing you should do. Nor does it mean a dramatic overhaul of your entire identity. Small or subtle adjustments based on your current business strategy could be all it takes to deliver the modernisation needed. There are four key steps to revamping your brand in a systematic way.

Discover To understand what you might need to change, you need to establish where you stand in the market. Benchmarking against your competitors enables you to explore what you can do differently to stand out. Speaking to your customers helps you to understand how you are perceived in the market and whether this truly reflects your values. Brand audits are often overlooked because of the enthusiasm to move straight to the visual identity, but this deep dive into your brand's history, market position, and audience perception helps you to identify your strengths, weaknesses, and untapped opportunities.

Define Your brand is the material representation of your organisation's vision, mission, and values and so it is essential that these are clearly defined from the outset. The company culture and values should underpin everything from your colour palate to your strategic messaging, to ensure that the essence of who you are and what you stand for is evident. A clear, compelling, and cohesive brand narrative will enable you to resonate with internal and external audiences.

Develop Conducting the discover and define stages in partnership with all relevant stakeholders will help the development phase be more efficient. A shared understanding of the marketplace and a clear vision of your unique place within it helps to streamline decision-making and steer away from passing trends that will not stand out. This means that, rather than working up several different options for your core messaging and visual identity, you can use these shared foundations to modernise or refine existing assets while maintaining brand recognition.

Deploy When you're ready to deploy your new brand identity, you can run a playback of the discover and define stages, to validate that the persona and assets created fully align with the vision and values they represent. Revamping digital and print assets should involve internal alignment sessions and an update to brand guidelines ,to ensure a consistent, impactful presence across all channels.

A brand should never stand still, it should evolve with purpose, staying relevant and engaging without losing its soul. Liberating your brand through a structured approach will enable it to remain fresh, relevant, and impactful in an ever-evolving landscape.