BIV Magazines: Adpages 2008

If you think your image needs refreshing, don’t worry about starting with a blank slate. Re-branding is about taking inventory of what’s working, and then fixing the rest

By Corey Van’t Haaff

Vancity had just one little problem – it’s face didn’t match its body.

“It is a wonderful organization with heart and soul and a triple bottom line; success story after success story,” said Anne Farrer, managing director for Vancouver of Karacters Design Group. “Its visual persona was completely wrong.”

Remember the old Vancity logo? Grey on grey colours; three big buildings for the logo? Capital C for city right in the middle of the name? The logo needed to better reflect the community-minded, environmentally committed ideals that the financial institution lived and breathed.

It needed a creative platform for a new look and tone to reflect its relationship with its members. “The logo is now a wordmark itself,” said Farrer, adding that the warmer lower-case ‘c’ de-emphasized the city aspect. Plus the ‘V’ was all wrong. “The V now is a wonderful, welcoming curve.”

And the colour changed from retail red to a more proprietary orange, which stood out when surrounded by other retailers.

The key element came from Vancity’s own strategy. Vancity positions itself as being there at the different intersections of life: moments, events, first job, new family, buying a home, planning for retirement. The concept of these intersections was reflected, on the website, with multiple letter Vs, with gradient backgrounds and the V of the logo interlocking, creating intersecting points. “It’s hard to do,” said Farrer, “but that’s what we do – find insight out of the strategy and jump off from a creative point of view so it has relevance to the company.”

If you think your product or image needs refreshing – or even a major overhaul – you don’t have to think about starting with a blank slate. It isn’t about starting from scratch – it’s about taking inventory of what is working, and then fixing the rest.

Farrer believes the ‘re’ of re-branding implies that something is broken and needs fixing, but that isn’t always the case. Often, you build on what’s right, and the last 20% is tweaked into a coherent and cohesive external vision.

“Branding is a process that creates an identity for a product, service or cause which helps create preference and personal attachment,” said John Hall, general manager, Cossette Communication-Marketing. “The identity can be a colour, logo, personality and a series of attributes that the company or organization hopes their stakeholders and customers will be able to rally behind and want to associate with.”

Re-branding occurs, he said, when a product ceases to be relevant for the core audience, or there’s been a significant change to business or a core business competency. “It can be as minor as an evolution of what’s been tweaked … or can be a pretty massive undertaking. It is the result of a problem – or an opportunity.”

By and large, Hall said, you shouldn’t need to change your brand very often. If the brand is founded on endearing attributes and the business is solid, change isn’t necessary and would only create confusion for the customer.

But if you do re-brand, it cannot be done on an ad-hoc basis.

“First and foremost, make sure you communicate to key stakeholders. They can influence and positively impact the brand. The employee base needs buy-in to understand and deliver the brand experience. The brand should be introduced in a rigorous and structured manner.”

Start by asking yourself why you are re-branding; what is driving you to this point? Is it an issue, or business opportunity, or for broader communication? What will the re-branding accomplish? And, especially, do you have the resources to effectively carry out a re-branding?

“It’s an expensive proposition,” said Hall, citing strategic work, identity development, internal costs and business disruption. “If it all lines up and makes sense, see how your stakeholders feel, internally and externally, clients and customers. Get a good, rounded sense of the total involvement. From there, you can develop the strategic work and test out your hypothesis.”

And always, he said, engage the vocal champions in the organization and customer base.

“Change,” added Karacters’ Farrer, “is based on relevance. If an image and brand identity are not relevant to the organization or consumer, you’ve got to look at it and go back to strategy.”

It’s not a quick fix. Re-branding is a one-year minimum process, she said.

“The number 1 thing in my mind is that it needs to be based on the strategy of the organization. People dive into the tactical a little too soon.”

The core elements of any re-branding are the company’s public face – its identity to the world – and the space around the brand. By that, she means all things that support the logo, from typography to colour palette to tone of voice. “If there’s a distinct tone of voice to the writing, it really stands out.”

In today’s age, consumers dial into brands in many ways, and the digital world cannot be ignored. “I think the interactive presence is really critical,” she said. “Most consumers today do pre-trial shopping online, and use the web as a tool to get an impression of a brand. Communicate the brand personality and offer online. A lot of companies miss the mark.”

But not all businesses are large corporate entities. Some are small businesses who still need to take a good look at their brand image.

“One client was in business for a long time,” said Carly H. Franklin, principal, CFX Creative, in reference to the business Need A Little Help Bookkeeping. “She started bookkeeping in her kitchen. Now she has a staff, offices, a ton of clients and a lot of expertise.”

Now that it’s out of the kitchen, the company was renamed as part of the re-branding. It’s known today as NALH, and the logo has a leaf hanging off the H, indicating the whole growth idea. The business cards are die-cut, basically with two opposing corners rounded off, to resemble a leaf. Even print ads in a typical box have the two corners cut off. “That’s what you want,” said Franklin of potential customers, “to capture their attention long enough to get noticed and break-through the noise of the day.” •

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