Rebranding: The Big Three

Change is always on the horizon. Companies grow and transform themselves because to stay relevant to their clients and prospects, they must. If you don’t review your brand and core service/product offerings in the context of your target markets every few years, you run the risk of becoming stale and, worse, forgotten.

At Arco, we’ve been busy serving clients—and, until now, had neglected ourselves in the process. As such, the last quarter of 2011 was dedicated to our rebranding efforts. And, because we have just launched our new look/feel/web presence, I thought I’d take you through the big three rebranding considerations to potentially inform your organization’s rebranding process.

(1) Why are we changing?

Usually driven by internal or external considerations, the Why must be answered before you embark on a rebranding journey. For Arco, it was a mix of external and internal sentiment. After almost a decade in business, our look had become dated and no longer reflected the creative work we do every day for our clients. In addition, our entry into the social media landscape was long overdue. While managing social media content for more than 15 clients, we had forgotten ourselves. Our growing team also meant that managing the multiple social media platforms was now a realistic possibility. Lastly, the economic climate and its effect on the small-to-mid-sized professional services firm (our target market) prompted many discussions with our clients about what they would like to see in terms of pricing structures and options moving forward. While our core service offerings remain the same, we commoditized some of these offerings into packages as a response to these conversations and overall industry trends.

(2) What are we changing?

Decide what rebranding means to you and plan a course of action. For some, this means company-wide font changes and comprehensive branding guidelines documents. For others, it means a rejuvenated tagline. For Arco, it meant updating our logo and website, as well as our social media networks. We needed something new and fresh, yet still recognizable to those familiar with the Arco brand. Other companies may choose this route or go as far as adding services, removing services, or changing the way their business operates. Defining what rebranding means for your organization is essential to a successful process.

(3) Who will be affected by this process—and how?

Your current client base, staff, and competitors, target prospects, and others will be affected by your rebranding; it is important that you think through how your reintroduction to the marketplace will affect these audiences. This is the time for constructive “What if” thinking and “If this, then that” planning. When our team decided to rebrand Arco, my biggest concern was to make sure we were still recognizable to our clients—same quality, same service, same responsiveness. If the rebranding process will impact the work you do for your clients in any way, they should be notified immediately of what these changes mean for them. Communication between a company and its clients has and always will be a key factor for continued success and a healthy working relationship.

Most of all, have fun. Reinvention of any sort is exciting. Enjoy the process (even when you are up at 3 a.m. looking at design studies).