The Era of Re-Branding, Especially in Bakersfield, Ca
Quick Branding 101
What is a brand? This is the definition we run with since it's a term that gets thrown out there so frivolously. “A brand is a customer’s understanding of a product, service, or company. It’s not what you say it is, but what THEY say it is. For the first time in history, the barriers to competition are not controlled by companies, but by customers. The boxes they build in their minds are the boundaries of brands.” - Marty Neumeier, the leading teacher on Branding and Brand Strategy [Side note, I'm certified through his training company, Level C, as a brand specialist, brand strategist and soon to be a brand architect.]
When talking about the logos for a company, we should be looking at them in context to the full brand identity. A brand identity is the outward expression of a brand, including its name, communication, personality, and look and feel. This includes logo, colors, typography, patterns, illustrations, collateral, and marketing homes like social media and website.
Value of (Re)Branding
Rebranding brings a tremendous value to a company or organization that is ready to connect closer to its customers and communities. As businesses grow, as time goes on, as priorities change, that can leave the internal conversation of a brand to not truly capture what the company does but share that message chaotically. The enemy of a brand is confusion, so when you can align your business from the top to bottom to understand what your purpose is, what you value, and how you serve your customer, all employees and on-lookers understand what you intend them to understand. As the saying goes, "clear is kind."
Branding, when done in the context of finding what makes the company radically different, pushes the process into crafting a personality the company wants to embody. How do they speak? How do they show up visually? Where will we find them? How do they interact with the customers and community? It's an insightful experience that unites a company, pens a passionate message that resonates, connects to existing customers, and attracts new ones.
When talking about the visual identity of a brand - the logo, colors, typography, photography, and marketing materials should always be a reflection of how they make the organization stand out among the crowd. Going back to that need for a branded personality, the strongest rebrands feel familiar but exciting, like a breath of fresh air just at the right time. Great rebrands are cohesive, and interesting and leave you wanting to learn more. Oftentimes, in researching a company's history, we find that elements of a past identity with a little bit of modernization are all that the rebrand needs stylistically, as long as you can connect it back to the brand purpose and values. It goes without saying, but there is an absolute necessity for professional design execution, smart creative direction, and an iron-clad strategy to ensure everything is, of course, on-brand.
Why We're Seeing So Many Rebrands
As businesses grow, so does their understanding of their customers. A once-solid way of talking about their business might not resonate anymore. They might know more about their customer, want to go after another customer/market, or see that they feel disconnected from the customer and/or community. In my view, this is why we're seeing an influx of rebrands of institutions here in Bakersfield. Old ways of talking to customers, expressing their values through creative design and advertising, and even how they show up in their community aren't working anymore. The leading buying market, like the millennial generation, is very vocal about how they want to be marketed to. We know the tricks, and gimmicks and want something we can authentically stand by. Something that helps identify us with something bigger than ourselves. Businesses are seeing this gap and are using a rebrand as a way to bridge that understanding gap. Sure, it means adjusting the logo and creative elements, but it also means shifting how the brand interacts with the customer.
We're now seeing customers build brands and companies responding to their feedback through new products, new models of interaction, utilizing social media, and more. It's different from shouting who you are as a company to whoever passes by - a brand is built when you can capture the conversation between a company and the customer in a dynamic and charismatic way.
A few other reasons rebrands happen:
The customer’s understanding isn’t aligned with what the company believes it should be.
The business is going through transition, merger, buyout or other type of business shake-up.
The business is open to the idea of a recalibration of how they show up in the world.
In the context of Bakersfield, this is a city that hasn't been able to put to paper what we want to be known for. We don't have something that we can all get behind that'll carry us in the future. Our reputation is pretty dismal and pushes us to not be attractive to young, creative types. We as a community should be building things (and brands) that influence the gut reaction to be more positive and full of optimism for the future, not one where we're the punchline in jokes.
When you start with a shaky understanding of the customer (or resident) you want to attract – or fail to even address that person – a rebrand is launched without flying colors and falls completely flat because the point was missed. The point is to always create connections. This reinforces that it's not a just logo, a brand is the customer's understanding of what the business values and how that makes the customer's life better. Sure, the logo will be on a lot of things, but will you stand by it? Will you be identified as a person who supports that company?