2024 Brand Refresh Playbook: Aligning Brand DNA with Core Values
Your brand DNA is the foundation of your business, reflecting your core values, mission and business strategy. This year we saw the importance of business perception and how a good brand can either contribute to or undermine business recognition and reputation.
Seventy-five percent of a brand's
value is now tied to its reputation
Both brand refresh and rebrand initiatives require strategic thinking and a significant amount of work. It is important to understand the distinction between the two, and why and how to make that choice.
Brand Refresh vs. Rebrand
A brand refresh is a strategic effort taken by a company or organization to update and revitalize its brand identity. It includes visual elements, messaging, and its core values to maintain relevance and resiliency.
A brand refresh is not a complete overhaul of the brand; rather, it aims to enhance and contemporize the existing brand while retaining elements of familiarity. It usually involves strategically assessing the existing brand assets and updating specific elements (e.g. brand identity, brand personality, logo, messaging, brand assets).
These changes correspond to business goals and brand strategy. Assets are modified across the entire organization to insure uniformity and consistency.
Conclusion: Brand Refresh
Refreshing your brand is a way to modernize and reposition the brand in the eyes of customers, stakeholders, and the general public.
A brand refresh is not a complete overhaul of the brand; rather, it aims to enhance and contemporize the existing brand while retaining some elements of familiarity.
1. What is a Rebranding Initiative?
A rebrand makes changes to your brand on a fundamental level to create an entirely new brand identity.
The brand transformation results from a more fundamental change in the company’s strategic thinking, its vision of its future, the need for repositioning, ongoing market shifts and changes to congruent growth strategies.
2. What’s Included In the Rebranding Digital repositioning Initiative?
In many cases companies decide to rebrand as a reflection of their changing vision of the future, the need for repositioning, ongoing market shifts and congruent growth strategies. It includes:
1. Introducing new leadership and a new vision for the company
2. Demonstrating reinvigoration
3. Expressing a recommitment to growth
4. Increasing the value of the business
5. Brand digital repositioning
6. Digital customer-centric product development
3. How to approach a brand refresh?
The main goal of a brand refresh is to find the gaps and inconsistencies between your current audience’ perception and the desired brand identity.
Identifying weakness and misalignments in the current brand will provide essential insights and help your leadership determine what changes need to be made to align the brand identity with your business strategic goals.
4. Key Questions You Need To Ask Before You Start Navigating Brand Transitions:
A. What key elements are required to establish your market value and make your product and services more competitive?
B. What are the future industry trends that are critical for your industry?
C. What are key elements that will increase your customers’ trust level and provide better user experience, and what level of update you want to apply to your business without losing the brand core DNA?
5. Brand Audit and Why It Is Imperative For The Process
Not sure about how to build your process and how deeply you should refresh your brand?
Consider brand consultancy to provide audit services to understand why your existing brand is not functioning as anticipated, and whether a brand freshening or adjustment is sufficient, rather than a complete rebrand.
Audit elements:
Meaning, direction, and visioning
Positioning
Differentiation
Relevance
Brand consistency
Equity markers
Brand-product relationships
Coherent brand management
Monitoring brand equity
Visual identity overhaul markers
Not sure about how to build your process and how deeply you should refresh your brand?
2024 Marketing budget planning tip:
A full rebranding process may be avoided by improving the weakest links in your current brand situation.
It is recommended that you consider hiring brand strategy consultants.
These experts improve the streamlining of the process. If you decide to do it internally with your own leadership team, these are the key elements that are required focus on before starting the brand refresh process.
Ready to give your brand a fresh start in 2024?
Explore our guide for a successful brand refresh and step into the future with confidence.
Start your journey to
a revitalized brand identity now!
Limor Morgenstern
Author
Limor Morgenstern - Brand Expert for Global Brands | Multifaceted Creative Leader | Brand & Product Experience
With over 16 years of experience Limor has become a distinctively inspiring powerhouse of strategic and creative thinking. Her deep grasp and forward-thinking about business objectives has enabled her to create enduring brands, distinctive websites and exceptional multi-layered digital systems for Fortune 500 companies. Her experience spans consumer goods, technology, real estate, biotech, energy, media, and financial services. See more
Jonathan Morgenstern
Editor
Jonathan Morgenstern- Editor | Strategic Planning | Human Behavior | Organizational DNA
He has leveraged his insightful understanding of human behavior and interpersonal relationships to understand organizational thinking, structure and process, as well as how the market responds to human needs and desires. Jonathan’s integrative thinking and advanced communication capacity also manifest as efficient and effective content writing. See more
