- A strategy. Simply wanting a nicer looking logo isn’t going to serve your organisation compared with the cost of executing it. Any rebrand should include a distinct shift in identity or positioning designed to secure you more business, engage your staff more deeply and enable those you help to better connect with what they need.
- A position. Great brands have a distinct stance on key issues. They’re not afraid to speak out and hold a clear position on topics that matter to them. They don’t try to please all of the people all of the time. Figuring out what your position is will help you to secure support among similar brands as you stand out as actually having something to say, which breeds confidence that you have the strength to do what needs to be done.
- A story. You should have a concise and compelling narrative about what your brand does and how it works. This isn’t a laundry list of activities, products and services but rather a coherent story about how you came to be, what you do now and what you stand for that allows customers, staff and investors to engage with your message at a top level.
- A research project. You need to talk to all key stakeholder groups about what they like about where you are now as a brand, what they’re less keen on and where they have values, opinions and needs that aren’t currently served by your organisation. That’ll help you identify the niche you want to move into as part of the rebrand.
- An audit. Before you get too far into crafting your new identity, you need to identify everywhere it’ll be used and everywhere the old brand is represented that’ll need to be redesigned and rewritten. This will probably reveal a scary amount of work and challenge you to meet the requirements in the other points in order to make the rebrand project worthwhile.
- A plan. Once you’ve mapped everywhere you’ll be using your new brand, you need to make a plan of action as to how all this work is going to get done, by whom and when. Aligned with this needs to be your brand launch, the campaign that tells the world all about the new you and gives you that first shot at engaging all your stakeholder groups more deeply in your identity and mission.
