I’ll often mention to my freelance clients that it’s a good time for them to rebrand. Every time, without exception, they’ll reply with an array of excuses on why they can’t.
And they’re right. They’re always right. It’s never a good time to rebrand.
We just created a new brand, Presskit’n, from a few of our former IvyLees features. Since we encountered a whole bevy of issues, I thought I’d use our rebranding process as sort of a “how-to” and a “why now” on branding. If you find yourself in need of a rebrand, but making excuses, maybe you can look at what we did and forge ahead with the rebranding process. The timing will never seem right, but if you’re making one of the following missteps, your brand probably needs a kick in the butt.
PROBLEM: Missing the target market
I sat down with a friend of mine, Dr. Bob Davis (who unfortunately isn’t blogging for the world) and he flat out told me that my brand was missing my target market. IvyLees, he reasoned, was too masculine. I was a bit puzzled– can a website be masculine or feminine?
He then reminded me that most professionals in communications, our target market, were female. So if the site leaned either way, it should be towards a feminine style– or at least in his mind, away from the strong contrasts and stark look of IvyLees.
HOW WE FIXED IT: Making a new brand that doesn’t miss
Web apps are versatile. A bakery would have a lot of trouble rebranding, and a ton of trouble making an entirely new brand. With a web app, you can buy up a domain name and get started easily.
After an afternoon of brainstorming (and some completely ridiculous ideas) we bought http://www.presskitn.com. It’s a name that communicates the theme of our product– a veritable online press kit and newsroom– while also giving us a mascot. A cute mascot.
Note that, while we were aiming for a more feminine product, it didn’t involve any pinks, purples, flowers, or anything of that sort. Presskit’n, on the whole, ended up being very close to gender-neutral, except perhaps for the tough guys who just can’t handle the kitten-sleeping-on-cloud imagery.
Here’s a brand comparison with theme words and color palettes:
PROBLEM: A crappy logo
First, I should start off by stating the obvious: Your logo is not your brand. Branding encompasses much more than that, especially on the web. But your logo is still a big part of it.
Logos can end up crappy for a lot of reasons. In our case, the IvyLees name and logo seemed to apply more to a network than a tool. With our shift in focus to creating online newsrooms, the old way of presenting ourselves didn’t make much sense.
So in the end, the logo itself wasn’t bad, but it still sucked for what we used it for. We haven’t gotten rid of it, we’re just using it for our umbrella site now, the IvyLees Network, which will become important as we develop other tools.
So, remember, if someone says your logo sucks, don’t take offense. They might just mean it doesn’t fit. On the other hand… it might just suck.
HOW WE FIXED IT: A new, better logo
This is always an easy fix. Make a new logo and measure how it performs. That sentence always scares people, but it could be as simple as getting an opinion from a friend. Of course, if you do have the money for focus groups and multiple design avenues, those are a good route to go as well.
After creating the initial logo, we subjected it to numerous opinions. You can see a progression of a few iterations of the Presskit’n logo here (and yes, it really does look like that after I sketch in Photoshop):
And you can thank Greg for pointing out to me how a cat’s eyes look when they’re asleep.
PROBLEM: Doing too much with one brand
This one seems obvious in traditional business, but sometimes is lost with web companies (as any “web app vs. startup” thread will show). Procter & Gamble makes toothpaste, but you can’t go out and buy a tube of “Procter & Gamble toothpaste.” You can buy Crest, though, which is made by them. If you’re doing a lot of different things, it’s best to split them up for simplicity’s sake.
HOW WE FIXED IT: Breaking offerings into smaller, easier-to-swallow pieces
We were doing four things with IvyLees. We had the network, which let business and PR professionals get in touch with each other. We had a newsroom creator and news release builder, which let let businesses establish a free online presence. And then we also had a feature that let PR pros submit and talk about news releases, like a Digg or reddit for self-published business news.
After rotating the features through the focus of the front page, we concluded one thing: Nothing was gaining much traction. The reason for this was the mere presence of the other features; they were always there to clutter whatever had the focus. Inevitably, our testers would wander into the part of the site that they didn’t want to actually use.
This was our primary reason for breaking off our newsroom features and making Presskit’n. You can see the immediate benefit by comparing screenshots:
As you can see, going simple, warm and inviting helped us out. It was a lot of work to rebrand (or really, to branch out our brand), but it paid off in the end.
AND FINALLY: Be brave.
You’ll feel anxious about rebranding if you have a lot invested into your brand. That’s a good thing. But whatever you do, don’t put off rebranding just because the timing doesn’t seem perfect. It never will.
We can’t really bring the stocks back (right?), but the concept of public humiliation as punishment is still very real, especially in the realm of public relations and online marketing.
