Refresh for Fall. What Brands Need To Know to Drive Stronger Engagement.
It’s that time of year again. The leaves are changing, pumpkin spice is back … and brands are exploring ways to sharpen their image and offerings to help secure a strong fourth quarter and a robust opening for 2022. Does this sound familiar to you?
While a rebrand may be needed sometimes, simply refreshing your brand for the season to drive ongoing engagement is a smarter approach and often yields a better return on time and effort.
I’m asking for a friend, but when was the last time you and your team looked at your visual and verbal identity? Most businesses only focus on this when there is a crisis or sales have declined or a new leadership team is hired.
Also, how is your content working for you? If you aren’t studying the metrics across your social and digital channels, they you and your brand are missing out on crucial engagement opportunities.
As with any brand program or platform, a brand refresh must be grounded in the basic elements of your brand, as well as knowing your consumers’ current and future needs, pain-points, and desires. We’ve talked about metrics and data in the past, but both are crucial for guiding your brand refresh. When you know your consumers and understand their habits with your brand, refreshing your brand will be second nature. This will allow you to always be top-of-mind with your key audiences, as well as know how to entice new consumers to join you on your brand journey.
Below are four key areas to consider when refreshing your brand:
1. Key Messages
What is keeping your customers up at night or what gets them excited? For the Fall, tweak your key messages to reflect both, as well as add some seasonal spice to showcase that you are a modern, engaged brand. You don’t want to draft new messages. Use your key messages as the cornerstone and simply update your value propositions.
2. Logo
We’re not talking about a logo redesign. A simple but effective opportunity to drive renewed engagement is by updating your logo to reflect the season. From switching out colors to adding an icon, a seasonal logo signifies that you and your team are on-trend and modern. Are you a brand targeting young parents? 92% of young parents and 82% of all consumers will actively celebrate Halloween this year. Is your brand getting in the spooky spirit?
3. Brand Guidelines
Modern brands must co-create. A smart and simple way to refresh your brand is to update your brand guidelines to reflect the season. Be sure to share out any updated key message and logo refinement so your partners are using current assets. Consistency across all your channels help strengthen and deepen brand awareness and loyalty.
4. Content
Have you started a TikTok account yet for your brand? Did you fall into the Clubhouse void and shift activities to the now diminished offering? We did both and here is what we learned. No matter the channel, your content has to work across ALL channels and be relevant to the moment and always need to be updated. Content in today’s world is cash. The right content is the difference between a thriving brand and simply surviving brand.
Happy refresh! And as always, we’re here to help you brand grow and evolve. Reach out with questions and let us know how we can help. 💋