Many of my clients are rebranding. I think there’s something in the air. Clients are changing their names, updating logos, creating new palettes, and revisiting collateral styles.
But what does it mean to rebrand? Matrix Group Alex Pineda is obsessed with branding. He spends a lot of time thinking about logos, colors, typography, imagery, and user experience. Alex says that the sum of your customers’ experiences, over time, with your company, represent your brand and your brand promise. In the end, your name, logo and collateral may represent the design component of your brand but it’s the customer experience that helps you win, lose or retain customers.
Every time your customer visits your website, receives an invoice, and reads an e-mail from you, that’s your brand. How your organization answers the phone, completes a project, resolves a problems, sends a useful e-mail, or ignores a complaint, that’s your brand.
Alex also maintains that the design aspect of your brand should be consistent with the user experience. Think about the Apple brand. Apple promises a clean, simple, user-friendly experience. The logo is simple and spare. The website is simple and sleek. The language on the website and e-mails is friendly, free of tech jargon. When you visit an Apple store, the employees are friendly and it’s easy to get in and out of the store. All of that represents the Apple brand. Everything is consistent – by design.
Changing your logo and colors doesn’t mean you’ve rebranded. What was it about the old brand that wasn’t working and that you now want to change? What are you doing to change the customer experience and your internal staff culture so that they match the promise of the new brand?
Want to learn more? Alex recently did a Matrix Minute with me on branding. Check it out.
