What About A Brand Name

One of the most challenging and thinking from client perspective, disruptive business experiences is ‘re-branding or revamping’ (or corporate re-identification, as it was called in another day). ‘Re-branding’ is referred to as a graphic dress here— the typographic, chromatic, and symbolic rendering of the corporate moniker.

And to understand as in why there is this internal resistance to this kind of identity or brand ‘make-over’ — and there almost always is resistance — is often formidable. There are theoretical reasons for this, to be sure: the time, expense, and labor-intensive changeover of scores of applications, from logo to business cards to signage to websites, cannot be dismissed.

There are more ‘deeper’, business reasons to do so as well. Concerns that awareness, familiarity, and brand equity will be long lost, buta smooth makeover or transition by remaining to stay the same through ‘identity refresh’ or ‘makeover,’ it is what serves to stabilize awareness, equity, and even ‘trust’.

Think of this on the model of a sandwich: the top slice is a fixed and is known with a familiar name, the bottom is a ‘multi-grain’ made up of the multitude of operational, financial, human, and other assets most of which do not vary with brand ‘renewal’. In the middle section then, you are free to insert the comestibles of your choice, as a matter which will serve the purpose of providing both nutritional value as well as good taste. This is a lot harder — perhaps impossible — to handle or swallow, without the bread. 

Well, perhaps a culinary metaphor is not one of the best choice, but the point to be made is this: that the anticipated disruption and foreseen risk of identity refresh are often obviated or diminished, in the best of circumstances, by two supports: your name and everything else that constitutes your business or brand.