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Most people spend decades, if not their entire lives, trying to identify who they are at their core and find a way to bring that inner self to the surface. Without a strong sense of who we are, we find ourselves directionless, clinging to the next shiny object in our path only to find ourselves worlds away from the life we imagined.
For the average Joe, this could lead to a mid-life crisis. For the average brand, it could mean the end of your business, or worse – a painfully slow and agonizing demise as it loses relevance for current customers. While your journey to enlightenment could take years or decades, a well-defined research and discovery phase can take your existing brand from chaos to clarity in a matter of weeks.
Defining the Research and Discovery Phase
As with any goal, achieving it requires a sound plan of action. For your rebrand, this plan comes in the form of your rebranding strategy. And successful rebranding strategies result from thorough research and discovery phases.
Historically, the research and discovery phase has been a part of the rebranding process that many businesses turn up their noses at. I have to pay someone to learn about me?
Contrary to popular belief, the real benefit of discovery isn’t for your rebranding partner, but the health and longevity of your business. Rebrands often arise out of the need to establish a clear direction for your organization’s future, to recenter and find focus in a rapidly evolving, and create differentiation from competitors, often chaotic business landscape.
Because this focus is so critical to the success of your business, many businesses are tempted to rush it – hoping to get their brand off the ground in a month or two flat. It can’t take that long to create a new logo, right? Sure, but there’s more to it than that. In today’s digital clutter, a simple logo adjustment doesn’t answer the fundamental question on every consumer’s mind: Why should I care?
Making people care starts with one thing: disruptive storytelling. A comprehensive research and discovery phase helps you to uncover key insights about your company’s offering and position in the market to tell a story that stops your consumers in their tracks. Equipped with knowledge about what makes your company truly unique, your brand identity team can begin to establish the through-line (aka, your brand positioning) that unites every component of your visual and verbal language too, consistently, and delightfully articulate your brand’s value.
The Benefits of Research and Discovery
Consider the research and discovery phase as the guided meditation that helps you write your brand’s story. As you reflect on your brand’s history and look ahead to define its future, you emerge with a renewed sense of clarity, enlightened to your brand’s higher purpose and ultimate direction. This act of focus helps your brand:
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Define your reason for existing. Whether you’re a trendy D2C business or a longstanding B2B brand, pinning your entire brand equity on your products and services doesn’t cut it anymore. Want a success story that stacks up to Patagonia, Airbnb, or Apple? Define your higher purpose.
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Communicate your brand consistently and effectively. Defining your brand personality sets the tone for your messaging and ensures that all your communication is cohesive. By giving your in-house marketing and creative teams the fuel they need to create focused and effective brand communications, you maximize your team’s productivity.
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Attract the right customers. The research and discovery phase helps define your audience, what matters to them, and where your values align with theirs – helping to translate your brand’s value proposition into messaging and visuals that amount to unwavering brand loyalty.
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Differentiate your brand. A deeper understanding of your unique advantages and weaknesses helps you effectively position your brand to stand out from the competition.
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Dominate your category. By analyzing your industry and competition, you’ll kickstart your rebrand knowing what problem the other guys are failing to solve, and how you can be the savior your consumers have been searching for.
The pursuit of brand success is a marathon, not a sprint. Doing it right requires an investment of time and resources. This investment, however, pales in comparison to the one lost on ads that don’t work, prospects that don’t pan out, or loyal customers sacrificed to the competition.
By rooting every step in your rebranding process in discovery and sound strategy, you create a cohesive experience that allows you to retain greater control over the narrative around your brand.
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Finding the Right Match
Direction matters when you’re looking for longevity, so make sure your branding partner’s process is one you feel confident in! When you begin seeking a branding partner, look for a discovery process that results in:
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Vision and Mission Statements: Your brand’s final destination or “vision” for the world & the steps you take every day to create it.
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Brand Values: The foundational principles that guide your brand’s behavior.
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Brand Archetype/Personality: A thematic view of how your brand seeks to show up in the world and the fine-tuned details illustrating how you do it.
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Audience Personas: A deep understanding of the people you serve, their behavior, and where your brand fits into their identities.
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Competitor Audit: An analysis of your biggest competitors and how they stack up against your offering.
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Brand Positioning: A clearly defined articulation of what makes your brand truly unique in comparison to the rest of your category. Think of this as your elevator pitch.
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Customer Journey: Identifying every single step in the journey from pre- to post-sale, and all of the brand touchpoints within them. This helps to define how and where your brand needs to show up to effectively capture the attention of your target audience, and establish the key deliverables that your rebranding project will be built on.
The Takeaway
Don’t become so focused on racing across the finish line that you sacrifice creating a brand with longevity. A beautiful logo, tagline, or name change is useless if people don’t pay attention to it. Putting in the deep work upfront saves you a lot of headaches and pays great dividends in the long run.
Pretty pictures on the wall may invite your customers in, but a solid foundation makes them feel at home enough to stay.