Should You Redesign Your Logo?
The humble name tag. You've read names on a thousand of them.
Often the name written in classic print. Simple, easy to read.
Sometimes the name is badly scrawled and you struggle to decipher… Jack? Jake? Jase?
And every once in awhile you find a name tag that makes you laugh or smile. Maybe they added a simple drawing or a subtle joke but its distinct and memorable.
Ultimately, whatever is sharpie'd on the name tag is merely an identifier of the person. Shy, outgoing, salesy, braggy, interesting, funny, or helpful… there is always more to the person than their name.
But imagine they were terrible at networking. Rumpled clothes, bad breath, clumsy, and hard to understand…
…and they blamed it all on their name tag.
Would you buy it?
What's the problem under the problem?
This is same thinking I hear from companies who want a new logo...
“We really don’t like our logo.”
“It’s not modern enough.”
“The colors don’t work with our marketing.”
“It’s outdated.”
“If our logo was better we could…”
Yes, the logos often need help. But most often the issues are deeper...
Teams fighting each other rather than work together
Too many ways to win that are always changing
Customers aren't loyal
Broad service offerings but not clear point of view
Marketing struggles
A brand that isn’t distinct or memorable
The promise of growth always just out of reach
What's the payoff?
Rather than doing the hard work of brand-building, leaders go after easy solutions—the logo. So into the trash goes the old tag. A name is scrawled on a fresh label and slapped back on the same rumbled suit. And we wonder why results don’t follow.
There’s a better way. Invest in understanding what’s happening in your market and how you company is poised to capture that value.
This approach to brand building starts slow and builds significant momentum:
A reestablished true north
Concrete criteria to make decisions
Alignment across business functions and teams
Internal alignment and momentum
Customer-centric service design
Market alignment
Effective messaging and marketing
Increased sales opportunities
Revenue growth
This video from WSJ about the Campbell Soup can redesign is a perfect example of strategy-first design. While it’s fun to hear about fonts, colors, and drop shadows, the heart of the video shows the larger business strategy that drove the changes.
Where to start:
Identify the promise your organization makes to your market. Remove the jargon, clutter, and buzzwords. Make every word matter.
Compare that promise to your competitors. How does your organization meet this promise in its own unique way? Identify it. Fight to make it distinctive.
Explore how that promise could get narrower or sharper. Mentally experiment focusing the promise in different ways. Map how that focus would change your organization, inside and out.
When you’re confident about where it stands, start to align every decision, every action, every hire, every investment to that promise.
First things first.
This process isn’t easy and it takes time but it begins by putting your mind to it.
Think about it when you’re driving home, when you’re about to doze off, and every quiet moment between. It’s harder than rewriting your name on a name tag (and harder than developing a new logo) but it builds crave-able brands. It’s the hard work of ironing rumpled clothes, popping a breath mint, practicing the elevator pitch, and learning to focus on others first.
