What’s a brand refresh?

As markets change, businesses mature and new business trends develop, it is often necessary to ‘refresh’ a brand.

Your positioning in the marketplace has already been established so a totally new look could impact on your
existing brand awareness. What is needed at this time and indeed every three to five years for most brands is a BrandManager ‘Brand Refresh’.

Why change?

Some of the reasons that trigger the need for a ‘Brand Refresh’ include but are not limited to ...

• New directions and reframing of your business directions as your brand grows and matures
• Market trends and consumer demand changes - just look at fashion for example, how much of your current ‘fashionable’ wardrobe of clothes do you wear today that are more than five years old. Like the fashion industry, the business marketplace changes in design, colour and style every few years.
• New competitors enter your ‘space’ creating a need to better differentiate yourself.
• Business growth has reached a plateau and your business image is looking a little tired.
• The time has come to refocus and tailor to a specific market demographic so there is a requirement to bring the brand inline with this new target market.

What’s included?

The ‘Brand Refresh’ process includes ...

• Review of your current positioning and competitors
• Development and/or refinement of your positioning statement
• Graphic upgrade of your current logo in line with market themes and trends
• Design, production and printing of a new corporate stationery package
• Redesign and mockup of your website
• Brand Style Guide including fonts, colours and management of the new brand
• Six month Brand Marketing Strategy

Normally $3,900 ex GST
Subscriber Special for August only
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During April to June 2010, Careers That Matter and Pathways That Matter travelled to 13 cities around the country, delivering 15 workshops to over 400 stakeholders on how to use these new online career e-tools.

These resources are unique to the industry and will help anyone interested in the development of their workforce and career opportunities within the community services and health sectors. The roadshow was an amazing success and here is a brief review of the feedback …

And in regards to the new website resources participants said …

• Appreciated access to resources
• These career resources will be very helpful to use in schools
• Excellent presenters and resources - thank you
• Great level of info + showcasing resources
• Excellent resources
• Take away resources appreciated
• Website presentations and knowledge of resources exceeded my expectations
• Keep up this type of resource development
• Enjoyed the new sites, can use without going through NTIS
• Fantastic development of resources - thanks
• Extremely useful e-tools

Take a look at the new careers website for yourself at  http://www.pathwaysthatmatter.com.au/

It’s a fresh new financial year so to give your business a much needed facelift let’s start on the surface with your logo and branding.  Do some research and source your main competitors – online and offline – and print out their logos, take note of their marketing message, their Unique Selling Proposition (USP) and their positioning.  Now compare your logo, brand and USP to that of your competitors – does it clearly stand out, does it feel fresh and modern or old and tired and if you were a potential customer would it be inviting to you?

Now let’s go deeper into your organisation.  If your USP says that you are more ‘innovative’ or ‘reliable’ than your competitors then you need to back this up throughout your business.  Test the effectiveness of your USP across all areas from point of sale to customer service, your brochure copy to the way you answer the phone and down to your ‘elevator pitch' – the 30 second ad that sums up what your business is all about.

Finally you need to be realistic about your makeover budget – how much will you invest in your new look?  An upgrade of your existing branding can cost between five and twenty thousand dollars depending on the size of your company whilst new brand development can cost in excess of thirty thousand dollars and involve market research, new signage across your operation and a re-design of your website.

A business makeover allows you to freshen up your position in the marketplace, re-energise your sales team and shake up the competition.  It strengthens your brand by aligning everything together with a common theme and message together with re-focussing your marketing strategies to achieve better returns and support long term growth.