5 tips for helping clients adopt a new brand
Adopting a new brand is a big step. In my experience, it’s not unusual for clients to be a little tentative. There is that underlying worry about making the wrong decision.
I get it. It is a big decision. One that comes with a substantial investment. If you were in their shoes, you’d slow down, too. You’d review your decision to make sure you have given it a thorough evaluation.
Unfortunately, it’s at this stage that clients can get stuck. And start to review again. And again. And again.
What they need at this point is someone to responsibly guide them through the process of adopting the new brand. I’m not talking about selling them. I’m talking about helping them see why the solution is undeniably right for them. As a branding expert, I consider that part of the job.
Inevitably, you’re going to run into this situation as you help clients with branding. Here are 5 tips to help you navigate what could be a potentially tough situation.
1. Point back to the strategic foundation
At the beginning of any branding project, we collaborate with our client to lay the strategic foundation for the development of the brand. At the very least, you should have a positioning statement This defines the who, what, and why of the brand. It is an internal facing exercise. In other words, the positioning statement isn’t meant to be customer/prospect-facing language. It will help influence the brand language you develop. But its main purpose is to help you focus your thinking.
It serves another purpose as well. As you develop your brand, point back to the strategic work you and your client did. This can provide great comfort as a client is going through the process I described above. The strategic work helps validate the relevance of the branding solution.
For an even more powerful tool, consider adding the Thrust Story Framework to your strategy development. This framework helps capture the emotion your brand hopes to embody. Here is an explanation from a post titled How to find your most irresistible message:
Following the framework does some pretty awesome things. For starters, it gets you thinking in a narrative form, helping you to harness the power of storytelling to communicate in a way that is more engaging and more memorable. Most importantly, it focuses the story on those you hope to serve, improving your ability to communicate with them in a way that they will find captivating.
2. Remember the initial reaction
Your client’s initial reaction to a branding solution is the truest. I have revealed solutions to clients to ‘oohs’, ‘ahhs’, and ‘wows’, only to later have the same clients struggle with committing to the new brand solution.
Again, I have a lot of empathy for them. It is a big decision and they want to get it right.
This is a good time to remind them of their initial reaction. Remind them how they felt when they first saw it. Their clients/customers/prospects are going to have the same reaction. I encourage my clients to trust their first reaction. The gut reaction is rarely wrong.
3. Put ‘friends & family research’ into perspective
As clients go through the process of making their decision, it’s not unusual for them to show the solution to a spouse or a good friend. I don't discourage this. But I do remind them to share the strategic work we did before revealing the brand. It gives the solution context.
Furthermore, help clients understand the dynamic they create when they do this ‘friends & family research’ because a funny thing happens. When you ask people for their opinion, it can make them feel uncomfortable. After all, they are not branding experts. Which means they are unlikely to tell you what’s right with the solution. Furthermore, since they are your friends, they feel an obligation to help you find out what’s wrong with the solution. It’s not something they do because they’re mean. Just the opposite. They feel like they have been asked to help protect you from making a potentially bad decision.
Help your client understand this dynamic and to take any input from friends and family with a grain of salt.
4. Revisit the story the new branding tells
A great brand is like an onion. It has layers. Layers of stories it tells. Upon first exposure to may understand the primary meaning of the brand. Great brands build in secondary meaning, and sometimes even tertiary meaning.
FedEx’s logomark is simply letters of the name. It’s bold and attractive, and communicates that they deliver all over the country (Fed stands for federal) and they do it quickly (Ex stands for express). That is pretty powerful. But there is symbology hidden in the mark as well. Look between the ‘E’ and ‘x’. The negative space forms a right-pointing arrow. It adds a dynamic element that helps reinforce the express idea. Moreover, when someone discovers the arrow, it creates surprise and delight. That’s great design. Design that understands the power of building in layers of meaning into the brand.
Hopefully, you have built layers of meaning into your client’s brand. Remind them of the story the brand is telling. And how the execution reinforces the primary, secondary, and even tertiary messages of the brand.
5. Demonstrate the brand in action
A professional presentation of the brand is part of the process. But nothing compares to actually seeing the new brand out in the wild. When you see the brand mocked up on the side of a building or even on a hat, it starts to become real. It’s exciting. Nothing compares to seeing it in the environment. Plus it can assuage doubts about how the new brand will work in the real world.
Take the time to create a mockup or two. There are plenty of free resources out there that you can use to help demonstrate just how awesome the new brand will be once it is launched.