Case study: Businessary rebranding
Learn about how we used the skills of our own marketing, brand and design team to update the Businessary look and feel.
Case study: Businessary rebranding

Learn about how we used the skills of our own marketing, brand and design team to update the Businessary look and feel.

Client background

businessary rebranding case study

Your company’s brand is its very own distinctive fingerprint, teaching the outside world how to identify and differentiate your products or services from others. A combination of your logo, symbols, words, design and colour scheme can be utilised to create your individual brand identity, with the freedom to craft a representation of who you are through a variety of elements.

As a seven year old company, Businessary has recently decided to refresh the brand to reflect our progress, evolution and changing dynamics that have come with confidence in our proposition in recent years. As a business we have also grown from two to seven people and three clear divisions over that time and we wanted our brand to truly reflect all these changes

We want to give you a sneak peek into our process through the mind of our very own Managing Director, Annabel Rees, while answering the key questions you might have before heading into a refresh or rebrand.

Why is a brand important?

Beyond providing a distinctive identity, your branding can increase the value of your company, provide your employees with direction and motivation, set you apart from competitors and represent your overall promise to the customer to name a few. Branding is critical to all companies because of the overall impact it makes on how your company is recognised, perceived and remembered. Through your brand, your customers are given something to believe in, while your employees are given something to stand proudly behind.

When should a business consider a brand refresh?

It can be hard for companies to recognise that they’re in need of a brand refresh, especially when a sense of attachment and familiarity are present. Although your branding might feel like a comfortable pair of shoes around the feet of your company, over time growth, changes, wear and tear will eventually take its toll on the fit of the structure. Just as your company evolves, your brand should progress alongside it to ensure it is represented as wholly as possible. Not only will your company change over time, but your industry and market will too. A brand refresh can ensure that you remain relevant to your clientele and the environment in which you operate. Perhaps your brand has become too similar to a competitor’s brand, removing its purpose as a source of differentiation for your company and weakening its ability to stand out. It is important to remember that a brand refresh can be as complex or simple as necessary, from changing your font and colour scheme to modernise your look, or a complete rebrand across all communications.

Why did Businessary decide to refresh our brand?

As a start-up company seven years ago, branding was one of our biggest upfront costs as we wanted to project a strong image. Like many start-ups, Businessary was yet to develop an identifiable personality simply because we didn’t exist. Over the years, we have advanced from a generic persona to one that is much clearer about who we are, what we do and why it is we exist. As a team, we wanted to show our professionalism and maturity. We realised our current branding was becoming outdated, our website and collateral was tired. Not only was this impacting the outsiders’ perception of our brand, but our own colleagues too. We also felt it didn’t truly reflect who we were now! We hoped that our brand refresh would motivate the team, giving them a brand to be proud of and take satisfaction in sharing aspects of Businessary with others.

Ultimately, we aimed towards a brand that reflected our own USP and core messages as an underdog who’s willing to take on the big guys, reflected in our new tag line “the little house that delivers big”. Since our first brand development, we have become a real home for business, seeing ourselves as type of family that always supports and takes care of our clients. Our new branding reflects the story we’ve lived as a company over the past 7 years and what we have evolved into a comfortable home for our clients.

What are the steps to a re-brand? What was the process and who was involved?

Each rebrand or refresh is unique, which is something we as a company understand from experience with our own clients. In our case, we were looking for an all-round refresh, while still maintaining some of our key branding elements. Although the process is often tailored, there’s still a pretty standardised process that companies will follow.

Our process was as follows:

 

Step 1 – Getting clear on who we are now and who we want to be

This first step was all about understanding where we are currently as a brand, and where we want to be in the future. The outcomes of this reflection allowed us to co-create a mood board with our graphic designer. At this point, I knew it was critical that the whole team was involved to help understand how the brand was being perceived from a variety of viewpoints. It’s also key to learn where your employees want the company to be at in the future because they’re the ones helping you get there.

Step 2 – Which idea really resonates

From the mood board, we worked as a team to identify the best branding option, whether this be a colour palette or logo refresh. Our team discussions gave us clarity about our key messages, imagery and delivery. This stage allowed us to bring our personality to life through our communications, turning the concept of a little house that delivers big into a concrete representation.

Step 3 – Turn the concept into design

The graphic designer explodes this into every aspect of the company. From fonts, colours, logo updates and formatting, each update becomes part of the company playbook. Samples are provided by the designer on how this will be translated into various communication vehicles, which then becomes the guidelines and inspiration for the company for future reference.

This stage can be exciting but also very daunting – so many great choices, but time to narrow down the look and feel to a consistent story. At this stage, the client can also say what asset they would like to see com to life to help in decision making – this usually is a webpage, flyer, business card  etc but let us know what are the most useful outputs for you and we can create them with the help of the designer.

What was the outcome?

The most noticeable outcome so far has been the positive response from our team, they love how the refresh has turned out. The process has really reengaged and re-energised them, especially during lockdown, giving us all something to work on collectively and be a part of. We are all really proud of the new branding and love sharing the results with our personal networks.

From outside sources, feedback on our brand refresh has been extremely impressive, especially when using our new look and feel in proposals for new clients.

In terms of quantifiable outcomes, it’s a little too early to say. But what we do know is that being able to demonstrate our re-brand helps with showing clients our capabilities. Design is an area of our business we are seeing an increase in demand for, with the refresh giving clients more confidence in us. Although challenging at times, we enjoyed each step of the process and are already reaping the benefits. Businessary is extremely excited to be involved in our clients re-branding in the future and are looking forward to being top of mind for any company considering the process that’s in need of a helping hand.

Book in for your free brand, rebrand or brand refresh consultation.