In 2003 Nokia designed the strangest looking phone, Nokia 7600 which looked like a teardrop. This phone had a standard size screen for that time but figuring out how to hold this phone or fit into your pocket was a great labyrinth. Single-handed texting on this phone was out of the question. Plus it had excessive weight with a very poor display. No doubt this product was a huge flop. Through the years Nokia has lost its market and this can be credited to designing such inconvenient handsets to some extent. Bad designs hurt your business. Maybe you don’t see the effects right away but in the long run, you will realize that you are losing customers. If the customer does not know how to use your product they will find an alternative to it. If your designers are not prototyping and testing their design that leads to bug fixes in the development phase or even worse in production which cost 10 times or 100 time more respectively.
Nothing is more confusing (and irritating!) than inconsistent branding. If you’re going for a flirty fun vibe, it won’t make much sense to have a black website with dark purple text. If you’re going for ultra-professional, sequins and glitter everywhere just won’t work.
People should be able to recognize your brand in every aspect of your business. From your social media accounts to your email signature, your flow needs to be on point.
So what’s next? Agency Bel is exploring how brands will evolve in the decade ahead. Throughout history, pandemics have accelerated change, and the Indian author Arundhati Roy has written that this pandemic should be a portal to a better way of doing things.
So what does this mean for brands? Deep in the crisis, we all live in a fog of uncertainty, with an undertow of anxiety. Our mood hovers between holiday and calamity. So it’s hard to get a clear head.
Agency Bel specializes in brand refreshes. Making old new again! Dots & Stripes Organizing is a full-service organizing and decluttering firm based in Boston. They came to use with an old logo and lagging presence in the space. Sometimes it pays to clean up your own space~!
Recently I spoke to a group of entrepreneurs at a 2-hour workshop designed to educate, inspire and help them understand how to approach building a powerful brand from the inside out. This event was hosted by Marketing and PR expert Robin Samora.
Attendees learned . . .
+ About crucial brand building elements
+ How to look at Your Brand Purpose and how you are different
+ How to imagine what Your Bold Vision may or may not be
Agency Bel was instrumental in helping to demystify our corporate branding initiative and in turning it into a well managed launch. In the course of merging with IDEC, I got to appreciate Laura’s vast experience. She quickly understood the specific issues our corporation faced and proposed a viable solution. Her involvement from the planning stage to the final communications roll out was a key success factor for the merger.
— Gunther Winkler, PHD., VP Strategic Initiatives, BIOGEN
If ever there were a music school that made you want to break out in song, this is it. After three years of planning and construction, the new Nantucket Community Music Center at 56 Center Street is simply exhilarating. Belying its traditional Federal-style facade, built in 1843 by whale oil merchant Harrison Gray Otis Dunham, the interior achieves perfect harmony in the use of colors, textures, and lighting.
Conceived by Wendy Schmidt, with an interior design by Kathleen Hay and Joe Paul of BPC Architecture, this is not your fatherís music school. The space was designed as much to inspire as it is to teach, and succeeds on so many levels that it is hard to single out a specific highlight of the building.
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FIDELITY INVESTOR CENTERS
FIDELITY INVESTOR CENTERS
When the largest U.S. mutual-fund company needed to refresh its retail branches, it turned to Gensler and my team to spearhead an effort involving interior architecture and signature finishes as well as display fixtures, graphics, and technology. The concept, which has since been rolled out to over 80 Fidelity outposts nationwide, made its debut at a 14,000-square-foot flagship in Boston’s Financial District. Each element maximizes customer choice and access to information. Transparency and movement further underscore that idea. Running circulation routes along the glazed facade, for example, gives passersby a clear view of a full-color LED stock ticker and billboard-style supergraphics. Vinyl supergraphics, adhered to the glass wall of the second-floor offices take on a billboard effect when seen from the street. Part of the lobby is covered with a signature graphic pattern combined and layered with an updated version of its longtime starburst logo as seen applied to the exterior windows.
How do you know when it’s time to rebrand your company? It’s worth taking a moment to assess the situation. Here is a list of signs that point to the need for a rebrand. If you find you’ve checked more than 2 boxes after carefully thinking about each symptom as it relates to your organization, your brand is probably in need of an update.
The good news: needing to rebrand is not a bad sign; on the contrary! Most successful companies do it, from startups to those on the Fortune 500. Often, a rebrand means that the company has evolved beyond its previous identity and is now ready to reach new heights. Rebranding offers a great opportunity to strengthen the company’s presence and image in the eyes of your customers.
Rebranding, however, can be an effort-intensive process, so you need to be deliberate about the why and the how of going about it.
change is seldom easy, and we are programmed to fear the unknown
I work with new companies and entrepreneurs. But I often get clients who are established but in need of a re-brand. This comes with excitement but also with some emotion.
Deciding to rebrand your company is a bold move. And the fact is that with bold moves often come uncomfortable circumstances. No one said rebranding was easy. But with the right preparation, the right state of mind, and a few helpful tips, surviving a rebrand doesn’t have to be a white knuckle affair. Here is some of the most important advice we share with our clients when they’re in the trenches of a rebrand.