Your business has changed. Has your brand?
Your business has changed. Has your brand?
Most businesses don't wake up one morning and decide they've outgrown their brand.
It happens gradually.
The business grows.
The team changes.
New services are introduced.
Customers evolve.
The ambitions become bigger.
The business becomes more established.
And somewhere along the way, the brand stays where it was.
Nothing is necessarily wrong with it.
It just doesn't quite feel like the business anymore.
That's often where the feeling starts.
Something feels off
Your business can evolve without your brand noticing.
We've seen this many times over the years.
A business starts with a clear idea of who it is and what it does. The original branding works perfectly well.
Then ten years pass. The business has changed significantly.
Perhaps it has moved into a new market. Perhaps the team has grown. Maybe the founder has stepped back and new leadership has come in. Perhaps the business has become much more sophisticated operationally.
Its customers may be different.
Its ambitions may be different.
Even the way the business thinks about itself may be different.
But the website still tells the old story.
The logo still reflects the old business.
The photography shows who the business used to be.
The language hasn't really changed.
And the marketing is trying to communicate something the brand itself hasn't quite worked out.
That's when businesses often start saying:
“We think we need a new website.”
Or:
“Maybe we should refresh the brand.”
Or:
“We need to look more professional.”
Sometimes they're right.
But sometimes they're trying to solve the wrong problem.
Before changing the brand, understand what has changed.
This is where we believe the thinking needs to come first.
Before redesigning the logo, rewriting the website or commissioning a new suite of marketing materials, it's worth asking a much more fundamental question:
Who have you become?
Not who were you when the brand was created.
Not who your competitors are.
Not who you think you should look like.
Who are you now?
What has changed?
What has stayed true?
What do your best customers value about you?
What do you do differently today?
What are you known for?
What do you want to be known for?
And perhaps most importantly:
What has the business become that the existing brand isn't expressing?
Those questions can uncover a very different opportunity
Your brand should reflect the
business you've become.
A repositioning doesn't always mean throwing everything away.
In fact, some of the strongest brand work we've done has involved discovering that the foundations were already right.
The business had simply moved forward.
That's an important distinction.
Sometimes the answer is a new identity.
Sometimes it's a clearer position.
Sometimes it's a new story and a better way of communicating.
Sometimes the website needs to change.
Sometimes the photography needs to change.
Sometimes everything needs to change.
But you shouldn't know the answer before you've understood the problem.
That's the job of strategy.
It gives you the clarity to make better creative decisions.
And this is where
photography matters.
Photography is often one of the first things to reveal that a brand hasn't caught up.
We've worked with businesses whose people, premises, products and customer experience have completely evolved - but they're still using photography from years ago.
The business feels current.
The imagery feels dated.
Or the photography might be technically good but completely generic: stock images, staged people, predictable corporate portraits or imagery that could belong to any competitor.
That creates a disconnect.
Quality photography isn't simply about making a website look beautiful.
It helps people see who you are.
The people behind the business.
The environment.
The details.
The way you work.
The experience you create.
The personality that exists beyond the logo.
For us, photography sits alongside brand, design, creative and digital because every visual touchpoint contributes to how a business is perceived.
A beautifully positioned brand deserves imagery with the same level of thought and craft.
Don't redesign
the symptom.
One of the easiest things to do when a brand feels wrong is to start designing.
New logo.
New colours.
New website.
New brochure.
New social templates.
And six months later, you can have a beautiful new brand that still doesn't quite explain the business.
That's because design can express a clear idea.
It can't create the idea for you.
The strongest creative work comes when the thinking underneath it is already clear.
You know what the business stands for.
You know who you're trying to connect with.
You understand what makes you different.
You know what needs to be said - and what doesn't.
Then design, photography, creative, content and digital all have something meaningful to work from.
The brand needs
to catch up.
This is often the real challenge for established businesses.
Not creating something completely new.
Catching the brand up with the business.
And that's a very different conversation.
At The Jam Jar, we don't start by asking what a business wants its brand to look like.
We start by understanding what has happened since the last time anyone really asked what the brand should be.
Because businesses evolve.
People change.
Markets move.
And sometimes the brand simply needs to catch up.
We don't invent brands. We uncover them.
A thought
worth considering
If your business is more established, more capable or more ambitious than it was when your current brand was created, it might be worth asking:
Does your brand still reflect the business you've become?
If the answer isn't an immediate yes, that's probably worth exploring.
Clarity comes first. Creativity follows.