Fluff and Bubble
It’s 2024, and we still hear this occasionally from people in leadership positions. Often it’s from people in accountancy or financial roles, and that makes sense. The branding industry is frequently flawed in its methodology. It makes statements about type choice and colour carrying meaning and driving decisions for clients and consumers without qualifying that belief. To accountants who are used to dealing with data-driven decisions, this seems naïve at best and they lose confidence in the process.
Accountants like black and white clarity and from their perspective: The ROI of branding is sometimes hard to quantify, but it shouldn’t be.
One of our clients came to us after meeting with his accountant who had asked him, “How are you going to get a return on this rebrand investment?”. The client told him, “I think I’ll get it back when I sell.” At this point we asked the client, “Do you remember what your tender close rate was before the rebrand? It was 1 in 7. What is it now?”. “1 in 3”, he replied. Pre-rebrand and pre-covid they had 60-65 staff, by mid-covid with the new brand they had over 100. That is a return on investment.
In their case, they also had benefited by not falling victim to the other kind of ROI… Risk Of Inaction. If they hadn’t changed their name and brand they would have continued to be associated with the failures of another company.
But those aren’t the only benefits of a strong and engaging brand. Smart leaders know that branding is as much about HR as it is about marketing. A great brand not only attracts great talent, but it also engages and retains them. In a past GM role I oversaw a rebrand of a medium sized enterprise, (120 staff, 4 offices). Within 3 months of the rebrand we had a 30% increase in productivity (read ‘sales’) and a 20% decrease in absenteeism. The staff were engaged, invigorated and proud of where they worked and it showed in the results. That is return on investment.
Getting these kinds of return requires far more than a bit of graphic design and marketing speak. It requires deep strategic business insight and vision, an authentic, differentiated and engaging brand story, and the bravery to fully step into your brand and commit to its delivery through real and rewarding customer/user experiences. Most branding agencies never go this deep, and it explains the doubt that stains our industry. Don't start with design, start with business strategy – your “strategic narrative” and every decision and all your other brand narrative should flow from that.
