New brand, who dis?

If you’ve followed our journey at all, you might have noticed that something has changed. The logo and colors are different, the website is new, and while you can still email your favorite contact at audacity.marketing, when they respond it will be from audaxis.marketing.

Why did we do it?

While we rebranded for a very specific reason, there are many reasons to rebrand your company, which I’ll go through later in this post. We chose to begin rebranding when we discovered a couple other companies with the same name who had been around longer than we had. These companies were much smaller and regional, but we didn’t want to create brand confusion in their markets – markets in which we have business. We also wanted something we could trademark so we could protect our brand and wouldn’t have to consider this again in the future.

But why else would you rebrand?

We build a lot of brands, both from scratch and as rebrands. It’s my favorite kind of work, and we get great feedback from our clients about the value of that work.

Military-themed restaurant

One of our clients was a military-themed restaurant. Their brand had multiple issues. One, the name only resonated with one branch of the military – the US Marines. An Army veteran came in and felt the need to ask, “Do you serve Army in here?” The name didn’t resonate with non-military people either. Until they were clients, I drove past the restaurant almost daily, thinking that it was a Marines social club, and that I wasn’t welcome.

We helped them rebrand to something that still showed their military spirit but also didn’t put off the “civilian” population, either. This rebrand was exceptionally important as they started franchising the restaurant concept.

Trucking app

Another client we’ve been working with recently has created an app for the trucking industry that we believe will be a game-changer in the space. They came to us initially to talk about launching the app, but we immediately noticed a problem. The name of the app was generic, and it had the word “chrome” in it. While the word “chrome” means one thing to truckers, it of course, is the name of Google’s browser offering. We helped them with renaming the app and designing the brand icons. If you’re in the trucking industry, we’re pretty sure you’re going to see this app on your phone very, very soon!

Mental health professionals

Interestingly, we’ve branded three different mental health professionals in the last three years, two psychologists and a psychiatrist.

The first psychologist had been practicing for years both in corporate settings and directly seeing patients. He felt his existing brand didn’t encompass his belief system, based in Tibetan Buddhism. While he didn’t evangelize Buddhism as a practice, he felt that the mindfulness it brought was helpful to many of his patients. We did a complete brand study for him, and came up with values, a core message, a personality, and iconography that he loves, and reflects his practice.

The second psychologist had no brand presence. We also did a brand study for him as well. This resulted in a very relaxed brand personality with casual-looking iconography that he felt would put his patients at ease. They were coupled with a strong set of values and a core message that emphasized empathy and help.

The psychiatrist needed a different kind of help. She had built a brand on her pediatric practice, but it wasn’t very strong or well-received. It also wasn’t cohesive with the forensic work that made up most of her current practice, nor with the significant accolades she had received for moving the APA culturally closer to the modern age. Her rebranding focused on a significant shift in the type of work she was doing and the subsequent shift in her target market. It also had a bit of a political bent to it, as she was considering high office within the APA. We built for her both a new brand that reflected her accomplishments and current work, as well as positioned her for future political success.

More than a logo

There are many more reasons to rebrand your company. You might find yourself with a legal issue because you inadvertently violated a trademark. Your target market may have changed. Your company values have shifted as you’ve grown. You might need to shift market perception to better reflect reality.

No matter what your reason for rebranding, we always recommend going further than just a name and logo. A brand study that helps discover market perceptions and translates them into messaging and iconography that help grow your business is a significant value.