Refreshing The Brand: Examples Abound!

Lately I have noticed a lot of “brand refreshing” going around. When I pick up a Sunday paper, I head straight to the ad inserts. Not for the coupons, but for the FSIs and fliers to see what businesses are doing with their brand.

A few have really popped out to me, so I thought I’d do a little show-and-tell of what I see as good examples of refreshing the brand.

For starters, though, a quick look at a few examples from the past 5-10 years of brands we see every day, thanks to a few recent articles at LogoDesignLove.com:

These fast food logos display how a radical, yet consistent refresher to the brand can be utilized. In each case (except, maybe Taco Bell) the brand colors were carried over to the refreshed branding, but the identity was refreshed to look contemporary.

Most of the examples below of refreshed branding have not been radically updated to the degree of the examples above, so I see these as good examples of making big branding improvements without trashing the equity built into the existing branding. After all, at the end of the day we’re looking out for the best ROI, and a major shift from what people are familiar isn’t always the best idea (though sometimes it is!).

First up: Dominos Pizza

I first noticed their refreshed branding during the big football game this past February. I saw an ad with the “You Got 30 Minutes” tag, and I perked up. Partly because I immediately knew the voice-over work was ESPN’s Mike & Mike, and I once again was in awe of the power and breadth of ESPN in every facet of professional sports.

But mostly it was how Domino’s took their core brand identity (the slanted logo) and built EVERYTHING around it in their visuals. Their visual architecture plays heavily on the slanted logo – in every visual experience with their refreshed branding, we encounter elements that interact with the 45° angle of the logo. This subtly reminds us at every point that what we are looking at is a Domino’s piece.

Their messaging changed, too. Domino’s started talking directly to their consumers, and going younger as they did it. I started seeing ads and product names written in txt, and messaging that was clearly aimed at a slightly esoteric audience (see: unicorns in the latest TV spot).

New messaging was in conjunction with some of the funniest TV spots I’ve seen in a long time. When I saw their ads in the Sunday paper, I smiled as I saw consistency everywhere. Domino’s already had a lot equity built into their brand – they could take the wording out of their logo and people would know what pizza it is. But Domino’s took it to another level without shedding what they had built up.

And I’ll confess: I’ve ordered from Domino’s probably more than any other pizza joint since the new stuff came out. The refreshed branding is at least working on me.

Next up, Jiffy Lube

Jiffy Lube probably doesn’t jump out of the mind’s eye as a brand that would necessarily need a brand refresher, but – wow! – what a difference a little polish and consistency makes.

The previous brand identity – applied to myriad FSIs, television, fliers, and in-store marketing – was dated and seemed to be to very “mechanic-y” (to make up a word). Their messaging was a circus of We Can Do That Too, when in fact they have just a few core services that they should have been becoming known as experts on. One couldn’t help but look at a Jiffy Lube ad and not see a circus of messaging.

But with this new refreshing of their brand, Jiffy Lube has done a fantastic job of streamlining their message – what they do – and giving consumers a brand message that says “We change oil; You can trust us to change the oil in your vehicle.”

There’s a whole lot of good things happening with this brand, and it struck me that even the businesses that might not be “sexy” can still benefit from well-designed, thought-out branding.

Finally, Donatos Pizza:

I did not intend on making this a pizza-heavy post, but I also couldn’t ignore the big changes Donatos made in the last 6 months!

This is a much bigger departure, a la the Taco Bell example above. Donatos kept their colors consistent, but everything else from their previous branding went out the door.

The trick here is that there are still a lot of brick-and-mortar locations with a mixed bag of branding, and that can be a tender place to be for any business when your consumers risk being confused. I’ve noted at least two friends who saw new Donatos branding at a store, and thought it was a new business altogether.

At any rate, Donatos is committed to this new branding, and I think it works for them. Their previous branding – to me – said, “Hi, we’re Pizza Hut: The Sequel.” The new branding, however, really gives Donatos their own place to stand on.

I believe the new branding aligns much better with their products, too. Their products are not too traditional, whereas their previous branding was very old-pizza-place-ish. By keeping their color palette intact, they don’t have to reinvent the wheel for in-store furnishings, which helps their bottom line.

To wrap up:  The main point of this post is to show a few very recent examples of businesses who refreshed their brand without reinventing themselves completely. In the cases of Jiffy Lube and Domino’s, they took existing branding and cleaned it up – made it contemporary, polished, and streamlined in messaging to really set themselves apart. Donatos took a bigger leap, but kept certain things intact so as to not have to redo everything.

The word “branding” can sometimes be thought of as expensive or lofty, but I think these examples show that simply refreshing what’s already there can make a business stand out from their competition.

- dan