After a fresh revision to a business’s branded communications, everyone is super-excited about the new look. There’s a whole new color palette to choose from, brilliantly creative supporting marks, inspiring imagery, and fancy typography.
Perhaps your company is large enough to have departments like Sales, Customer Service, and Human Resources. Maybe you’d like for each of them to be differentiated just a little bit, and you want each subsection to have its own “feel” for its internal and external communications.
After a while, the shiny wears off, and people might want to see some new things. That’s a reasonable desire, since everyone’s tapering off that high they experienced from the excitement of new things. Maybe a subsection of your business–let’s say, Sales wants their own “look.” They want to stand out in the company. They get tired of seeing the same thing over and over. Sales wants this, for example:
Well, it’s time for some tough love: It’s not about you, Sales. It’s about the company. We all admire your enthusiasm, but you have to keep the big picture in mind here, Sales. You have to understand that every time you send out the some-ol’, same-ol’ thing, someone in your audience is seeing it for the first time.
Seeing the same thing over and over is precisely the point. You’re building consistency into your brand. You’re sending the same message to your audience again and again so it sticks with them. They recognize immediately that this message came from you. Your company sees these images and this look every. single. day. Of course they will get tired of it. The shiny will wear off, and that’s okay.
The change can reinvigorate colleagues; it gets them excited about the company again. They want to to use all the new elements. On everything. Immediately. A change in your identity must be implemented slowly, even if you receive all the new elements at once. Use the same photo with the same logo placement again. And again. And again for a little while. If you’re doing it right, you’ll likely hear from colleagues, “We’re tired of seeing this same thing over and over.”
Once you’ve established a good “base” identity, and you’re reasonably certain people recognize the foundation your brand is built upon, it’s okay to start tinkering with it.