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Welcome to the inaugural issue of Shout. This is a newsletter from Creative Intuition that will address issues on design and marketing that we feel is useful to any business owner. We hope you find these tid bits helpful. If you would like to opt out from receiving future issues, you can do so at the bottom of this message.

6 Signs It’s Time For a New Brand

You may have heard the saying “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.” After all, when it comes to branding, doing it right is a significant investment, both of time and resources. So how do you know when it’s time to change your brand into something new? Here are six common reasons that companies re-brand.

1. Company Growth

Many small and medium sized companies started with a great idea that they have parlayed into an established company. They are now ready to step up to the plate and compete with others in the market place. These companies, whether the small or medium size, started with a valuable concept and have leveraged their original grassroots visual communication elements a bit too long to be competitive now. Now that they have matured into a larger company, it is not really appropriate or competitive to be relying on the original grassroots corporate identity.

2. Mergers & Acquisitions

One of the most obvious reasons for a re-brand is when two or more companies decide to take the plunge and join together in organizational bliss. Whether one brand absorbs the other (ex: AT&T and Cingular) or a new brand is formed based on the attributes of all involved (ex: Region’s Bank) this organizational change gives the perfect reason to introduce a new brand.

3. Entering into a New Target Market

Often times, with expansion and growth comes the opportunity for new markets. These markets may be geographical (ex: ClearPointt) or expanded product or service offerings (ex: PowerMark and Donnelly Marketing).

4. Realign With Your Customer’s Perceptions

Jeff Bezos said “A brand is what people say about you when you’re not in the room.” Many times, an organization will re-brand so their image more accurately reflects their existing reputation. Some examples include name changes (such as Binny & Smith to Crayola or Federal Express to FedEx) but extend also to the look of your brand (ex: Dave’s Insanity Sauce)

5. Your Look Is Dated

Times are a changin’ - constantly. And for many firms, a brand simply needs to be refreshed to keep up with the changing culture and tastes of their target audience. Think of Coca-Cola and the numerous face-lifts this brand icon has had.

6. United We Stand

Over time, when multiple product lines or service offerings are added a brand can become skewed and weak. As in the case of Saucony. As company President Richie Woodworth reported to Brandweek “What we really needed to do from a positioning and visual identity standpoint was … to tighten up what we were doing with the logo, and a build a strong, visual platform … [with] advertising that would tie [all of our products] together into one common thread.”

When organizations faced with these challenges focus on creating a brand that is aligned with their true needs, the results can be dramatic - often with increased awareness, customer loyalty and revenue.

Creative Intuition works with companies discovered it's time for them to rebrand. We consider ourselves the Business Make Over gurus. We have developed make over packages designed to help business through the re-branding process without busting the budget.

Parts of this article were borrowed from Pivot Branding. They said it well and I wanted to share.
Latest & Greatest
Each month Creative Intuition will highlight recently completed projects with samples of the project and comments from our clients.
What is an EPS and why does my designer need it?

Usually, a logo is designed in a vector based program such as Adobe Illustrator. This file is editable by color size and has no background. It is ideal for handing off to any design professional and usually contains certain color combinations that the company may have selected previously. When working with a printer or promotional products vendor or sign company they will most likely ask for your logo as an "EPS" or "vector file." If you don't have this file type you need to get it from the designer that created the original art. If that person is not available then your vendor will probably have to recreate your logo from scratch.

Other file formats such as JPG or TIF are not editbale or scalable. Altering one of these files will have detrimental effects on the quality of the finished product. As you can see from these samples, there is no loss of quality when you scale and EPS file. If you attempted to scale a JPG file it will be blurry and distorted.

A company should always have the EPS file on backup or should know the designer responsible for the logo.

Note: If you don't have software such as Adobe Illustrator you will not be able to open the file. That is OK your designer or printer vendor will have the ability to open it.
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