Original Spirit Design

It’s been such an exciting month, being in Joburg and experiencing all this football fever, it’s amazing how our country came together to celebrate and support our players and foreign teams. This month the brand of South Africa was put in the spotlight and from the reviews I’ve heard it’s come out on top and with better feedback than anyone expected. The overall responses to this event, the people and the country have been a resounding WOW with many people wanting to return.

So with that in mind let’s chat about your brand and why it’s so important that what you plan to achieve is what people perceive. Many people came to South Africa thinking of crime and poverty, but what they got was friendly people, beautiful scenery and a nation joined together. The perception of this country for a long time has not been a good one and therefore the world cup was a good chance for us to “rebrand” and give our visitors a different experience to what they expected.

The same is true for your brand, maybe you’ve been running a few years and when you initially started you didn’t have the budget to spend on branding, maybe your vision and mission have changed since your first inception and you need to echo this through the way your material is designed. There are many reasons why people often ask for a rebrand but one of the most common reasons is that it was never considered from the start and now there is no synergy throughout the brand and so parts of your brand, such as your logo are not in a format that can be used across various media.

When designing a brand you need to be aware of what you want people to think, feel or say when your brand is seen or spoken about. For example when you think of coke, do you think red, refreshing, cold, can? This doesn’t just happen, this is something that is specifically formulated for us to feel, think or see when we think of a brand.

So next time when you meet a customer, ask them how they perceive your brand and if the answer is what you expected then you’re on the right track, if not feel free to contact me and I’ll be happy to help you with a rebrand.