Are you thinking about biting the bullet and going for a fresh approach with your branding? If you are, what do you need to consider?
Firstly, think about your company’s position: Show that you are different, while being as good as any conventional set-up.’ Draw up a shortlist of names that represents what you do and what you stand for. Make sure it is consistent with your place in the market. Make sure you follow through in your design and materials.

Fresh identity The danger in reworking a brand can lie in giving too much emphasis to the logo or strapline. Treat your brand as encompassing the whole personality of your entire organisation. 

It is partly about your product or service, but the brand also exists through your communications - and the way people talk about it. If you put all these together, that is what makes the brand.

The brand premium Once your brand catches on, you can start to charge a premium. At the bottom end, you can charge three per cent more at retail, which translates into six per cent at wholesale or 12 per cent on leaving the factory.

At the top end, you are looking at 15 per cent at retail, 30 per cent at wholesale and 60 per cent at the factory. Great brands generate huge amounts of cash and cover up all sorts of problems that are inherent in the operation of a business.

In cases like Laura Ashley and Marks & Spencer, which both lost a vast amount of value for shareholders, the brand was never damaged beyond repair. The positioning was still there, but the product wasn’t being delivered in a way that people could access.

The first step for an investor who wants to work out whether a brand still has some potential or whether it has been flogged to death is to map out the physical and emotional territory it occupies. If you are going to re-energise a brand, then you have to go back to the point at which it was great. Everyone loses their way from time to time. How can you adapt to make yourself more relevant to the here and now? Is there another group of customers you can hit with the same product or message?

For growing enterprises, it can be particularly challenging, especially if your brand or point of difference have been copied. What does the brand now stand for?  Has it become less tangible? Any difference has to be built into the emotional perception of the brand.

Remember it is important to find ways to retain your existing customers for longer and engage a new audience, so make sure your brand and message is clear and simple.

Explosive growth Find new channels to market for your growth. They may even be unconventional. Make sure you build partnerships. You have to set a new scale of ambition.

Then think about the role of technology in how you deliver the brand to your audience. The more specific your offer, the easier it is to break through in a world where broadcast media is hard to access.

Author Julia Payne is co-founder of Incisive Edge [solutions] www.incisive-edge.com, leaders in creating sustainable competitive advantage for business. Contact them on growth@incisive-edge.com or call 0800 433 4044