NOVEMBER 2015 BCBusiness 27 ILLUSTRATIONS: VICTORIA PARK
Who Are You, Anyway?
D - I - Y M a n a g e m e n t
exPreSS yoUrSeLf
This is the stage where you know what
you can truthfully say and how you can
really sell yourself, says Dauphinee.
"It really should be undeniable that
you're being honest and that you're
hitting the right people and then com-
bining that with some clever or quirky
marketing." Executing and building
the rebrand "may involve everything
from working on the website to chang-
ing colours, redoing the logo, maybe
even renaming and new storytelling,"
says Dahl. "All the diŠerent aspects
that make up the brand."
PrePAre for tAkeoff
There should be a formal plan for how the
rebrand will actually launch and come to mar-
ket, says Dahl. For example, will it be a celebra-
tion or evolve over time? "The execution of the
rebranding and how it touches the customers
needs to be formally and strategically identi…ed
and planned. It should not be an ad hoc, 'Let's
do this today,' because when the customer and
your employees experience the new brand,
they want to understand what it means."
teSt the new BrAnding
"Before you launch, you want
to make sure that everything is
making sense, it's coherent and
it maps across the board," says
Dahl. Ask customers and employ-
ees whether it works. "It goes
far, far deeper than how your
letterhead looks, how your logo
looks or how you display your
products," says Dauphinee. "It
really is a promise at its core. It's
a promise that you make to your
consumer, and it's a voice that
needs to carry across every level
of your business."
figUre oUt whAt ProBLem
yoU Are trying to SoLve
Never rebrand simply to rebrand, says
Dahl. Companies typically rebrand
because something has changed—for
example, you are losing relevance in
the marketplace or customers don't
understand you. A rebranding process
can come after multiple years in busi-
ness, notes Dauphinee. "Maybe you're
…nding you're starting to plateau a
little bit. You feel like maybe you're not
getting enough penetration into cer-
tain markets that you would like to."
exPLore who yoU Are And
where yoU're going
"What do you want to convey and to
whom?" says Dahl. If your customer has
changed, who is your customer now?
Dauphinee recommends asking: What
makes you diŠerent? What makes you
remarkable? What are you oŠering to the
world that's diŠerent from everybody
else, and how can you leverage that to
make yourself more successful? "That
really is at the core of a brand," he says.
"It's very rarely the logo that draws
people to your business. It's how you
conduct your business that actually has
the biggest impact."
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Darren Dahl, senior associate dean of UBC's Sauder School of Business
and director of the Robert H. Lee Graduate School, and Jason Dauphinee,
creative director at Eclipse Creative in Victoria, discuss when, why and
how to go about rebranding by Felicity Stone
