When it comes to rebranding, all agencies aren’t equal.

After more than 25 years of running a branding agency, it’s not every day a conversation with a client re-frames my perspective on our business. But recently, that happened. I was talking to the founder of a fast growth financial services business, who was recounting his recent experience looking for the right partner to lead their company rebranding. The story was nothing out of the ordinary; the business had been around for seven years, it had seen steady and accelerated growth over that time, the industry was evolving and given they were operating with a version of their original brand identity, it was time to rebrand in a manner that better represented their business to the market.

Having worked with advertising agencies over the years, the business set-about meeting several to find the right agency to lead their rebranding. Having sat through a number of proposal presentations from some of the largest ad agencies in town, the client and his team were left feeling unconvinced.  They turned to our friend Google, found us in the process and were having their first ‘meaningful conversation’ about their branding needs.

The insight that hit me like a bolt of lightening was that the client was shopping our category based on their paradigm of the agency landscape.

Rebranding is an unfamiliar process for most businesses and their key execs tasked with navigating the journey. Understanding which agency is the right partner for their business is a challenge, especially when our whole industry is pretty good at advertising ourselves as the experts in everything. (We recently wrote about one of the world’s leading ad agencies outsourcing their rebranding to a specialist branding agency) For our client to sense they were talking to the wrong agency among the confusion of unfamiliarity is unusually and impressively intuitive. Many business owners and their marketing teams would not necessarily draw the same conclusion.

There are many challenges for businesses looking to navigate the process of finding the right agency to lead them on their rebrand. Four of the most significant challenges are:

• Understanding there are different types of agencies, each with their own specialist skill set.

• Identifying the specialist branding agencies among the many different kinds of agencies all claiming to offer ‘branding services’.

• Understanding what a sound branding process looks like and which is the best process for their particular needs.

• Understanding what valuable brand experience looks like – Insights, rigor and commercial outcome Vs inspiring agency reel

A Guide to finding the right agency for your rebrand.

To assist business owners, brand and marketing managers to chart the right course through the challenge of understanding and finding the right agency to partner on their rebrand, we’ve put together this guide which answers the most salient questions, contains links to resources and provides a sense of clarity.

Of course, if you have any questions or would like to spend an hour-or two talking through your brand challenge, we are always here to help. Drop us an email or give us a call. Our contact details are here.

Dave Ansett
David is the founder of Truly Deeply, a brand agency with 25 years experience working with brands to position them for growth. His deep expertise is in the creation of high engagement brands that attract the attention of their audience and stand out from their competitors. David has extensive experience working with corporate, retail, food & beverage and entrepreneurial clients. Find out more here
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Photo from Alexandre Debieve on Unsplash.