How to Make Bold Moves to Keep Your Brand Relevant in a Fickle Market
Your restaurant’s been humming along for ten years plus, but since you first opened your doors, the restaurant landscape has grown throughout your city, and you’re finding it increasingly challenging to stay relevant in what used to be a relatively engaging consumer market.
You’ve evaluated your current operations, level of service, food quality, and marketing and social media program, and even though you’re functioning on all cylinders, the business is just not there.
If you still have more to give and an unwaning passion for what you do, a brand refresh or a complete rebrand may be the plan in lieu of an exit strategy.
When deciding between these two options, keep it simple.
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Brand Refresh
This approach is best for restaurants that are not “broken” but need to elevate their brand. Essential starting points include a logo redesign, menu revamp, interior renovation, and a new marketing plan involving many platforms and opportunities you may have previously pushed off.
Rebrand
While this approach is often viewed as bold or a Hail Mary, it is an effective strategy for restaurants that have taken their current concept as far as it can go or feel their competitive edge has weakened.
A rebrand is a liberating exercise in moving forward with a new name and design aesthetic, a fresh menu concept, and the opportunity to bathe in that new business attention and excitement that consumers and tastemakers relish.
Both tactics are fabulous excuses for reintroductions to customers, social media influencers, the media, neighborhood platforms, and community leaders. However, both approaches often hinge on the players involved, such as the owner, chef, and staff.
A careful evaluation of reputation, quality of service, and public perception are key factors when diving into either transformation.
Branding Companies
Branding has many layers, and for that reason, it is important to seek out a branding company that can manage all aspects of the branding process at any stage. A brand refresh or a total rebrand both have a starting point and often, that starting point is where it all began.
“Many companies don’t realize the impact and benefits of truly effective branding when starting out. This might show itself as inconsistencies across touchpoints or a lack of connection between the core of the business and its visual identity. A brand refresh is a worthwhile investment if the visual identity never truly reflected the business,” explains Carter Grotta, Managing Partner of JUICE Creative Group in Norwalk, CT.
“Even a strong brand will start to feel outdated after some time. Branding and design trends come in and out of style like everything else. If you’ve been neglecting your brand and it starts to feel out of touch with up-and-coming competitors, an effective rebrand will breathe life back into the brand.”
JUICE Creative Group’s Rebrand vs Refresh Philosophy:
When there is a significant change in the direction of the business or the target audience, or if you are offering something different – rebrand.
If you are trying to appeal to a new group of customers, modernize your image, and create cohesion between the brand’s visual identity and the physical location—brand refresh.
Grotta warns restaurateurs not to get ahead of themselves by refreshing or rebranding without making real changes to the menu, the space, and the approach. With a refresh or a rebrand come expectations. And for an industry that is already one of the most scrutinized among consumers, these changes can surprise, impress, or disappoint the end user.
For a brand refresh, the similarities between the menu/concept/atmosphere and the visual/technical side of things adhere to the same principles.
“For a brand refresh project, we might take the original concept and optimize or modernize it to better align with the business. This maintains a sense of familiarity and recognizability for the business, but it feels brand new. This same approach applies to the menu, as it’s not a departure from the original concept but rather an improvement or advancement of the menu and decor. There needs to be a detectable element at the core that rings with familiarity.”
A brand refresh will focus on improving primary brand assets, logos, color palettes, and typography. Then, brand collateral, like business cards, email marketing templates, landing pages, social icons, and banners, will be created using the new visual identity.
This formula applies to the restaurant concept by improving existing offerings, adding fresh food and beverage items, a palpable change in service and presentation, a visual refresh in décor, and a new outlook on marketing, including partnerships and collaborations with third-party platforms and influencers.
Rebranding involves a new restaurant outlook. It can be a departure from the original concept and even an opportunity to move past a current customer base. Starting fresh can be nerve-wracking for many operators, as losing what was positive and effective is daunting.
Grotta reminds us that those elements can remain in a rebrand, but they are reframed in a way that only holds on to the essence of what’s salvageable. This can be as straightforward as keeping the most popular dishes on the menu but renaming them somehow or referring to them as an “homage to” the former restaurant brand.
This is a common practice for restaurateurs who move into a restaurant space with a history, and it can easily be applied here. The same applies to ownership and staff who will remain with the rebranded concept. Let customers know that their favorite bartender will still be there to shake up their martini.
While there are safeguards to implement with a rebrand, one mustn’t forget how and why they arrived at the decision to rebrand and move in another direction. Having a clear sense of the new direction you are going in is paramount. Take your time crafting this new or reimagined concept. This is your second chance. There isn’t a third.
“I recommend setting aside a budget for branding. It’s the first (new) interaction you will have with a customer before they have an in-person experience. Do not underestimate the power of effective branding from the start. Starting out properly will generate excitement, prevent the need for further changes, and help get people in the door,” explains Grotta, “Don’t sleep on your website. People look for restaurant recommendations online, and having an outdated or bad website will drive potential customers to other places. Your website is often the first time people are interacting with your business, and you want to make that first impression a good one to get them in the door.”
Key time and financial investments that may have been overlooked or implemented with shortcuts the first time around that are essential tools in both a refresh and rebrand scenario include:
- Great photography. Whether it’s food and beverage photography or photos of the venue, pictures really do say a thousand words and sell the experience of your restaurant. You will need to overcome past images that previous customers might remember.
- Your photography, logo, website, and copywriting are all branding. Make sure they’re elevated and cohesive.
- Incorporate tastings into your opening agenda. Staff, friends, family, and even customers will be brutally honest. Use their feedback to ensure your “new” menu departs from the previous food and beverage offerings. Create new signature dishes and revisit the ideas you wish you had put on the menu previously.
- Training. A rookie mistake is assuming that the experienced crew you hired is well-versed in all things “your brand.” They are not. Even the most seasoned staff member needs to be educated about your style and brand philosophy, proficient in the dishes and beverages, trained on your POS system, and informed of your preferred service approach.
- Be more aggressive with your marketing campaign and utilize social media to its fullest. Marketing is not a conservative sport. Put a little money behind your social media advertising, as a little goes a long way. Create relationships with social media influencers. Regardless of your feelings on this “new media” methodology, influencers are the new media, and the quicker you embrace this, the better results you will have on social media. It’s more important to have other people posting on their platform than it is populating your platform. A brand introduction or reintroduction needs to go beyond your existing audience – other people’s followers need to hear about you.
Arriving at the brand refresh or rebrand decision is significant, but it is also an exciting one that should be embraced. Avoid the mistakes of the past. Enjoy the process even more this time around. You have plenty of experience to draw from, and this time around, your new or refreshed brand is going to be better than your first!
