When businesses boom: how to keep the brand on track

Rapid business growth is a sign of success and innovation. It demonstrates a company’s ability to identify and meet market needs, often more quickly and efficiently than the competition. While there are many positive aspects to rapid growth in revenue, market share, and headcount, there’s one thing that cannot be ignored: as the company grows, the brand must grow with it.

Branding is at the heart of a company’s identity. It encompasses everything that defines and represents a company. Consistent and strong branding creates trust and loyalty among customers. But what happens when a company grows so fast that it becomes difficult to adapt and maintain the brand?

• How do companies grow fast?
• Branding and business growth
• Employees and design managers are the ones who suffer
• How to make it easier for everyone

How do companies grow fast?

When a company grows rapidly, several factors usually come into play, including:

• Market demand and trends
• Innovation and technological advances
• Effective marketing and branding
• Development of new markets
• Strategic partnerships and takeovers (e.g. mergers & acquisitions)
• Favorable economic conditions

In principle, any form of business growth should be viewed positively. However, there are challenges to growing too fast. These include financial problems due to changing demands, unrealistic stakeholder expectations, or even a loss of quality. Business growth is often not 100% controllable. There’s no such thing as “perfect” growth.

Branding and business growth

Rapid business growth touches all areas of the company and leads to changes—including branding. The brand becomes better known, the brand portfolio grows and becomes more complex, the brand message and design may need to be adapted, and brand perception becomes harder to influence.

Many new challenges accumulate with growth, and those responsible for branding can quickly lose track. Resources and time are often at a premium. Not only do they have to manage ongoing marketing activities, but they also have to develop new campaigns and content for new markets, manage additional communication channels, and ensure that all brand assets are up to date.

When a company is growing rapidly, it can be difficult to keep all brand assets current and fresh. Logos, slogans, packaging, and other visual elements may need to be updated to reflect a new positioning or expanded market presence. This requires careful planning and coordination, which is often neglected during periods of rapid growth.

Outdated or inconsistent brand assets damage the brand image and undermine customer confidence. Corporate design must remain consistent as the company grows.

The mammoth task of rebranding

The effort required in rebranding is often poorly planned for several reasons:

• Rebranding projects are often more extensive and resource-intensive than originally anticipated. Many companies underestimate the amount of work required to align all brand assets, train employees, and communicate with internal and external stakeholders.
• Successful rebranding requires clear strategic direction and a compelling vision. What’s often missing is a comprehensive strategy that defines why a rebrand is necessary and how it supports business objectives.
• Rebranding often takes a top-down approach. However, if rebranding is decided and implemented solely by management without employee feedback and involvement, there may be a lack of buy-in and support.
• Rebrandings don’t happen every day. As a result, employees often lack the necessary know-how to make a rebranding successful and efficient. It may be advisable to bring in external branding experts.
• Rebranding is often an expensive process. Companies that underestimate the budget or are forced to make cuts during the process may compromise the quality and effectiveness of the rebrand.

The basic problem is that external conditions change quickly, but the underlying structures don’t grow at the same pace. This problem is particularly prevalent in trend products, where growth can suddenly nosedive (boom and bust).

Employees and design managers are the ones who suffer

When a business grows too fast and brand management fails to keep pace, it creates a number of challenges for employees and design leaders alike.

1. Use of outdated and inconsistent brand assets

Employee challenges: Employees may unknowingly use outdated logos, slogans, or other brand materials, resulting in an inconsistent brand presence. When different versions of the same content exist, employees may be confused about which material is current and should be used. They may feel responsible for figuring out which version is correct, which takes time they should spend on other things. If there isn’t enough time, the first version found may simply be used.

Challenges for design managers: Design managers must ensure that all brand assets are up-to-date and easily accessible. In a fast-growing company, this is especially difficult because new materials are constantly needed and distribution of those assets is often chaotic.

2. Lack of brand coherence

Employee challenges: When the brand is no longer consistently represented, it can be difficult for employees to convey the brand’s core messages in their communications and work. That leads to confusion and undermines trust in the brand.

Challenges for design managers: The task of ensuring a consistent brand message is becoming increasingly complex. Design managers need to spend more time and energy ensuring that all materials are consistent and adhere to brand guidelines.

3. Excessive demands and increased workload

Employee challenges: During periods of rapid growth, employees often have to take on additional responsibilities to keep up with the expansion. That leads to overload, especially if there are no clear guidelines and up-to-date resources to facilitate the work. In the long run, that leads to frustration and disengagement.

Challenges for design managers: Design and branding teams are under a lot of pressure to create new materials quickly while ensuring that everything meets brand standards. That can cause quality and consistency problems.

4. Communication issues and lack of training

Employee challenges: Employees may not be adequately informed or trained on new brand guidelines and assets and how to apply them. Without regular updates and training, they risk relying on outdated information and creating non-compliant content.

Challenges for design managers: It’s difficult keeping everyone up-to-date and ensuring that they understand and can implement the new brand guidelines. It requires close collaboration with other departments and well-organized internal communications.

5. Technological barriers

Employee challenges: Employees may have difficulty accessing and applying the latest brand materials, especially if the company doesn’t provide a centralized, easy-to-use platform for managing those materials, such as a digital asset management system (DAM) or tools for applying materials and guidelines.

Challenges for design managers: Design managers often have to work with outdated or inefficient systems that weren’t designed to meet the needs of a fast-growing company. As a result, many steps, such as distributing slides and templates, must be done manually or in a roundabout way.

How to make it easier for everyone

As the company grows, action must be taken as quickly as possible to avoid the problems mentioned above. It’s not uncommon for M&A projects to fail due to a lack of or poorly thought out rebranding process. Ideally, the growth of the company should be strategically planned, but often this isn’t possible as it’s a very complex process.

Here are some approaches to help you avoid brand decline and improve brand evolution.

1. Implementing a digital asset management (DAM) system

A DAM system enables centralized storage and management of all brand assets, such as logos, slogans, templates, and marketing materials. A DAM ensures that employees always have access to the latest versions. DAM systems can automatically synchronize updates and archive outdated assets. They prevent the use of outdated materials and ensure consistent brand communication.

In addition to digital asset management systems, implementing other specialized software solutions can be critical to maintaining brand integrity and effectively addressing challenges. When selecting software, ensure that it integrates seamlessly with your organization’s existing software solutions.

2. Clear brand guidelines and regular training

A comprehensive brand manual should be created and regularly updated. It should include detailed instructions on how to use the logo, color palette, typography, tonality, and other branding elements. Employees should receive regular training to help them understand and implement the brand guidelines in their daily work. Training should include new developments and updates.

3. Effective internal communication

It’s important to establish transparent and regular communication channels that keep all employees informed of changes or updates to the brand. An open feedback culture also helps identify and address issues early. Employees should be encouraged to ask questions and clarify any confusion about the brand.

4. Strengthen design and marketing teams

With rapid growth, the design and marketing teams should be expanded and equipped with the right tools to handle the increased workload. It’s important to hire enough qualified staff to support brand management. During periods of particularly rapid growth, it may also be wise to bring in external branding agencies or consultants to ensure professional and consistent brand development.

5. Develop a long-term brand strategy

A long-term brand strategy that takes into account the company’s growth can avoid many problems from the start. Brand strategy should be regularly reviewed and adapted to changing market conditions and business objectives. Even when expanding into new markets or launching new products, the core identity of the brand must be maintained. This requires a careful balance between evolution and consistency.

Brand-compliant documents with empower^® Brand Control - even as the company grows

An often neglected aspect of brand development and change is business documents. Every day, your company creates and sends out hundreds of documents, from emails to presentations to Excel spreadsheets. Wouldn’t it be annoying to spend a lot of time and money building and communicating your brand and then leave it to chance whether your brand is represented correctly in Microsoft Office documents?

This is where empower^® Brand Control comes in. Our software gives you direct access to all brand assets in Microsoft 365, so your employees always use the latest version of each asset when creating documents. You can also easily integrate your brand guidelines with Microsoft 365. So nothing can go wrong!

Have more questions? Feel free to contact us!