The world has changed so much over the last few years. Businesses have needed to pivot to stay alive – online sales and digital marketing are on the rise, new players have entered the market, and it’s getting harder and harder to stay relevant and stand out.

If your products, services, audience or values have changed, it’s important your brand storytelling and design system is updated to reflect your current offering and positioning. If not, you could be missing out on potential new customers and business.

We need to take a human-centred approach and ask ourselves:

Does your product meet a customer’s need?

Kind of fundamental stuff here, but how does your product solve a customer problem? It’s important to articulate this value exchange in a brand promise or unique value proposition. They both focus on the one or two key points of difference between your brand and your competitors’. Typically, these points of difference are brand benefits – benefits that are relevant, unique, compelling and believable for your brand.

Do people know what you stand for?

88% of customers want you to help make the world a better place (Forbes). After all, consumerism and the constant demand for growth did get us in this mess in the first place.

Brand purpose is the reason for the brand to exist beyond making money and should relate directly to your products or services. We need to dig deep to find out what your brand values and purpose are. The best branding is an expression of these, through personality, tone and design, in the hope you’ll attract and align with like-minded consumers. Like Te Rā (the sun), a Māori solar company using a circular system to divert excess energy to local communities and whanau in need. It’s clear to all stakeholders that Te Rā stands for energy equality and helps accelerate Māori growth.

Are you making a positive difference to people or planet?

Your customers might be asking more of you as a conscious brand, and there is a high risk of you losing them to a brand more ethical or sustainable than yours. But it’s not just ‘paying for pollution’, aka carbon credits, that will solve our environmental or social problems. We need to think local and circular.

As an example, you could deal direct with local suppliers, ensuring you support the local economy and reduce food miles. You could find sustainable materials and products, or better still, remove parts and packaging altogether. You could use circular thinking to reuse by-products, or find a community group that would appreciate leftovers that you don’t use. You could hire people for their values, not their title. You could give your staff a mental health day once a month. Whatever you do, it should link back to your values and purpose and help your customers feel (and do) good every time they do business with you.

Are you distinctive and memorable?

Are your brand assets optimised for the digital world, or is your brand design still living in 2004? Do you stand out, or are you getting lost in a sea of competitors? Does your design look professional, or do you come across as untrustworthy?

In our new and evolving industries, we need to wake people up to your products or services, or risk failure. So it’s important your design is distinctive – something that disrupts the sector and stands apart from your competitors, becoming memorable and increasing your chances of purchase consideration.

Brand tension is a great way to achieve disruption. Two things alike are boring – not so two things from polar opposites. Brands like the washing soap Dirt disrupt with a contrasting name. Apple’s Think Different and Nike’s Just Do It – challenge the status quo and make you stop and think.

Great brand design helps you stand out in market, attracts your ideal audience, shows you have pride in your offering, and gives you the confidence to go and sell it.

At Matter*, we can help brand or rebrand your business with purpose and values, bringing your people into the journey to represent a true reflection of what you stand for.

It’s about creating a brand people need and want in their lives. A modern brand, for a modern world.