What is equity, anyway? In terms of branding, “equity” refers to the elements of your company’s public face that are most identifiable as “you”. Your logos, your colors; your own personal style. Even the specific language you use can help develop the public’s perception of your business and help you to build your presence. What Mickey is to Disney and “like” buttons are to Facebook, your equity is how customers perceive you and recognize you in a crowd of other services they could be using instead.
If you already have strong equity, you have to take the utmost care not to jeopardize it. Maintaining brand equity is key to any successful business; if you’ve already managed to achieve a strong public image, you’re already halfway to any business goal you might set for yourself. If your customer already recognizes that little icon you use on your website as “you”, it is essential that you not change it in any substantial way.
Why? Because you then risk losing that faithful customer—not because your product is lacking or because your service is poor, but for the simple reason that they just don’t know who “you” are anymore. In other words, if you don’t have to re-invent the wheel, then don’t. Everyone already knows and loves the wheel, and making it a square or turning it blue can only be detrimental to your bottom line.
Here’s an example on maintaining brand equity to illustrate the point.
We recently discussed maintaining brand equity with a new client of ours. As we toured their facility, we noticed that they had a little icon engraved on every single piece of equipment that left their shop. They told us that whenever their customers saw this “symbol”, they knew right away they were dealing with a top-quality product. The brand recognition was already there; this symbol was an important part of their brand equity. Our client worked hard over the years to cultivate their expertise and were now recognized as masters of their industry, and this seemingly innocuous piece of branding was a form of shorthand in spreading that message to the world.
As we worked on their re-design, they told us they were contemplating updating their symbol, and wanted to know what we thought. They were hoping to reach out to a more modern user base that might not have heard of them before, by re-branding themselves for the modern day.
In theory, trying to reach a wider user base is always a sound business practice; after all, you can’t have growth without, well, growing. But you have to be careful not to cast aside the loyal customers who already know and love you in favor of reaching someone new. You want to expand, not start over. Build upon what you’ve already achieved, not begin again from scratch.
We told our client this, and suggested that we work together to modernize their symbol. Maintain the elements that make it uniquely identifiable, but maybe square off some of the edges and add a few flourishes. We wanted to maintain brand equity so that the symbol is still recognizable as coming from our client, but also clearly identifiable as something cutting-edge, fresh, and contemporary.
As it turns out, that’s all they needed! After rolling out their updated—but not entirely new—symbol, they’ve been able to enhance their image without tearing it down, and that’s exactly what they were hoping to do.
Does your brand have brand equity?