Is it Time to Shake Up Your Business Brand?

News flashes recently highlighted shake ups in a couple popular brands. If you crave pancakes at lunch, you might have noticed McDonald’s offers their breakfast menu all day after thousands of consumers demanded it on social media and after McDonald’s sales had declined significantly. If Starbucks is your coffee of choice, you couldn’t miss the controversy over their new holiday red cups without traditional festive symbols on them which caused an uproar on social media about the corporation being overly correct and “aiming to destroy Christmas.”

Isn’t it true an essential part of business to not only establishing a strong brand but also tweaking it once in awhile to stay relevant? The brand we created a year or sometimes ten years ago might not be the same one our customers sense today or the marketplace demands now.

The lessons from the McDonald s and Starbucks changes indicate that sometimes customers will love the changes you make while others might revolt. Ultimately any modifications to your brand, services or products must be carefully planned from many perspectives including financial, marketing, publicity and customer relations. If you want to shake up your brand with large or subtle changes make sure you understand the positive and negative implications that could occur.

In McDonald’s case they were trying to answer declining sales and their decision to add an all breakfast menu has worked. The company has grown 4 percent since making the breakfast change. Starbucks ultimately decided to stick with their plain red cups and in the meantime, without spending one dime on extra marketing, became the conversation of nearly every American. The truth is “Any PR is Good PR” for a company.

Today’s post is meant to inspire you to consider ways to shake up your brand name, services or products based on your own desires, consumer demands or marketplace ideas. As you begin to plan for the New Year, consider making changes and putting a timeline together to implement them well. If you aren’t already hearing from your customers on desired changes, create a survey and ask them. You can also conduct a brain storming session with your employees or close associates for ideas. If you create new concepts make sure to update your business and marketing plans to roll it out successfully.