Why businesses need to think beyond the logo and tagline

By: Steve Cuno

Re-brands are fashionable these days.

No, that’s not quite correct. What’s fashionable is reworking the logo and tagline and calling the result a re-brand.

When will marketers learn?

Your brand isn’t what you say. It’s what your products and behavior show. If you want to re-brand, strengthen your values and make sure you deliver on them at every point of contact.

Consider a certain major hamburger chain. Over the years, their logo has been updated. Their tagline has morphed, morphed and morphed again. Their menu has broadened. But the chain has not referred to such changes as re-brands. Good thing, for their fundamental brand values remain unchanged: fast, inexpensive, sufficiently palatable precooked food under a heat lamp, a clean kitchen and a place you can take the kids.

Ironically, a major retailer that really is attempting a re-brand isn’t calling it that. The once-thriving department store hopes for a comeback as the young consumer’s place for affordable fashion. Rather than insult the market with token changes like an updated logo and a new tagline that says, “We’re not your penny-pinching bagperson’s store any more,” this retailer has made substantive inventory changes, replacing its once-dowdy offering with fashions associated with highbrow, with-it stores. Whether young consumers respond remains to be seen, but the marketer deserves credit for making real, not just cosmetic, change and for allowing the advertising to follow. That’s how you do a real re-brand.

In the direct mail business, we’ve known about branding all along. It’s just that we give it other names. Clearly defined target markets, compelling benefits, irresistible offers, a generous return policy and courteous customer service are brand values. When those values are solidly in place, a direct mail package can (and often does) look like hell and still sell like crazy.

Not to say that the look is unimportant. A well-designed logo with consistent graphic standards can help customers instantly recognize a company whose products and policies they trust. A pleasing, accessible layout can help customers easily navigate their way to salient information. But these are the trappings of a brand, not the brand itself. No logo or tagline can save a company without the substance to back them.

Steve Cuno is the chairman of RESPONSE Prospecting & Loyalty Strategies, Inc. in Utah.