The Evolution of a Brand – 10 years on and a great time to rebrand

I remember when I set up the business back in 2006, thinking about the enormity of the tasks ahead of me… as Heat Recruitments’ humble beginning started with the first Business Development call being made from a bijou back bedroom, and when I say bijou I really mean small, tiny, in fact it was lucky that I set up on my own as there was no room for another person at that time.

 At the beginning I remember how daunting a time setting up the business was and with a multitude of things to do.  Knowing that, none of these tasks such as marketing, merchandise, and building a website could take place without one fundamental element - a company name, a Logo which would form the Brand for the new Recruitment Company “Heat Recruitment”.   I could go on to tell you about how I arrived at the name Heat, but that’s another story!  What is important is that a brand and logo is so important in any phase of a business’ life – starting out or established.

 The question is, does a newly formed Company have a Brand? Well in my opinion Yes, but does it have Brand Equity, a Value? Sadly, this is something that takes time.

 Well 10 years on, I believe that Heat does!  So now the question has to be why change it or why update it? If it isn’t broke, why fix it?

 As with many start up’s, I didn’t feel I had the budget to go and consult a professional marketing company on logo designs.  I was an entrepreneur with a vision who wanted to get on and start building my business, so how much difference would a logo make? I would class myself as pretty resourceful so I called in a favour from a good buddy (who so happened to be a very good graphic designer), and he helped me to create a logo that would go on to be the face of Heat Recruitment for nearly a decade.

Having grown the business quite considerably since 2006, it’s difficult to not in some way be attached to one of the very few things that hasn’t changed.  But if there’s a lesson to be learnt in business, and recruitment in particular, it’s that sentimentality has little value. Whilst I am fond of the old logo design, it was starting to feel like on old horse coming to the end of its days which is far from what Heat represents.  What I needed was a ‘Stallion’ brand that would help to carry us, on the next leg of the journey.

 The burning question now was, could we do this ourselves? It would cost less, and how difficult could it be!? (I now realise ‘very difficult’) Then we put our common sense heads on and a voice in the room mentioned ‘What about a Marketing Agency?’,   ‘Are you insane?’ was the reply ‘We don’t have money to burn!’ and after a discussion that can only be assimilated to a jury trying to reach a majority vote on a high court case, we finally agreed to use a Marketing Agency and go out to tender.

 The tendering process was a wise move, as this allowed us to see the whites of people’s eyes, really get to understand them and more importantly see if they understand us.  In the end we settled on a local Bristol based business called Fanatic Design, who took time to visit, socialise with us, and understand our people and get to know what we are about. Following some long days of staff members being locked away in consultation rooms, we had the 1st phase completed, a rough guide for the Fanatic Team to utilise in their initial creation of the new look rebrand.

I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t nervous, as we had given our trusted logo to this Marketing Agency to update and change the look, to represent those in the business and what it means today! Their brief – to create a brand that our clients, candidates and our consultants could all resonate with.

 We felt the need to update and change the look to represent those in the business and what it means today!

 Now some key points to make, is that following the tendering process and using local agencies we found it wasn’t as expensive a task as we had originally estimated, although I soon realised there was a lot more to it than I first thought - merchandise, letterheads, business cards etc. There’s a real need for consistency.  You do also need to set time aside for meetings to ensure everything’s going to plan, after all we had to get this right.  The time allocated to meetings is, completely outweighed by having the rebrand exercise outsourced, as this allowed our most senior people to get on with their day jobs and ensure we continue to grow the business. 

 A real positive to the whole experience is that all our existing people have been involved in the process, which has really added to the excitement surrounding the rebrand.  Our journey could be described as a bit like starting out on a unicycle ride and now, over time we need a bus to carry everyone!  We felt the need to update and change the look to represent those in the business and what it means today!  Adapt for today’s journey.

 Anyway, I could go on and on but, the end result has been that we have evolved the original brand and logo via the rebranding into a new modern look, with the benefits of learning to understand who we are and, what we are trying to communicate to our customers.  The result has been an overall succinct and clear message of where we were, where we are now, and where we are going, with all on board.

A new clothing style, a fresh haircut, summer / winter look we all rebrand in our own lives without even knowing it at times!  So why not for our business?

 I also learnt a valuable lesson, a rebrand doesn’t mean that you have become a different person, not at all, our values are still the same.  What’s changed is our ability to communicate who we really are to our audience in a much clearer way.  Just as people get older, they are still the same, outlooks may alter, knowledge develops, styles come and go, and ultimately the story continues.