The Power of Re-Branding

A couple of months ago, I wrote an article introducing my thoughts and discoveries from working and volunteering in the nonprofit sector. I now decided to reach out to several marketing experts in the field and ask them their opinion on the importance of re-branding nonprofits. Here's what they shared:

Daniela García-Rovira - AmeriCorps VISTA Social Media Strategist

"As a professional in a non-profit organization, I understand re-branding is something that can bring new opportunities and help non-profits create new relationships and deepen existing ones. It is a necessary step that should be taken in order to keep content relevant and up to date. Re-branding can inspire people to donate, volunteer and change their attitude toward the organization. It has to be done carefully and skillfully in order to assure it will prove to be successful. Re-branding needs to be done for a reason and it needs to cause a reaction and it is very important to always stay true and authentic to the core of what your charity stands for."

Carla Rivera - Modern Marketer with a passion for digital marketing and a focus on social media

"Nonprofits usually strive to make an impact and re-branding can help. Aligning your brand and adjusting it to be more inclusive for your target audience, can allow for clearer communications, stronger relationships with your community, and even more revenue."

Wendy Guess, PhD - Marketing Educator and Consultant focusing on Fitness/Wellness, Change Mgt, Speaker, Author

"In the day to day running of your organization, more often than not, the organization is running you. Taking a step back with your key staff to re-envision your vision and your goals with fresh eyes. Spending time to look at what you “think” you do versus what outsiders “think” you do is a crucial step to redefine the unique services that you provide for your community as well as generate a renewed direction for your branding efforts. This supports a more unified staff and message."

Lin Humphrey, Ph.D. - Assistant Professor of Marketing at Florida International University - Academic of the Year 2011 by the Mobile Marketing Association

“Re-branding is way more than a new logo or tagline--it involves creating new mental associations and perceptions to replace those that may have been long held by consumers. It requires much planning and research to develop a platform that is both relevant to the industry or firm and is powerfully and persuasive to the firm. This undertaking is not done in a week, month, or even years, but requires constant conscious reinforcement of the values that are signified by the brand”.  

Eirasmin Lokpez-Cobo - Brand Strategist with fifteen years of experience building brand equity and managing programs for Fortune 500 brands and non-profit organizations in the U.S. and Latin America.  

"Non-profit marketing should be purposeful marketing that emotionally connects and inspires. Having a clear mission and a structured purpose provides a solid foundation for effective storytelling. As a non-profit founder, I have seen how many organizations have failed to gain traction among potential benefactors by crowding their communications and lacking clear messaging on the bottom-line impact of their efforts. Engaging benefactors by positioning their support as long-term investments in their local and/or global communities is a smart strategy for long-term relationship building and organizational sustainability."

Danielle Carolina Zavala, MS - Brand Builder | Creative + Strategic Thinker | Content Creator | Social Media Strategist

"Companies evolve and “refresh” often, and so, why wouldn’t a not-for-profit? Re-branding is essential for any brand, whether they are for profit or not. More so, it is important for not-for-profits to re-brand and refresh their brands as needed as it helps them keep relevant with the times and allows them some additional exposure. Every brand, whether for profit or not, should consider a small refresh every few years, if not for anything that to gather some buzz."

Nathalie Batista Amat - An accomplished Marketing Manager with strong leadership abilities and extensive experience

"It is important for nonprofits to re-brand themselves in order to stay top-of-mind for consumers. As someone who works for a nonprofit, I can attest to the challenges we face every day while working to have the public care about our cause. Through re-branding, we've been able to stay relevant and create a deeper, more emotional connection to the world."

Anthony Miyazaki - Brand Strategist, Marketing Analyst, and host of YouTube's "Marketing Minute"

"These days, nonprofits face more competition than ever for donations, volunteers, and share of mind. Although many of these organizations have brands that have endured across generations, the plethora of new nonprofits has diluted the power that even well-established brands have previously enjoyed. To reinvigorate these brands, some type of re-branding may be needed, whether it’s something along the lines of clarifying the brand identity, or changes to visual representations (such as logos), or as extreme as changing the name of the organization. Markets evolve. Competition evolves. It makes sense that your brand will need to evolve as well, and re-branding may be part of that evolution."

Conclusion

The American Marketing Association defines re-branding as "the deliberate and systematic process of creating an inspired forward-facing organization; an organization that is ready to grasp future opportunities. And the way to do this is through the alignment and dynamic portrayal of your unique differentiators to customers, to really elevate and highlight those key differences. Think of re-branding as being a strategic growth-accelerator. It needs to empower future growth, expansion in the new markets and it needs to have future economic benefits".

Re-branding gives us the opportunity to rediscover our purpose, to reinvent ourselves. It allows us to learn from our history and dive into the future with a new, improved version of ourselves. It focuses on opportunities and on growth. Synonyms of the word re-brand include reborn, reshape, revitalize, renew, renovate, transform, upgrade, refresh, rebuild, modernize, recreate, etc.

Our brand is our promise to our customer, but it lives in our audience's minds and hearts. It involves our reason for existence, our mission, our vision, our core values, our image, our work culture, our identity, what makes us unique, our benefits and features, our positioning, our reputation and so much more. Strong brands create an emotional connection with their customers and generate loyalty, and what could be more important when we're working towards a social cause?

Customer loyalty is built on trust. And when people donate and/or volunteer for a cause, they’re usually pouring their heart and soul in doing so. They expect to see results and they build a more personal relationship with the brand. Because they’re not buying shoes or having their nails done; they’re trying to help someone else or the world. They’re investing in the future. And many emotions arise in doing so. It is therefore vital that we understand this and work towards delivering a consistent, meaningful brand. 

People view nonprofits as tiny organizations that try to solve the most challenging issues with the scarcest resources. They associate us with a few donors and volunteers that sacrifice their whole lives in exchange for a bigger cause. But that is not what nonprofits are, nor what we aspire to be. Nonprofits are “dedicated to furthering a particular social cause or advocating for a shared point of view”. They were created by all of us to face those social problems that are so massive in scale that we all need to invest in solving.

It’s time to upgrade the nonprofit sector as a whole and remind ourselves of who we are and why we’re here. Only then will we be able to achieve true impact and generate real change.