"So why are we re-branding?"

By Julian Davies, Earl Kendrick.

Why would a company that’s growing year-on-year spend time and money at this busy time to revamp its brand?

Isn’t brand just a gimmick? Something that design companies drag out to make a profit?

More specifically, in our line of work, why does brand matter to Chartered Surveyors?

The answer is to be found in that single word. Brand. It’s a much misused term. One that originally referred to the number burned into cattle to demonstrate ownership. And one that has been associated with a ‘mark’ or ‘logo’ eve

r since.

That’s where the misunderstanding comes in. Because a logo on its own does not make a brand. A corporate brand is a personality. It’s about a business’ essence. About the experience inside and outside the company, whether one experiences it on the phone, via email, in a meeting, or in a report that arrives afterwards.

In the retail sector people take this for granted. Coca Cola is all about youth, energy and joy. And every can is designed to encapsulate those values, as is every advertisement. Take Nike. Competitive, aggressive, cutting edge. Again, the logo may be a swoosh, but it has come to represent all those things.

However, in the service industries, the benefit of a cohesive brand is often overlooked.

For a Chartered Surveyor, brand is crucial. Every surveyor can tick certain boxes: education; technical qualifications; comprehensive understanding of how buildings work. These technical aspects of being a Chartered Surveyor are vital, but they don’t set any qualified professional apart from the field.

Great firms of surveyors put people first. They understand the implications of works on landlords, tenants and agents. They are diplomatic, thoughtful and empathetic.

And when I recently looked at our logo – something designed when I originally set-up the business in an attempt to look ‘corporate’! – I realised that it didn’t reflect those values at all.

I realised at that moment that a great brand in our profession is about relationships. It’s about complementing technical skills with a human touch. It’s about clients feeling the same emotions when they speak to or meet someone from the firm, but also when they come across their website or see their logo at a conference. It needs to be a seamless experience with the brand being reinforced every step along the way.

So that’s why we’ve rebranded. To try to create a look and feel that reflects who we are rather than what we do. In London and in Brighton. And in the process of designing our website, it has also enabled us to set out our full range of services for residential and commercial clients in the clearest way possible. There is clarity around our service offering with clients able to ask us for holistic advice, or to pick from a menu of products and contact an individual responsible for each.

It’s been hard work at a difficult time, but I am convinced that brand matters. Not just to us, but to every firm of Chartered surveyors who want their clients and contacts to understand what they stand for, and what to expect from them.