Dive into the core and leave a trace — The brand renewal

How often do you get the pos­si­bil­i­ty to par­tic­i­pate in such a com­pre­hen­sive change?

We want­ed to cre­ate a fresh look and feel for our 20-year-old com­pa­ny. This jour­ney taught me immense­ly and I am gen­uine­ly proud to be a part of the new com­pa­ny iden­ti­ty, Islet-fam­i­ly. It is any­thing but sim­ple to change the name and renew a brand’s visu­al image. It calls for time, atten­tion and deep dive think­ing of who we are and how we want to be seen in the future. We have always been a pio­neer­ing guid­ing light for ver­sa­tile think­ing and work­ing in the world of tech­nol­o­gy. The era of this new ener­gy can be seen around us.

Brand­ing is nowa­days one of the most effec­tive tools and it can even change the mar­ket. Per­son­al­i­ty, unique­ness, trust­wor­thi­ness and loy­al­ty are the most impor­tant cor­ner­stones of suc­cess­ful brand. The most suc­cess­ful brands are nev­er the vic­tims of iden­ti­ty cri­sis. They know who they are and their respon­si­bil­i­ty for the peo­ple they serve. New inno­va­tions are con­stant­ly led with­out for­get­ting the gen­uine­ness as the focus is what mat­ters the most to the customers.

How are we able to devel­op and cre­ate an irre­sistible cus­tomer expe­ri­ence, which reflects our brand vision and val­ues and at the same time meets cus­tomer demands? The answer is not black and white. Brands that can give and cre­ate the desired expe­ri­ence at every touch­point to the out­side world, can dis­tin­guish them­selves and suc­cess­ful­ly fol­low the cho­sen path towards the new era. Islet’s lead­ing con­cept is that our ground remains sol­id as a rock although we devel­op and grow. We remem­ber where we have come from but at the same time we look to the hori­zon of the future.

Brand renew­al does not mere­ly mean a process where a new brand is launched, most of all it defines how cus­tomers val­ue your com­pa­ny. Brand iden­ti­ty is a way how you define your com­pa­ny to your­self, pub­lic and employ­ees. Brand express­es the core of your exis­tence, com­po­nents your com­pa­ny have built on and and what you val­ue. It is your cul­ture, way of work­ing, tagline, main mes­sage, sig­nal, essence, feel­ing at the office, the way your team works with the cus­tomers and a lot more…

Why brand is so impor­tant? I say when the feel­ing is rec­og­niz­able and pow­er­ful, the strong brand iden­ti­ty will help you to acquire cus­tomers, moti­vate employ­ees and cre­ate credibility.

The fact is that well brand­ed com­pa­nies stand out!

Cus­tomers are con­stant­ly bom­bard­ed with mar­ket­ing. It is use­ful only when they will emo­tion­al­ly com­mit to the mes­sage they notice.

What kind of com­pa­nies achieve this kind of con­nec­tion? The com­pa­nies which have a strong opin­ion of what they are and who is their audi­ence. The com­pa­nies whose ser­vices, solu­tions and prod­ucts clear­ly tell why they dif­fer­en­ti­ate bet­ter from their competitors.

To com­mit a new or cur­rent cus­tomer it requires the abil­i­ty to train, com­mu­ni­cate and inspire audi­ence with your brand – what it means and stands for.

Today’s cus­tomer expects more from a brand, not only a mes­sage deliv­ery but also how it is deliv­ered and what kind of a trace it leaves. There­fore, the con­tent mar­ket­ing is so impor­tant, and it must be inter­est­ing and exe­cut­ed with quality.

If you real­ly want to stand out and lead your own path to improve the cus­tomer expe­ri­ence, you must under­stand two basic prin­ci­ples: Fol­low care­ful­ly your cus­tomers’ behav­ior in a dig­i­tal world and com­pre­hend those emo­tion­al rela­tion­ships which cus­tomers will build with ser­vices, solu­tions and prod­ucts in the phys­i­cal world. Nowa­days cus­tomers expect every orga­ni­za­tion they inter­act with knows and rec­og­nizes them. They have giv­en you access to their data through every chan­nel they inter­act with, so it should be used, ana­lyzed and under­stood. Seam­less cus­tomer expe­ri­ences must be based on com­bin­ing know-how and vision to cus­tomers’ real life. This allows you to dri­ve a real change in your company’s attempt to reach cus­tomers the way you wanted.

Every employ­ee in orga­ni­za­tion must under­stand the vision and mean­ing. It must be ensured all employ­ees with­in your busi­ness under­stand how they must adapt their actions to your brand. Before you man­age cus­tomer expe­ri­ences pos­i­tive­ly and long-term act first with­in your orga­ni­za­tion. In oth­er words, do not run before you learn to walk.

Peo­ple like sur­pris­es and want to have dif­fer­ent expe­ri­ences. Do not be too pre­dictable. Mix cards and stretch your think­ing. Nev­er take the audi­ence for granted.

Remem­ber that cus­tomers re-eval­u­ate their needs more often than one should think. Instead of being reac­tive to your cus­tomer needs, try to be proac­tive and help them to renew them­selves. Man­age and lead active­ly your strat­e­gy to com­mit cus­tomers or some­one else will do it better.

What are the things that draw atten­tion? Being trendy, inspir­ing, pur­pose­ful, pro­fes­sion­al, inno­v­a­tive and col­lab­o­ra­tive brand – these things make peo­ple to stop, lis­ten and pay atten­tion. Cus­tomers want to rec­og­nize the brand they can grow with, earn the trust and make them feel valu­able. Peo­ple want to be linked with brand­ed prod­ucts, ser­vices and solu­tions help­ing them to bring pur­pose to their busi­ness­es or lives. Brand must be like customer’s best friend.

Trust

Pro­fes­sion­al­ism plays an impor­tant role when cre­at­ing the cred­i­bil­i­ty. Cus­tomers con­sid­er twice to start a busi­ness rela­tion­ship with a com­pa­ny if its mes­sage is not con­sis­tent and clear. As men­tioned ear­li­er the emo­tions relat­ed to a brand’s name, look and expe­ri­ence are in our brains and these reac­tions have a strong impact on cus­tomers’ decisions.

Loy­al­ty

Cus­tomers are loy­al to a brand which shares their val­ues. When you devel­op your brand com­mu­ni­ca­tion it is vital to com­mu­ni­cate with com­pa­ny val­ues to build emo­tion­al con­nec­tion to the tar­get mar­ket. The trust towards a brand can last a life­time and often pass­es to the future generations.

When an employ­ee works in a com­pa­ny which has a good rep­u­ta­tion they feel to con­nect deeply with busi­ness duties and val­ues, are proud of what they do and where they belong to.

Her­itage

It is dif­fi­cult to aban­don a trade­mark as you could describe a brand lead­ing. When you devel­op your brand, what is the lega­cy you want to leave behind. How your brand can be rec­og­nized? The brand lega­cy starts from its ori­gin, its core idea. The cen­tral idea or thought that cov­ers all sides of a brand.

In my opin­ion brands that “share the crop” of their suc­cess – are the ones that reach their audi­ence the best. “Give Back” needs to be a cen­tral part of every brand’s DNA. Unfor­tu­nate­ly, many brands for­get to give back to those who sup­port the growth. A suc­cess­ful brand is not mere­ly made of win­ning mar­ket share and prof­itabil­i­ty, it is also shar­ing suc­cess with others.

Your rev­enue may be a thou­sand, mil­lion or bil­lion, but be respect­ful and thank­ful to those peo­ple and com­mu­ni­ties your brand is aimed for. Take time to inter­act in a way that stands out and leaves a mark. There are sev­er­al options. Offer spon­sor­ing if you are gen­uine­ly inter­est­ed to sup­port, be con­sis­tent with community’s goals and par­tic­i­pate active­ly in char­i­ty events and events sup­port­ing the social rela­tions and sense of com­mu­ni­ty. Build your own social respon­si­bil­i­ty strate­gies. If you have lim­it­ed resources or just want to keep it sim­ple, you can also show it by small ges­tures. Every­thing counts.

Brands have nowa­days a sig­nif­i­cant respon­si­bil­i­ty in soci­ety, to touch the need of the world and help mak­ing it a bet­ter place. Islet is a fam­i­ly-owned, inter­na­tion­al­ly oper­at­ing com­pa­ny and we strive for the bet­ter world with the help of lat­est tech­nol­o­gy and by being near our cus­tomers. These are not just beau­ti­ful words – our val­ues are actions.

Con­tact:

Piia Hoff­sten, COO

piia.​hoffsten@​isletgroup.​fi

+358 40 587 7303

#BPSnytISLET #islet­group #teamis­let #red­bean­iesquad #brand­ing #bran­drenew­al