Is it worth doing a brand refresh this year? Is a brand refresh the same as a rebrand? How do you plan a brand refresh? We’ve got all the answers.

Over the past few months, many popular brands introduced new improvements to their brand identities. Some were subtle and some were long overdue. And it played a big role in maintaining and boosting the stock prices of those big brands.

Every business should consider doing a brand refresh from time to time. It’s not about making news, stock prices, or even making changes for the sake of it, it’s all about staying relevant in a rapidly evolving market.

Today, we will explore this topic further and discover what a brand refresh is all about. And we’ll also cover a brand refresh checklist to help plan and execute your refresh.

Why Do a Brand Refresh?

For most brands, a brand refresh is part of its business strategy. Much like updating the pricing, packaging, or product lineup, they revise the brand from time to time to make necessary changes to stay up-to-date with current trends, as well as to grow with the market.

While making any change to a brand can be risky, it’s also necessary to maintain the brand’s authority and relevance. For example, Pepsi made a brand refresh in 2023, it’s their first refresh in 14 years and a long time coming.

The key is to maintain consistency with the brand refreshes and not wait until the business starts losing revenue to make the changes.

Brand Refresh vs. Rebrand

A brand refresh is not as complex as doing a rebranding. Refreshing a brand is about updating and improving the existing elements of the brand such as the brand identity, core message, and purpose to go along with the changing times and trends.

Rebranding is a much more elaborate process. It’s about shifting the brand’s focus and vision. It involves completely overhauling the brand identity, target market, and the overall brand strategy.

A brand refresh is something that should be done from time to time. A rebrand is for when you completely change your business and shift market positioning.

5 Great Brand Refresh Examples

The best way to understand what a brand refresh entails is to take a look at some of the real-world examples.

1. Pepsi

Pepsi’s brand refresh was one of the best ones we’ve seen in recent years. Pepsi is an iconic brand but it also badly needed a refresh to fit in with the current design trends and digital world. This brand refresh fits perfectly in the current market and audience perception.

2. Pringles

When Pringles came out with a brand refresh that changed its iconic mascot, most fans weren’t happy. However, the old branding did not look great on certain marketing materials. This new and minimal look is just what the brand needed to express itself better, especially on digital platforms.

3. 7-Eleven

7-Eleven refreshed the look and feel of its popular drink brand, Slurpee with a more colorful and vivid vibe. The main focus of this brand refresh was to attract the attention of the new generation.

4. Kraft

Kraft Singles made a much-needed brand refresh by upgrading its packaging design, not just on the outside but also on the inside. It fits perfectly with modern design trends and looks more vibrant as well.

5. Reddit

Reddit’s brand identity refresh was another great revamp we’ve seen recently. It gave a more 3D-like look to its avatar and refreshed the logos and brand elements to look more modern.

Brand Refresh Checklist

Creating a structured plan is the key to a successful brand refresh. Here are a few things you must have in your brand refresh checklist.

Step 1: Set Clear Goals

What do you want to achieve with a brand refresh? Start the process by asking this question. Then dig deeper to come up with specific goals that help your brand grow.

Take the 7-Eleven Slurpee brand refresh, for example. Their goal with the brand refresh was very specific. It was to reach a new, younger audience.

Step 2: Research Your Competition

Once you set clear goals for your brand refresh, look at your competition to see what they have done to reach those goals. Or, if you’re ahead of the competition, you could even come up with an angle to destroy the competition with your brand refresh.

Step 3: Find Inspiration From Current Trends

Keep a close eye on the current market and trends as well. Identify what the consumers are interested in these days vs what they used to like. Try to make projects to find trends that will last for a long time. Because most market trends come and go very quickly.

Step 4: Refreshing the Brand Identity

Refreshing the visual elements of your brand identity will make the biggest impact and attract attention. This is why some brands rush to do too many brand refreshes too soon, just to make the news and hype around the brand.

You can learn from those failed brand refreshes on what not to do. Instead, focus on enhancing the existing brand identity to make them better and more appropriate for modern times.

Step 5: Refreshing the Digital Presence

When doing a brand refresh, you should also make sure that the changes are suitable for both print and digital platforms. This includes considering the look of the website, social media presence, and even the SEO strategy.

Step 6: Putting It All To Test

Before going public with the brand refresh, test the market. Get a focus group, and do polls, and surveys to get an understanding of the public’s perception. Some brands would even involve the public in their brand refresh process.

Make sure to have all the right systems in place to analyze the metrics of your brand refresh.

Step 7: Plan a Successful Launch

Get your marketing team ready for the brand refresh launch. For your launch to go smoothly and make the biggest impact, start building hype weeks before the launch date. Create marketing materials and PR campaigns to go beyond just press release outlets and reach audiences across different platforms.

In Conclusion

Keep in mind that there’s much more involved in the process of doing a brand refresh. We only covered the basics and there are a lot more steps to creating a successful brand refresh.

Hopefully, our guide will help you understand what it means to do a brand refresh and if your brand needs one right now.

Also, it’s important to remember that brand refreshes are not just for big corporate brands. Even if you have a small local store, you could benefit from doing a brand refresh, especially to compete with the big brands.