When was the last time your firm updated its brand? If you can’t remember, it could be time to take a fresh look at it. Here are ten signs it’s time for a brand upgrade.

1. Your logo is unreadable on a smart phone. Many logos, especially those for financial or professional services firms, were designed decades ago when they were etched into brass or marble or engraved on fine paper. The scale and complexity that made those logos so powerful and impactful at the time make them so indecipherable when people experience them on an app on a small screen. A good branding agency and experienced designer will be able to maintain the spirit of an historic logo while bringing it into the modern digital age.
2. One of your corporate accent colors is mauve. If your firm hasn’t rethought its color palette in decades, your clients aren’t viewing your brand in its best light. High definition screens on televisions, computers, tablets and smart phones have changed how people perceive color. Effective brand colors are brighter and bolder today and work in all media, especially digital, where the vast majority of prospects and clients experience them.
3. Your fonts don’t work on most digital devices. If your firm uses fonts that don’t register on all computers, tablets and smart phones and across all executions, your prospects and clients aren’t seeing them as you intend. It’s worth taking a fresh look at the fonts that deliver your messages to ensure they’re clear and readable in all circumstances.
4. Your brand was built for mass media, not mini media. Many older brands were built for big media such as television or print advertising. The reality is that today, the masses experience your brand on mini-media. Think about it, millions more people likely connect with it on social media rather than traditional channels. That’s why today’s savvy marketers build brands from the bottom, up.
5. Chat and text and scripts and posts or long-form content? If your brand guidelines offer information on how to write brochures and web content, but provide no guidance on how to write for online chat, text messages, phone scripts or social media posts, your writers are probably at a loss as to how to interpret your brand in these channels. It’s just as important to provide guidance on tone and messaging for short-form content as long-form.
6. Your sales messages don’t sell anymore. If your sales presentations and support materials no longer resonate, it could be because you haven’t reviewed, refreshed and retested them recently. The financial and professional services industries are changing at a fast pace. It’s important to constantly test new ones and implement the winners. It will keep your firm ahead of the competition. While you’re at it, rethink how you deliver these messages. Smartphone presentations support as many business meetings today as big-screen Powerpoints.
7. You’re missing out on the Millennials. Is your brand and messaging focused on Boomers? If it is, its probably not resonating with the emerging Millennial generation. Their attitudes toward money, investing and finance are different from those of their parents or grandparents. If you do things right, updating your firm’s messaging for a new generation doesn’t mean you have to leave old clients behind.
8. Your brand talks to your clients, not with them. Today’s prospects expect to engage in a dialogue with the firms they do business with. If your business is still broadcasting what it has to say, it could be time to shift the tone into a conversation. Updated brand messaging will help facilitate this move.
9. Your brand lives in the outside world, but not in your workplace. If your brand does not integrate external executions with internal ones, your clients aren’t really experiencing it. A good brand is brought to life by the people who work for a firm. If your employees haven’t embraced your brand, prospects and clients won’t either. 
10. Brand? What brand? If your marketing team and other employees don’t understand your brand, it’s probably because they haven’t been trained on it. A new or updated brand will only be successful if employees are educated about it. A sound brand roll-out always includes a solid educational component.

Is your brand a little behind the times? Contact Carpenter Group to find out how we can help you refresh it to appeal to today’s modern audience.