Undergoing a brand refresh has a myriad of advantages: it allows you to stay current, reach new audiences, and clarify your brand voice and messaging. It also helps reinvigorate your internal teams, boost perception, and differentiate yourself from other competing businesses.

What's a Brand Refresh, Anyway?

Essentially, it’s a strategic marketing project that can be a powerful catalyst for growth. 

But the term “brand refresh” may sound a little misleading. Think of a brand refresh as giving your company's appearance a strategic makeover without completely starting over. Unlike a full rebrand (where you might change your name and start from scratch), a refresh updates your visual identity, messaging, and sometimes positioning to better reflect who you've become as a company.

Companies typically need a refresh when:

• Your look feels dated compared to competitors

• You've expanded beyond your original offerings

• Your current branding doesn't reflect your evolved values

• You're struggling to connect with new audience segments

It’s more than simply updating color palettes or creating a new logo. Many businesses fail to realize that a successful brand refresh requires strategic depth, organizational alignment, and disciplined implementation.

Here’s a few common pitfalls of a brand refresh to keep in mind, so that you and your business can avoid them:

Common Pitfall #1: Relying on Aesthetics Alone 

Why it fails:

• Disconnection from business strategy: Brands that focus exclusively on updating visual elements tend to ignore deeper strategic issues. Visual changes without strategic alignment create a disjointed brand experience.

• Lack of differentiation: Surface-level changes rarely address competitive positioning, leaving your brand vulnerable in crowded markets.

• Customer confusion: When visual changes aren't backed by meaningful improvements, customers question the authenticity of the refresh.

How to do it right:

While only updating the visual components of your brand might feel like a quick win, it could cause more damage in the long run. To give your brand refresh the best potential to succeed, start with an in-depth research and preparation period:

• Conduct a comprehensive brand audit that evaluates both internal perceptions and external market positioning

• Identify specific business challenges the refresh should address (market expansion, customer retention, etc.)

• Develop a strategic brief that connects visual changes to business objectives

• Test concepts with key stakeholders, including customers, before full implementation

  
  

Common Pitfall #2: A Disconnect Among Stakeholders

Why it fails:

• Siloed decision-making: When brand refreshes are driven solely by marketing without cross-functional input, it leads to unnecessary bottlenecks that delay implementation. 

• Lack of executive sponsorship: Without C-suite champions, brand initiatives get deprioritized.

• Employee disconnection: Staff who don't understand or believe in the refresh can't authentically represent it or get behind its objectives.

How to do it right:

It’s imperative to secure buy-in across the organization, to avoid creating resistance that undermines implementation.

• Create a cross-functional brand council that includes representatives from every department, including executive leadership, sales, product development, customer service, HR, and of course, marketing and communications 

• Develop a comprehensive rollout plan that includes internal education sessions, toolkits and resources for consistent implementation, and metrics to track adoption and effectiveness

• Implement a phased approach that allows for testing and refinement, gathering feedback, building momentum through early wins, and making adjustments based on market response

Common Pitfall #3: Poor Implementation

Why it fails:

• Insufficient resources: Underestimating the time, budget, and personnel needed.

• Inconsistent execution: Fragmented application across touchpoints.

• Lack of governance: No clear ownership or guidelines for maintaining brand integrity.

• Short-term thinking: Abandoning the refresh before it has time to gain traction.

How to do it right:

Even the best refresh strategy can fail during implementation if a brand isn’t careful. This is where theory meets reality—and where many refreshes falter.

Create a comprehensive implementation roadmap that includes: 

• A prioritized touchpoint analysis ranking and identifying customer touchpoints by impact and visibility

• A realistic timeline–A major refresh certainly isn’t a one-month project, and will likely take a minimum of six months to complete

• Allocating your resources and budget for things like training, tools, and ongoing management, not just design

• A governance structure that establishes clear ownership, approval processes, and maintenance protocols