In today's society, many brands have become familiar through conscious or even subconscious design and become ingrained in everyday life.
The likes of McDonalds or Coca-Cola are so synergistic to contemporary society that advertisement through billboards or online get almost taken for granted.
Yet their message is clear to the consumer for both what they stand for and more importantly what their product represents. The message in some cases can be summarized in a symbol that can be equated to so much more and is instantly recognizable across different formats.
While the process, which can take years to establish, has served companies well in the past, the nature of modern trends dictates that flexibility and adaptability are essential for continued growth. The global marketplace is ever more competitive with new, dynamic and spirited start ups with original ideas or concepts shaking up the market place on an almost daily basis.
While many do not demonstrate the growth and scalability of the better-known brands, it is important for those established and those growing to look at global trends.
One of the biggest trends in recent times, especially within the retail and hospitality sector is a move towards more health-conscious lifestyles.
With diabetes, cancer rates and heart disease souring in the western world many brands have shifted their focus to offer more health-conscious options.
McDonald's have positioned themselves from traditional yellow & red to green, brown and yellow in Europe to align with newer healthy organic food trend values.
Starbucks, while almost at saturation point with stores still opening globally have begun offering not just healthier options for consumers but as those tastes become ever more discerning, developed part of their brand to fit in line with the “4th Wave” of coffee trend in their Reserve Stores.
This concept of providing a craft style experience with additional depths of taste and giving back to the local source of farming has far greater appeal to the end user.
Family Mart too has used similar ideologies to rebrand some of their newer or leading stores to incorporate a clean, white image to bolster the “healthy” or “modernistic” theme along with differentiating themselves from the old colors of off pale greens more usually associated with their rivals at 711.
Adapting a company's brand or even rebranding is not a new concept. However, with our society becoming ever more globalized and cross-cultural trends influencing consumer behavior, the need to keep focus on those trends and public opinion is critical for growth.
In the opposite end of the spectrum, Blockbuster video's failure to adapt to the internet age and Netflix's ability to embrace is has had far lasting results that highlight the importance of change for business prosperity. This can be used as both a warning and an example of how to adapt your brand in the marketplace to follow or even be a leader to regional or global trends.
This is one of the core principles we follow when developing or re-branding for our clients. The research that goes into a particular industry to follow recent or consider future trends is then reflected in how we construct the brand ideologies.
Please visit our projects , to discover how we've developed this for our clients and could help you develop your brand.
