For most of my marketing career, I’ve worked for companies that had a well-defined brand strategy and I simply executed against or worked to refine the strategy. I was very surprised when I started at Reliv to find they had no formal, written brand guidelines and no logo standards. With an internal art department this provided a level of unguided freedom but there was nothing to anchor all of the creative so that you knew it was all from the same company. As a result, marketing collateral and product labels lacked consistency and cohesiveness.
Our management committee established a strategic initiative to “refresh, renew and reinvigorate” the brand. Looking back, I think their expectations were focused on our core product labels. Were they in for a ride!
As the new Director of Marketing, I needed to understand what I was trying to refresh! I improvised using a process I learned from the Market Intelligence group at Maritz. Normally this would involve conducting primary research to better understand the buyers, their perception of our brand and what aspects of our value proposition they see as table stakes or as valued and different. I knew we had zero budget for outside research so I simulated that process with our executives.
I began a brand audit with a core team of sales and marketing colleagues. We met to brainstorm and collaborate on initial thoughts about the Reliv brand. We created a laundry list of honest attributes, both positive and negative, that could be considered as our core values, brand personality and voice. Everyone contributed their own thoughts and brought in feedback from past conversations with the field. The output of these meetings was used as stimulus material for 1:1 executive interviews. This process was fascinating. Even without any formal brand guidelines, there was a tremendous amount of consistency in everyone’s perception of the brand. Integrity, quality and trust were mentioned by almost everyone as core values. It made me appreciate the legacy of what this company has accomplished.
The core team also reviewed secondary research from GfK Roper Consulting on global consumer trends. As a member of the AMA (American Marketing Association) I had been invited to attend a virtual conference on Marketing Research. I was thrilled as the team from GfK was presenting their slides and so many of their trends were perfectly aligned with Reliv. A few examples:
Consumers are becoming increasingly self-directed
Consumers crave security and trust
Higher level of concern with health and safety
Recession has been a ‘green’ stimulus
People are reaching out to others
Wellness, charity and green are intertwined values
After considering all data points, the core team decided upon Reliv’s mission statement, value proposition, core values, brand personality and brand voice. These were comprised of a combination of attributes that were presently true and a few that were aspirations and would guide new messaging.
With brand standards established, marketing evaluated these new descriptors against current marketing efforts and established a new color palette, approved fonts, photo style and general design and copy guidelines.
During my 1:1 executive interview with the President and CEO, he had given me the history of the logo and specifically advised me not to touch the logo during this process! My art director took it upon herself to modify the current logo. She raised the issue: our newly defined brand personality and voice no longer fit our current logo. We either had to change the brand or change the logo. We quietly socialized the new logo concept among the core team and everyone was in agreement.
Months of work culminated in a formal presentation to the management committee with the core team’s recommendation on our core values, brand personality and voice. And with the President sitting next to me, I proposed that we change the very logo that he specifically requested that we never change!
Professionally and personally this was a big moment for me. I had only been with the company for a year and I was proposing a change to their sacred teal logo…a logo that had never changed. But from a strategic perspective it was clear: change the logo or change the personality and voice.
This wasn’t about me and what I wanted or thought was right. I think we had the right people involved in the process. We took the time to review the research and thoughtfully debate the various attributes. The process guided the team to a collective agreement.
I am happy to say that when we launched the new logo and the brand standards to the field at our national conference it was all met with rave reviews. Our Distributors live and breathe our brand so they ate it up! The changes to the logo, while subtle to the naked eye, have made a vast impact on our design. The new standards have put everyone literally ‘on the same page!’ Now everyone talks about core values and being the brand…not just the marketing department!
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