If the word “rebrand” sounds daunting, we get it. But freshening up your vibe can be fun, rewarding, and have major payoffs for your business. 

We’re here to help you decide if it’s the right time to reinvigorate your brand look and feel – plus, we’ve even included a ready-to-go brand kit to give you a head start. 

But first, what’s a rebrand?

Simply put, A rebrand is any change to an organization’s external presentation. 

But honestly, it’s whatever you want it to be. It can be comprehensive, including everything from your brand name to your logo, or relatively subtle. It all depends on what you’re trying to achieve, and how much time and budget you’re willing to invest. 

However, when it’s time to refresh your presentation, we recommend a thorough introspection of what your brand stands for, and a rigorous overhaul of your visual presentation and marketing strategy. Take a close look at your website and other creative assets, and start thinking about how your designs could work together to tell a cohesive story about who you are and what you do. 

This well get you the biggest bang for your buck, and give you an excuse to re-introduce yourself to your customer base (and the competition). Here are just a few examples of other successful tourism brand launches.

Why do a rebrand?

There are so many tell-tale signs that indicate you might be ready for an update. Here are a few of the reasons why brands often decide to put in the effort for a revamp. 

1. You want to differentiate yourself from competitors

Was your initial brand concept so powerful that you noticed others following suit? Maybe it’s time to push forward with something new.

A great example of this would be #TeamVonMack absolutely leading the space with our pink, black, and white creative presentation. It was great.. until it became more widespread, and lost the strong, unique association to Von Mack.

It proves our point: a lot can change over time. Not only within your business itself, but in your industry and geographic market. 

This is especially true in the fast-paced world of travel. So rebranding is especially vital for tourism marketing. It’s important to keep an eye on the space, and stay a few steps ahead of the competition so you’re always leading the way in terms of branding and presentation. 

2. You’re changing your business strategy or core services

Many organizations change up their products or services from time to time. In many cases, this certainly doesn’t require a new brand to go with it. But if you’re offering a whole new category of services, then it could be a perfect excuse to freshen up your brand and launch both within the same time frame. 

This is especially true if you think your new services may appeal to a new clientele. Do your website, storefront, logo, and social media channels reflect the overall “vibe” that you believe will draw in your target demographic? If not, then that’s a sure sign that a rebrand will serve you well. 

3. It’s been at least 5 years since your last brand update

This doesn’t mean that you have to change everything up every five years, like clockwork. But if it’s been several years since you took a good hard look at your assets, then it might be time to check in and ask yourself if your current look is still serving you. 

If you were going to create the perfect pop-up banner for your next convention, would it look like your current ones? If not, then you might be ready for the next evolution of your brand.

4. You’ve just got a hunch

The truth is, you don’t really need a fully fleshed-out reason to go all in on a brand refresh. As an entrepreneur in your industry, you have a certain intuition about these things. So listen to your gut, and make the call if it feels like the right thing to do for your business. 

Where to start

In order to build a brand you believe in, you need to start at the foundation. It might be tempting to take the piecemeal approach and update one brochure at a time, but you’ll be missing that strong, cohesive presence that makes a brand truly memorable. You need to start from the ground up, and build a marketing strategy that your whole team is excited about.

So, ask yourself a few of the big questions. What do you stand for? What makes your business unique? What’s your mission? If you’ve already answered these in the past, then start by revisiting them and deciding if anything has changed. 

And if you’ve never articulated what makes you different, then this is a great time to do that! Think about what your “true north” looks like. You can even get your team and other stakeholders involved so you have a range of feedback and opinions, and everyone’s invested. 

Once you’ve established your key differentiators, you can build outward from there. Every aspect of your brand should reflect who you are at your core. If you’re feeling stuck, you can always bring in brand-building professionals or a marketing agency that you trust. As long as you’re confident about what your business does and what sets you apart, they’ll be able to take that overall philosophy and create brand guidelines and creative assets that reflect that. 

Key components of a rebrand

Every rebrand will look a little different, depending on your primary goals, budget, and scope. But regardless of how extensive your full rebrand will be, there are a few key pointers to keep in mind as you start planning it out. 

1. Make your unique selling point the star of the show

Branding is no longer about creating the flashiest or most elaborate website. Instead, keep your core products or services in focus, and let them shine. 

Keep this in mind as you start thinking through your overall brand persona and visual presentation. It’s also a good idea to do a “gut check” on this throughout your brand development process: is it immediately clear to a new customer what you’re offering them, and why you’re different?  

Here at Von Mack, we took a step back in our visual presentation style to let our work do the talking. We wanted to make sure we were rolling out a look and feel that could grow with us, express our style, and still keep the focus on our work itself.

2. Prioritize your most important assets and create a toolbox for rollout

Every massive undertaking starts with a humble checklist, right? Start by listing out all of the items that represent your brand, so you can prioritize the most important ones. You’ll also want to list out the places where folks interact with your brand. 

Believe us when we say, this will probably take longer than you think it will. So to save you some valuable time, we’re sharing our own Brand Kit template at the end of this article. (You’re so welcome!)

This is a great way to assess the approximate cost and time you should allocate for a full rebrand. You’ll be using your “toolbox” (ie, your new Brand Kit) of new work to flip the switch onto the new focal points. 

When your new brand vision starts to come into focus, start testing how your creative decisions might play out within your most important assets. How would you change your Instagram reels to reflect your brand personality? What would the front page of your new brochure look like? This will help bring your ideas to life before fully committing. 

3. Prep your team 

Many organizations have a team of stakeholders to help guide the rebrand. This could include external agencies or consultants, as well as key team members who have a solid understanding of your unique selling points. 

After all, a rebrand can be a huge undertaking and will likely have major (positive!) outcomes for your business. So make sure you have a trusted team in place to bounce ideas off of. 

And with that we’re formally announcing… a new look for Von Mack!

What a coincidence, right? We’re so pumped to finally pull back the curtain.

RIP to our old brochures, banners, letterheads, you name it. Going into our seventh year, it was time to truly reflect on who we are today, and absolutely everything we can do with our full set of agency services. 

Featuring a white and black typographic presentation, our new look offers a fresh feel. It’s strong enough to stand on its own but doesn’t distract from our work, which is on full display. We’ve kept true to our bird icon, now lovingly named Big Mike (IYKYK), which has incorporated our V and M into his wings since the very beginning of our time. 

We’ve moved away from “Marketing for Experiences,” because hey, we work with a growing number of CVB’s, DMO’s and the lot. To be more expansive, we’ve reworked our headline to: 

Tourism’s Full-Service Marketing Agency

We feel this headline showcases the core of our being: tourism is 100% all that we do. 

Plus, we’re pairing it with a new action line. We simply couldn’t pass up the opportunity to showcase who we are as a team, and our unique approach, with the words: “Capacity for Audacity.” 

It’s been a group effort that required plenty of brainstorms, debates, and experimentation. Now that we’ve reached the finish line, we are so proud of our new look – and we’re confident that our unique voice comes through loud and clear everywhere we go, in everything we do. 

Thinking about a rebrand yourself? 

Well, friend, consider yourself in luck. We’ve put together a checklist of just some of the items we transformed to reflect our new brand. It’s a great place to begin assessing how and where you’d like to go with such a project.

And when you’re ready to hit “go” just remember, you know just the agency to do it.