How to get through difficult moments in the branding process?

The branding process is largely a risk management project. Why? Due to its importance to the company, it carries the risk of stakeholder conflict, the risk of misdiagnosing the problem, the risk of safe blandness, the risk of budget-consuming implementation, and the risk of a brandbook that looks beautiful but is never used. The best brands build a process that minimizes these risks at every stage of the branding process. In this article, we present seven critical moments that most often derail branding, along with mechanisms that help maintain decisions, momentum, and consistency.

A good definition of the actual problem and project goal is half the battle. Companies often treat a logo change as a goal in itself. They approach agencies with the request: “We want a new logo…” but changing just the logo without a thorough strategic analysis is a blind move. A new logo design, or a so-called facelift (partial change), should be a component of the branding process, resulting from strategic work, not a means in itself. When the process neglects diagnosis and goal alignment, the risk of a violent market reaction and the change being withdrawn increases.

Our solution to help minimize risk:

1. Spend time on an initiation workshop with your chosen agency – thoroughly discuss the work process and your expectations. Discuss the problem you see within the company and consult with a strategist at the agency/consulting firm.
2. Ask the agency/branding company to present the process step by step using previously implemented examples – this will allow you to see how the process of analysis, strategic conclusions and creation are interconnected and to learn about the agency’s work from the inside.

Branding is often the victim of a tug-of-war between several decision-making centers within a company. When there’s no single decision owner, the project devolves into endless rounds of feedback and revisions, ultimately becoming a consensus.

In practice, this problem rarely stems from “bad faith.” More often, it stems from the fact that rebranding touches the ambitions of multiple departments simultaneously: management wants security and consistency, marketing seeks distinction, and sales needs the right tools. If you don’t establish who makes decisions and when, and what the evaluation criteria are, the project naturally veers toward compromise—a solution “acceptable to everyone,” but often bland and ineffective. And when the timeline isn’t sacred, branding loses out on current priorities, and key decisions are continually postponed.

Our solution to help minimize risk:

1. Limit the number of decision-makers to the bare minimum.
2. Establish a policy of involving decision-makers throughout the process at key moments – this will give them full control over the proposals.
3. Make decisions through “blind voting” – this allows everyone to express their own opinion. A good design will always receive a clear majority.
4. Approve a realistic, written schedule that will be adhered to by both your internal and agency teams. Don’t allow for delays – the longer the branding process takes, the greater the risk of dilution.

“I like it/I don’t like it” is natural, but in branding, it’s dangerous because it shifts the decision-making burden from the end user and consumer to the subjective assessment, intuition, and preferences of the decision-maker. This is the point at which branding turns into a preference contest: “I think customers prefer…”, “this won’t work in our industry,” “this is too bold.” The problem is that such theses often sound logical, but they are not verifiable—thus blocking decisions and pushing the project toward a conservative approach. Worse still, in large organizations, the most confident voice can “win” over the most competent. Therefore, a mature branding process implements a simple principle: if something is controversial, we test it on the market, even if only on a small, representative sample.

Our solution to help minimize risk:

1. Research, i.e. ask the market about the reception of your concept.

The development of technology, the internet, and artificial intelligence makes research increasingly accessible, its credibility and quality are increasing, and its price is significantly decreasing. However, engaging your customers as opinion-givers is crucial.

You can conduct your own, inexpensive research in 1-2 days using Google Forms (Google Surveys), without engaging an external agency. The survey allows you to insert images (e.g., logo/KV variants), divide the form into sections, and compare multiple directions in the same questions. A link to the survey can be sent to real customers. Results in Forms are immediately available in the form of graphs. This simple test won’t replace a large-scale survey, but it very effectively reduces the risk of decisions based on intuition and internal opinions.

2. Avoid “corridor” research, meaning relying solely on employee opinions. However, it’s worth hearing their opinions, as the team has significant market knowledge..

Some companies are afraid of expressiveness because expressiveness means that some of the communication recipients may have doubts about purchasing the brand. Expressiveness polarizes… The result? A subtle change, bland branding, doesn’t stick. Therefore, it’s worth using brand codes – distinctive elements that the brand has a chance to appropriate – this can be expressed in color, shape, a distinctive icon, or typography. A well-developed research process can partially eliminate the risk of a clear direction, whether the brand should win through “safe trust” or “distinctive difference.” Data helps, but ultimately, it’s a conscious choice by the company. It’s worth remembering that a lack of expressiveness is also a decision – just usually an unconscious one. A brand that “fits all” often doesn’t really fit anyone in practice, and its communication becomes easily interchangeable with the competition. As a result, the company burns through media budgets because it has to buy attention instead of building it through consistency and recognition. Expressiveness doesn’t equal controversy; means having a few characteristic elements that, when repeated consistently, begin to act as a mental shortcut in the customer’s head.

Our solution to help minimize risk:

1. Differentiation from the competition is a key element of branding – however, it’s essential to build brand signals that strongly differentiate your brand from its competitors.
2. Build strong brand signals (internationally known as brand distinctive assets). Brand signals include elements that distinguish your brand – colors, packaging shape, image style, scent, and sound. You can read more about these signals in our next article.

This is one of the most treacherous moments of the process: in the concept presentation, everything looks perfect. The client says, “Yes—that’s it,” because they see a beautiful key visual, a great layout, and a polished narrative. The problem begins when branding fades from slides into everyday life: app icons, offer templates, social media thumbnails, or the user interface. Suddenly, it turns out that the elements that “carried” the concept in large formats lose legibility in small scale, the typography system can’t handle long text, and the logo is no longer recognizable in the mobile version.

Our solution to help minimize risk:

1. Build your system step by step: create brand principles and codes (color schemes, typography, photo style, iconography, composition rules), and then test them on a set of critical media—a few of the most frequently used and a few of the most problematic.
2. When the system “works” through these difficult points (narrow formats, small sizes, varying aspect ratios and languages), you can talk about branding that can be implemented without a flurry of exceptions and workarounds.

Implementation is a separate task, and in fact, just as important as the creative process. The agency did a good job – an interesting concept, good designs, and a brand guide were created, but what good is it? Suppliers and the company team can’t translate the principles into practice, and the brand begins to fall apart after a few months, due to an inability to maintain consistency.

Our solution to help minimize risk:

At the very beginning of implementing new branding, it’s worth investing time in training the client’s team, advertising agencies, graphic designers, printing houses, and other suppliers who support the brand. This reduces the risk of misapplication and the potential for the system to be “hardened.”

1. Contract training for your team – as part of the branding process, request a workshop and training from a branding agency. Concept designers should demonstrate to your team, using examples, how to design layouts and new projects based on the created brand guide.
2. Work with the branding agency as advisors for at least 3-6 months after the brand launch – contract a senior consultant at the branding agency every 2-3 weeks to verify the consistency of new projects completed by the companies and agencies you work with.

It sometimes happens that the branding process is halted mid-progress due to implementation costs. Sometimes, work has been completed that resulted in a great design, but the specific nature of the industry and the multitude of materials means the cost of replacing them is beyond the company’s capabilities or is commercially unacceptable. To avoid this risk, it’s worth carefully planning the process and resources before any work begins.

Our solution to help minimize risk:

1. Determine the implementation budget before starting work – if the cost is too high, do not start the branding process.

Before starting work, it’s worth taking an inventory of media and planning the rollout in stages: must-change (highest exposure/impact) vs. can-wait. These steps are worth doing in the initial phase of the project – it will help avoid disappointment.

2. Take the time to consult with HR, IT, Production and Sales, and Administration departments on the scope of changes. This should result in a list of media/materials that need to be changed or redesigned. Estimate not only the design costs but also the production costs.

The better designed and executed the branding process, the fewer risks along the way—and the greater the chance that the outcome will work in real-world business, not just in the form of a presentation. Of course, there are more potential trouble spots than those described above, but these are the ones we encounter most often: in projects where decisions must pass through multiple decision-making levels, constraints, and real-world brand applications. The good news is that most of these issues can be anticipated and “de-escalated” in advance. Branding doesn’t require magic. It requires a process that maintains momentum, accountability, and consistency—even when the going gets tough.

*ASCIK – Project Accountability Matrix: (A)ccountable – who is responsible for the project / who is the leader; (S)upport – who supports the project / project group; (C)onsult: who is worth consulting with about the project or its phases; (I)nform: who is worth informing about the project; O(K) – who approves and makes the final decision