In a competitive restaurant market, refreshing your brand is sometimes necessary to stay relevant and appealing. However, rebranding can be a delicate process, as you want to maintain the recognition and inherent vibe that your loyal customers love. We know because we are currently undergoing a branding refresh! We look forward to sharing the results with you when it is complete. Ideally a rebrand or brand refinement will make your marketing communicate even more of your restaurant’s core values and personality. For this process we highly recommend working with a professional designer, but sometimes they can get overly excited and want to entirely redo everything. This guide can help you keep the reins on their creative mind and communicate clearly how much change and what type you think is wise. Here’s a guide on how to upgrade your branding while preserving the essence of what makes your restaurant unique.
Preserve Key Elements
- Identify Core Elements of Your Brand: Take stock of the elements that are most recognizable and beloved by your customers. This could be your logo, color scheme, signature dish names, or even specific design elements. Conduct surveys or informal discussions with loyal customers to gather feedback on what they associate most with your brand. An easy way to do this could be a social media poll or a newsletter survey.
- Retain Iconic Features: Ensure that these core elements are retained or only slightly modified in the new branding. This creates a sense of familiarity amidst the changes. For example, if your colors are a huge staple, keep the basic colors and adjust the hues to be more contemporary. There are many shades of every color. If your logo is widely recognized, consider modernizing it rather than completely redesigning it. Keep essential aspects and make the changes subtle.
Consistency is Key
- Develop a Brand Style Guide: Make a comprehensive brand style guide that details the use of your logo, color palette, typography, imagery, and tone of voice. This guide will ensure that all elements of your branding are consistently applied across various platforms and materials.
- Implement Across All Touchpoints: Consistency in branding is crucial for maintaining recognition. Update your website, social media profiles, menus, signage, staff uniforms, and printed materials to reflect the new brand identity. Ensure that every customer touchpoint, from the moment they see your advertisement to the experience in your restaurant, reflects a unified brand message.
Subtle Changes
- Gradual Updates: Instead of making drastic changes, opt for a more gradual approach. Small, incremental updates are less jarring for your customers and help maintain a sense of continuity. For instance, you might start by updating your menus and signage before moving on to more significant changes like interior decor or staff uniforms.
- Soft Launch: Consider a soft launch of your new branding. This allows you to make adjustments based on initial customer feedback and ensures a smoother transition. You can start by introducing the new branding in one aspect of your restaurant, such as a special event or a seasonal menu, before rolling it out fully.
Communicate with Your Community
- Share Your Story: Transparency is vital during a rebrand. Keep your customers informed about the changes and the reasons behind them. Share the story of your rebranding journey through social media, newsletters, and in-restaurant signage. Highlight the benefits of the rebrand and how it will enhance their dining experience.
- Engage and Involve: Engage your customers in the rebranding process. Host events or social media campaigns where customers can get a sneak peek of the new brand elements and provide their feedback. Consider creating a dedicated section on your website or a series of social media posts that explain the thought process behind the rebrand and the improvements they can expect.
- Reassure Continuity: Reassure your customers that while the look and feel may be changing, the core values and quality they’ve come to love remain the same. Use messaging that emphasizes continuity and the preservation of what they already appreciate about your restaurant.
Our Rebranding Journey
Now we’re going to take our own advice! We are refreshing our brand this summer. The main reason for this is that while we have always been a tech savvy company (hard not to be in this town), we are in the middle of entirely rebuilding our back end system to be super usable and helpful to clients and evaluators alike. We are also a few months away from launching a new product that uses an AI system to check each dish made in your kitchen for food quality, temp, portioning, and presentation. It learns your standards and ensures that every dish is consistently as great as it is meant to be. If you are interested in trying out the beta system let us know at [email protected].
All this is to say that we want our brand to reflect more accurately our tech savvy cutting edge knowledge of the industry and our love of delicious, sophisticated cuisine. We very much look forward to presenting the refinements to you and would love to hear from you if you have any thoughts about what stands out the most to you when you think of EyeSpy and what you think of when you think of our brand. Thank you so much for your continued support and patronage and happy branding!
Want help with your rebrand? We have a designer who we love. Let us know.
Wondering what is included in a rebrand? We wrote you a list.
