When it comes to rebranding, many businesses will search for a good branding agency. And rightly so. Simply put, re-branding can be tricky at the best of times, with too many examples of branding disasters to choose from. This infographic on the re-branding process however, should help

You only have to look at one of the many disastrous rebranding campaigns, like The Post Office for instance, which for a brief and nightmarish period became Consignia, or Tropicana, whose new packaging received such backlash it was swiftly abandoned, to know that without an effective strategy, your launch can very fall on their face.

Hi. I’m Sarah, Founder of Brand Experience Agency, Woof London.

I like tea. And biscuits, to dunk in my tea. If we met, I’d make you (probably) the best tea you’ve ever had. I’m confident about that. You’d enjoy the tea and we’d have a lovely chat.

The truth is, you just can’t beat the personal touch. Especially when it comes to your branding or marketing agency.

In an age when it’s getting harder and harder to make people feel anything at all, the personal touch still has the power to make anyone feel a little bit special.

That’s the thing I’ve always been interested in. It’s why I run a Brand Experience Agency that tries to do exactly that for our clients.

Read what CEO UK and Ireland of Branding Agency, The Brand Union, Toby Southgate has to say about 'Experience' and how a holistic marketing approach could fix your brand-consumer comms.

How do you keep up with branding trends, stay new and stand out? 'New' may not be the answer for your developing brand strategy, argues Max Wright, Strategy Director at Kindred.

When it comes to brand identity development and creating a brand strategy, the concept of 'Newism' is hard to ignore. I suspect that this thrill of the new is driven by seeking standout at all costs or the ego-centric view that our audiences are just as obsessed with the new as we are.

Nick Pearce - JP Creative

Consumers are seeking authentic brands. Brands with soul. Soul needs to be baked into your brand identity.

Gone are the days when marketing was about having the biggest, shoutiest brand, being 'revolutionary' or being the first to launch stuff into space.

To today’s hype-weary consumer, flash brand strategies, such as celebrity endorsements and high-budget campaigns are seen as the swan song of desperate 'me too' brands trying to eek out market share. They're often a clear sign that the products behind them are lacking in quality and most importantly, soul.

Brand awareness

A brand identity with soul thrives on popularity, admiration, trust and is confided in by their consumers. Brands rack up clout scores on how many of the public and stakeholders literally ‘like’ them.

It’s not news that social media has changed the lines of communication. The trick is to extend the brand personality in an intelligent and human way. After all, friends know when to stop talking shop. A friend would know what to post in your Facebook newsfeed to transport you into a more light-hearted and engaged frame of mind.

Ben and Jerry’s understood this during Occupy Wall Street when they set up live coverage on their website with the title ‘We Stand by the 99%’. They were listening to their audience and they weren’t afraid of openly empathising. Just like a thoughtful human. Just like a friend. They were 'with' us, not 'instructing' us. A vital shift in the relationship between sellers and buyers.

The modern brand identity

It’s all very well quoting text book case studies so here’s one closer to home for brand soul (or a shameless plug for one I launched myself).

In partnership with the BBC and property developer TCN we brought the Ugli Creative Campus in White City, West London to life- a thriving community for 650 creative folk and a brand based on wholesome honesty. Not only were we 12 months ahead of lease capacity, we have a still-growing waiting list.

What was the secret? Fundamentally, we just created a very open, honest and human brand. A brand with soul. A likeable brand identity that was based on what it did and how it acted, looking to support, help and incubate creative talent. Our philosophy, brand strategy and indeed our URL, is ‘lovely inside’, for it's about what all brands should be: People. Community. Engagement. Sharing. Honesty. Fun. Creativity.

As written by Nick Pearce, Co-Owner of JP Creative and Co-Founder of Ugli Creative Campus.

We ran across this story in the Guardian yesterday which highlights that Tesco have bought into a new coffee shop concept chain which some feel is misleadingly branded as if it’s an independent. This struck us as particularly interesting as since starting up last year, we have received briefs from both small upstarts which are hoping to pass themselves off as more established brands, as well as larger corporate ones who are spinning off ‘independent concepts’ and selecting branding and design firms outside their normal stable so that no essence of their existing brands will taint the new firm’s.

This leads us to question which is the greater sin: appearing to be more, or less ‘corporate’ than in reality? Or is either mission sinful at all?

Over the past few months, we’ve been questioned many times regarding what’s an appropriate answer for the ‘corporate tone’ ask as part of our project brief template. Given the frequency of the question, we thought others may find our long-form answer helpful. This is the third of a three-part series written by our resident copywriter Danielle, outlining our pointers for capturing your corporate tone. If you haven’t yet caught the first or second instalments, of course, link to those first.

7. Evolve

Over the past few months, we’ve been questioned many times regarding what’s an appropriate answer for the ‘corporate tone’ ask as part of our project brief template. Given the frequency of the question, we thought others may find our long-form answer helpful. This is the second of a three-part series written by our resident copywriter Danielle, outlining our pointers for capturing your corporate tone. If you haven’t yet caught the first instalment, please find it here.

In this series we focus on how to create a successful brand profile. You can find the first three steps in our previous entry below.

As a Search and Selection Agency, we get asked a lot how to create a corporate tone of voice, as part of our project brief template. Given the frequency of the question, we thought others may find our long-form answer helpful. This is the first of a three-part series written by our resident Copywriter and Content Editor, Danielle Stagg, outlining our pointers for capturing your corporate tone.