Brands are like us, they grow, change, and age. But they're different in that they can be reinvented, refreshed and reinvigorated or even re-positioned.

A key challenge is to ask yourself how relevant your brand is to your audience. If this audience or consumer segment is diminishing, sometimes prevalent in stagnant or dropping sales, then this may be the opportunity to re-establish brand relevance for a growing segment or larger consumer audience.

It's more than just a new brand logo, new website or packaging. Re-establishing brand relevance involves a holistic approach to brand building. It's about understanding the gaps or opportunities within your markets, understanding how purchasing decisions are made, knowing where to engage with customers, and then developing a story and communication strategy to to emotionally engage.

We recently worked with a company that owned two of NZ's largest travel and tourism training schools. One with 30 years heritage and the other 20. Both schools offered very similar programs, to the same students and at the same costs. We were challenged to merge this and choose one name to take them forward. Which name should they go with and/or if changed, we needed a damn good strategy to convince them that change was required.

There the New Zealand School Of Tourism was born. The name and brand strategy established their position as New Zealand's preeminent school for a career in travel or tourism. It reflected their size with 9 campuses throughout NZ and the position of being a brand leader.

Our research gave us deep insights into the target audience, predominantly female 16-19yrs old who were not going to go University, but wanted a qualification that would prepare and make them work ready...world ready.

Redfire re-established their positioning and gave more brand relevance to their student audience.  They have enjoyed significant success since the re-brand and both student acquisition and retention has been outstanding.

View case study here