Is it necessary for your brand to be flexible?

Regardless of what angle you look at it from, Trends are influential in day to day life. Whether it’s the news going on in the world or a new Brand of clothing that everyone’s wearing – trends largely dictate our decisions and how we interact with our surroundings. Completely neglecting the influence they could have on your business is probably madness.

So, the question appears, how important are trends to your business?

Obviously, this isn’t something that we can help you with in a matter of moments, your business is deeper than that and has many layers to consider. But, it is something that we are talking about with this blog. So, buckle in as we look at one question in particular.

‘Should your brand change based on current trends?’

Let’s talk about trends

Firstly, let’s talk about the nature of a trend and what it offers those who engage with it.

Trends are, in general, something that has become popular within a particular demographic. They are often edgy or something we haven’t seen before, and so people choose to interact with them.

Could anyone have imagined decades after it first conquered the world, that Pokemon would make a return? Let alone an interactive comeback that would have adults wandering the streets desperately trying to ‘catch em all’?

No way, but once it returned, it was new, interesting and, let’s be honest, very exciting when a Snorlax popped up!

Trends bring a sprinkle of excitement to the population, and that’s definitely a wave that your brand should be riding. Brands that fail to engage with trends can be seen as boring or overly corporate, and that’s no longer the world we live in.

Think back to your brand strategy. We would be shocked if two of the main objectives weren’t to keep your audience engaged and to nurture brand loyalty. Well, what better way to keep them interacting with your business than to incorporate what they are interested in!

Brand identity and trends

OK, so we’ve established that as a brand, you should be at the very least engaging with trends as they come and go. They will help keep your brand fresh and build an appeal with those who are interested in the trend itself, who may have fallen outside your customer demographic.

However, it’s essential that we assess what parts of your brand are going to benefit from a new lease of life and which aren’t. For example, your brand identity spans lots of different customer-facing touchpoints. Whether it’s the way you talk to customers on social media or the videos, you produce for Youtube or TikTok. A lot goes into building your brand identity, and understanding how to tweak it will be key to your success at joining in with trends.

Let’s take the World Cup as an example, it only happens once every four years, so it’s a reasonably rare occurrence. How could your business share its feelings based on the tournament once it arrives?

Firstly if you fail to mention anything about it whatsoever, it makes your business look alien to the rest of the world because, let’s face it, everyone else will be gossiping away about it. Whether it’s talk of an Octopus picking the winning teams or a wonder goal scored the previous day, it’s going to be trending.

It’s also incredibly likely that some of the biggest brands will lead the way by changing some of their touchpoints to align with the World Cup trend too. So, your brand will have some help from the big boys, keep an eye out on what the brands at the top are up to.

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Where should you introduce trends to your brand?

Moving swiftly on, let’s talk about some of the best and most applicable ways of introducing trends within your brand. Changes to what you already own don’t have to be vast and all-encompassing; they just have to be memorable, create a conversation and align with the trend itself.

Packaging – Your packaging is one of your business’s most flexible brand assets. In general, you will have the ability to build trends into your packaging without it causing too much hassle, especially if you have a great branding agency by your side.

Using the previous example, when the World Cup comes around, we are typically treated to a flurry of football-themed packaging as the multinational companies jump on the trend as early as possible. In fact, you’ll start to see these packaging projects months before the football begins; such is the pull of the trend itself. Spur of teh moment trends will require much more last minute plans.

Social media – Your social media presence is another versatile and malleable piece of your brand identity. Incorporating trend-related elements within your posts shouldn’t be too much of an issue.

Think outside the box of how you engage with your potential clients whilst also getting in front of those who are interested in the trend itself.

So, if you’re an England-based restaurant, could you potentially reach more people by giving away a free meal for two if England scores twice in their next world cup game?

Leveraging what you have available to run a giveaway will also make potential clients look favourably upon your business as they see the opportunity to win something for nothing.

Create8 top tip – Address who your clients are before jumping on the back of a trend. If you are going to position yourself in one place specifically, you could end up alienating some of your current customers if your opinion doesn’t align with theirs.

For example, when England plays the USA on the 25th of November, showing your love for England may be tempting. However, if you have a large number of American customers, you could instead post something generic relating to the game and not something that may encourage your customers to start shouting in the comment section.

What should remain the same?

All this talk of change to align with trends may have you panicking, but honestly, the best way for your brand to grow is to embrace it. However, there is one thing you should not change fall in line with trends, and that is your logo.

Your logo is a vital part of your branding and is one of the most recognisable assets of your business. Your logo will speak for you when you have no other touchpoints and will hopefully become memorable regardless of where people see it. In order to continually reinforce who you are, your logo should remain the same irrespective of any other tweaks or alterations you make.

A consistent logo presents a business that has consistency at its core, and that is one of the fundamental values that a potential client will latch on to. As a brand, your logo should be able to stand the test of time and not disappear as quickly as some trends tend to do.

Tweak your branding, packaging, online presence etc. But keep your logo, the heart of your brand, the same. Your logo should stand the test of time but your branding should be flexible and adapt to trends. With a flexible brand, if you want to adapt it, you need to be on top of trends constantly. You can’t just do what’s trendy at the time as your brand and never change, this is how you become outdated.

All in all, it’s pretty concrete that your brand should be leveraging the popularity of trends to grow and build its demographic. You should be making tweaks that cause people to talk about you and the changes you’ve made. A flexible brand is one that remains interesting and doesn’t become outdated or boring.

The key to being successful is understanding what trends are popular and staying on top of them constantly.

It’s also vital that you understand your clientele and what they want to see or hear you do! Avoid getting caught up on one trend for too long, this can cause your brand to look out of the loop and not very savvy regarding what is popular and what isn’t.

For example, would we suggest using a GIF of someone dabbing on your socials in 2022? Probably not, although it probably would still make us laugh.

Also, don’t change that logo, we beg you.

With all that being said, adjusting your brand can be incredibly hard work if you don’t have the tools or knowledge. However, it won’t be with the help of a specialist branding agency, hint, hint!

Take a look at some more of our blogs for helpful tips, tricks and advice:

• The Difference Between a Brand and a Logo
• Brand Touchpoints
• What Are Brand Values?

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