Brand Remastering

Brand Remastering

COG Design are the Brand Remastering experts, rebranding our clients outdated brands to perform again. Audit, Review, Overhaul, Relaunch!

Our Brand Remastering solutions are for brands and businesses that require a rebranding solution. This rebranding product delivers the overhaul and update of visual brand assets to your company brand identity.

Our Sydney Design Studio Approach To Brand Remastering and Rebranding

At COG Design, we design brands that deliver against the key business objectives and build the all important brand equity.

We’re a Sydney Rebranding Design Studio delivering first class corporate identity and brand solutions. Our focus is to design our clients brands to function as smart, innovative and sophisticated entities. The COG Design approach to remastering a brand begins by understanding the origins of the business, and an audit of all the creative elements that have been designed previously. Plus we need to know what brand assets that are currently circulating around the business activity. This upfront discovery will likely determine the type of brand we build as the “remastered” version.

COG Design think and care deeply about our clients brands’ audience, as this will ideally guide the rebranding efforts and the influence their experience once we remaster the brand itself. We need to understand while we’re looking to update the brand, we don’t want to isolate exisiting brand advocates and customers.

We deliver our Brand Remastering design solutions to small to medium businesses right through to large enterprises. You can read more about our project success here and the Deloitte Small Business Champions Project.  Our clients continue to work with us because of our full service approach, innovative thinking and professional work ethic.

We are an established Sydney design studio motivated to provide our clients advanced brand design solutions that make a commercial

cog digital gallery images
cog digital gallery images
cog digital gallery images
cog digital gallery images
cog digital gallery images
cog digital gallery images

COG Design Partnerships

What Is Rebranding?

Rebranding is a strategic process of changing the corporate visual image of a company. It is a market strategy of possibly creating a new name, icon, or a slight graphic change in design for an already-established brand. The core purpose behind rebranding, or Brand Remastering as COG Design call it, is to create a different identity for brand, as when compared to its competitors.

Rebranding is a process of updating a companies visual image so it can market itself confidently while remaining on trend and relevant to a new and exisiting audience. COG Design follows a strategic path to Project Success which we know works. Its been proven, and we ‘re getting better at it with every rebranding project.

Via considered and systematic audits of key business units our rebranding services leave no stone unturned in the assessment of existing brand assets, touch points and activities. We know when to keep what is valuable and discard what will be a hinderance to future brand performance. Basically we retain what has equity and ditch what is of no value.

Our Brand Remastering solutions also provide businesses that have gone through a merger or acquisition and need to reconcile a portfolio or enter a new market with a rebranding service the required strategic path to a creative resolution.

What Are The Steps Involved In Brand Remastering?

At COG Design, we believe that communication is the key to success. We have the brand rebranding process to help ensure that you get the exact outcome and high performance brand for your business needs.
The steps involved in Brand Remastering include:

  1. Discovery and Audit – We take a journey into the history of the business and brand. We uncover all the assets created, try understand why they were designed this way and collate all assets we can find. The audit also enables us to see how well managed the brand assets are, this helps with our solution and handover.
  2. Brief Relay – Once we’ve completed the discovery, we pitch back the proposed scope of work and solutions path of the Brand Remastering project. Every brand and business is difference, thus our approach is flexible for all our clients. Project success is the goal so communication via the brief relay is a fundamental part of this process.
  3. Remastering Design – Once we have client approval against the Brand Remastering solutions path we get to work. Our graphic designers take lead from our Creative Director and Brand Strategist to follow our COG Design methodology.
  4. Brand Relaunch – Depending on what is within the scope of work for your Brand Remastering project, there could be numerous brand assets and touch-points that are relaunched. Often we advise clients to campaign a relaunch and strategically launch all brand assets simultaneously.
  5. Aftercare – Once all Brand Remastering projects are complete, we provide an aftercare services which trains businesses to become autonomous brand managers, and manage their brand internally> This ensures that the business gets maximum value from the Brand Remastering project but also ensures the brand is regularly maintained and looked after, so the business can rely on a strong functional brand in the future.

At COG Design our graphic designers listen, learn and nurture our clients ideas into advanced and high performance design perfomance. Our team is unified in our methodology. This allows individual brilliance to shine and creative solutions to excel.

The Top Reasons For Rebranding and Remastering Your Brand

Companies and businesses are always updating their image. On average every 5 to 8 years a company will overhaul its image.

The process of rebranding, or Brand Remastering as our Sydney Design Agency terms it, can include numerous activities such corporate identity updates, colour and typography suite updates, marketing language and brand positioning, creative direction and visual communication.

Some Brand Remastering projects COG Design have been assigned validate changing the entire name of the organisation. Often, we’re assigned a Brand Remaster for a few key reasons. Below are the top reasons why rebranding is done by a company.

1: Image has Become Outdated

One of the most common reasons for Remastering a brand is to get it up to today’s standards. Things move fast, and if your brand doesn’t keep up the competition can eat your market share. Being on trend is tough, but critical. Over time a brand can come be seen as dated and out-of-date if key assets such as logos and images are not updated. Colour use and font use are clear examples of what reveals when a brand was created, in our age of technology this happens faster and faster now. Trends come and go and it’s easy to judge a 2000’s brand from a 2020 brand. A modern image is usually a key need to rebrand, and one of the most obvious for your audience.

2: The Market Has Changed

Market forces and a change in the businesses operating market can create a volatile situation for the company itself, and force a change for it to simply survive. The threat of swift market change occurs often in the age of technology and the digital landscape, change is inevitable but the speed of change is not. The Covid-19 Pandemic changed brands globally, and forced many to communicate using video conference calls, trade eCommerce online and close physical stores. Some of these changes happened for good.

3: Cost Cutting To Save Dollars and Increase Returns

Many businesses are faced with an acquisition path with other businesses, which subsequently means the brands follow and that products are often going to be needed to taken to market as a different brand. Managing a brand portfolio is not easy, especially when there are various level of management, some that are far away from the core brand aspects of ‘branding’. Decisions made by the C-Suite can be disastrous when a business doesn’t engage the broader stakeholders in Rebranding. It doesn’t take long to confuse consumers, and when consumers are confused the business then needs to pivot, and if it’s a backwards step to re-correct a rebrand (which happens) it’s a massive waste of time, money and resources. Simplicity in a brand portfolio is sometimes not achievable, though it can save money. Via a rebrand, a business can focus on the true ideals and core of the company promise and deliver it through a new entity better.

4: Brand Acquisition and Company Merger

A change in business ownership or the mixing of 2 entities will be the cause of a needed Rebranding. Often legal requirements drive the first arrow through the exisiting brand assets, and sometimes where the directive comes from doesn’t always make for great branding. That is one of the key challenges with Brand Remastering and situations like this #4. There are several possibilities with brand mergers and company acquisitions; the new company wants a total new brand, or one of the brands is stronger and wants primary rights of ownership. There is never the right answer of a straight line through company merger rebranding projects as there is always numerous moving parts that all need to be considered.

5: Reputation and Brand Equity

Brand equity is built off goodwill and largely reputation. When this falters, to the degree of complete brand meltdown, a rebranding project may need to be brought in. Reputation is often everything in the market and when not nurtured or managed it can impact negatively on the company bottomline. Brand Remastering can over time erode any negative equity the brand has gained previously. Sometimes a Rebrand is almost like a rebuild of the entire organisation. From the personnel and core of the brand right through to the public exterior of the business and brand, change will potentially solve many issues for brand and business.

6: Brand Reposition

Often a brand repositioning strategy is a key driver of rebranding. The COG Design Brand Remastering product can directly steer an old brand close to ruin towards a new brand challenging the market leaders. A change to the brand positioning can have major influence to the success of a business. A new strategy, new communication, new brand promises, new corporate identity, it all makes way towards a brand repositioning. Rebranding validates these changes for all stakeholders.

7: Stakeholder Conflict

When a new brand is taken to market, it sometimes impossible to ensure there is no other entity that will be impacted by the launch of this new brand. When the new brand goes live, and it directly impacts a competitor, and this other brand decides to challenge your brand for ownership rights and go legal, it can also force an immediate rebrand to what was initially taken to market as brand new. There are many areas of conflict in branding and often the rebranding strategy is needed to retain some certain elements and disregard the ones that are conflicting. Stakeholder sentiment can also drive change int he way of brand Remastering and rebranding. When a rebrand is negatively received by internal senior stakeholders or the general public (they’re stakeholders too!), a revert back to and old entity prior rebrand can happen, and it often does!

8: Global Function

Some brands have the liberty of crossing borders, though need to be rebranded to be successful. This may be due to language barriers, or words having more than one meaning in another language. Or creatively the iconography and visual elements don’t suit the country in which it will operate. And in some instances, a rebrand is needed as the brand name may have negative associations – thus validating a name change. Sometimes portfolio management determines a rebrand project simply as the exact same product is licensed and can only be managed via rebranding.

9: Directives From The Top

A new senior manager can drive change. This agent of change for a brand can inject energy and bring a new lease of life to a company. When a CEO for instance is a true visionary and trail blazer, change is imminent and rebranding is always going to be on the cards. Changing what you can see if always low hanging fruit for senior management, so while it’s easy to request – it isn’t always to execute. Hear that all CEO’s 🙂

10: The Era Of Digital

The internet and digital business has forced many systems and business models to change, it has also created new systems and models too. Digitising a brand is often a main driver for rebranding, and some companies that have been reluctant to embrace digital will often undergo a rebrand at the same time as getting online. Brands now are launched online first, then supported in the physical space, but it wasn’t always like this. Now digital is powerful and validated the digital landscape often creates the key parameters of the Remastering brief and everything else falls in line.

 

Why Should You Remaster Your Brand?

That’s a great question, and one not to be taken lightly. Rebranding can be disastrous if not done by experts like COG Design.

Remastering your brand is crucial for staying current and competitive. It ensures relevance to evolving market dynamics and changing consumer preferences. Adapting to technological advancements and addressing negative perceptions, brand remastering creates a consistent and cohesive image.

Providing a competitive edge and differentiating from rivals, it’s essential for companies navigating mergers, acquisitions, or globalisation. The process revitalises brand excitement, attracting new audiences and reinforcing connections with existing customers. Ultimately, remastering reflects a strategic commitment to growth, innovation, and maintaining a strong, contemporary brand identity in the ever-changing business landscape.

Whatever the reasons may be, it is important to make the right choice. Make sure that you, your team and your management are well prepared by having internal immersion sessions prior engaging a creative agency like COG Design. Rebranding brings various risks and rewards – the latter the more desired outcome obviously. Sometimes rebranding is more difficult than when compared with brand creation.

Our Sydney graphic designers are experts at connecting your brand with your business offer.

We know that your business will perform optimally when your brand assets are designed and communicated strategically so they offer the business a platform to communicate the products, services which ensure your brand delivers its key point of difference to the marketplace.

The COG Design Studio Sydney is located in the beachside suburb of Cronulla (part of the Sutherland Shire), south of Sydney. All our graphic designers are located in our head office and communicate with exceptional customer service and operate with strong project management.

We partner with large and medium sized enterprise businesses right through to small start ups and sole traders. Our designers are focused on designing brand identities that are fine tuned against specific business requirements, and address issues that our Brand Remastering service solves. When our clients use COG Design as a cog in their businesses engine and they set our team spinning – they receive full service graphic design solutions.

Your all-in-one for small business. We know that small business in Australia requires a expert support partner that delivers results, provides value and ensures your business survives, grows and performs.

It’s About Your Business.

COG Design is an independent graphic design agency located in Sydney. Our focus is the survival, growth and performance of our clients businesses.

Established as a reliable brand design agency with over a decade in business, we welcome new partnerships and look forward to solving new problems with dynamic forward-thinking solutions.

We lead as a branding consultancy while operating as a design agency, providing our clients a unique offer that ensures small Australian businesses and brands have the best advice, knowledge and support that increases their rates of survival, growth and performance.

By combining the strength of emotion in storytelling and the power of branding sees COG Design’s products and services purposefully designed to create a sustainable go forward point for the brands and businesses that we are entrusted with.

Download Our Guide

COG-Design-Agency-Sydney_All-In-one

Leadership and experience is everything when seeking a trusted partner for your project and business support.

Leadership And Experience

COG Design is led by Luke Sullivan. A dynamic Sydney-born professional with a diverse design and marketing career.

Luke leads the design agency as a knowledgeable and dynamic captain at the helm. With professional experience across numerous industries, Lukes’ leadership at COG Design is brand aware and business considerate, which ensures that all brand and marketing briefs big and small, are driven through to commercial success.

The benefit of having a Managing Director with professional hands-on-the-tools experience ensures the transfer of real working knowledge throughout the agency. It also offers the COG Design service offering great depth and an honest transparent value.

Small businesses can unlock great value from a Sydney design agency by asking the right questions, fostering a positive working relationship, and seeking a partner who envisions their success. Together, we’ll create a powerful brand that paves the way for a prosperous future.

Let’s embark on this exciting journey, hand in hand!

 

cog-design-agency-luke-sullivan