Author: Franz Malten Buemann

It can be difficult (if not impossible) to create a brand that remains fresh, relevant, and inspiring years — or even decades — post-creation.
Just consider Dunkin’ Donuts: the brand, first established in 1973, recently shifted its focus to coffee — and, to demonstrate the shift, dropped the ‘Donuts’ in the name.
The rebrand makes sense. Dunkin’s consumers’ preferences, tastes, and style have likely changed quite a bit in the roughly 50 years since the first Dunkin’ was introduced. Dunkin’ needed a rebrand to ensure its business could grow with its consumers, or risk falling behind.
A rebrand can successfully re-establish your brand in an industry, help expand your product offerings, or attract new consumers. But it’s not as simple as copying-and-pasting a fresh logo onto your homepage.
A good rebrand demands redefining your company’s vision and values, re-establishing your brand’s audience, and rebuilding your brand identity from the ground up.
Fortunately, if your business is considering a rebrand, you’re in luck. Here, we’ve compiled five successful examples of rebrands to help inspire your own efforts. Use these examples to kickstart your own rebrand in 2021.

Five Successful Examples of Rebrands
1. Petco

In October 2020, Petco released an announcement declaring it would no longer sell electronic “shock” collars. The announcement was used to highlight the company’s rebranding efforts — the pet store, which is over 50 years old, was officially rebranding itself as a health and wellness company for pets.
The pet store redesigned Petco’s homepage, as well as the Petco app, to focus on their new initiatives — including health and wellness resources for pet parents, a “Right Food Finder” tool to help parents identify the healthiest foods for their pets, and an extended range of pet healthcare and insurance offerings.
The company also redesigned their logo, opting for a simple blue-and-white design over their previously-signature red and blue cat and dog (to mixed reviews).
Nowadays, many American pet owners treat their animals as members of the family — so Petco’s rebranding makes a lot of sense. The company aims to use the new branding to re-establish itself as the leading health and wellness brand for animals.
The new design better reflects the brand’s more holistic approach to animal wellness — including a dedicated landing page that outlines how to take care of your pet’s mental, physical, and social health, with a tagline, “We’re working with trusted experts to improve pet wellbeing by raising the standards of everything we do. Because it’s what we’d want if we were pets.”
Overall, this was an extremely successful rebrand as it focused on a shift in consumers’ lifestyle and preferences, and ensured the company’s refreshed vision reflected those priorities.
2. Adobe Creative Cloud

In May 2020, Adobe released a blog post titled, simply, “Evolving Our Brand Identity”. The article dives into the decisions behind Adobe Creative Cloud’s rebranding, and states, “We’re making these branding changes to ensure our portfolio continues to be easy for our customers to navigate and understand, as well as maintain a fresh look and feel.”
Among other things, Adobe Creative Cloud redesigned:

Its company logo. The company redesigned the logo to an all-red logo with warmer hues.

Its Creative Cloud logo. The new logo uses a colorful, rainbow-esque gradient to represent “the importance of creativity”. The colors in the logo are pulled together from various Adobe products, as well as the new Adobe red logo.

Its product logos. The company is adding 3-letter mnemonics to help viewers determine product families — i.e. Adobe Photoshop (Ps) and Adobe Photoshop Camera (PsC). The designers also used colors to organize products into categories.

The corners of all logos. The corners are now rounded to fit across a variety of devices and operating systems.

These redesigns successfully highlighted and organized the many product offerings of Adobe Creative Cloud. For instance, when you navigate to the “Video” product page on Adobe’s website, you’ll see all apps within the Video category are similar shades of blues and purples.
While some designers have expressed frustration over the new logo color similarities, it makes sense that the brand felt it necessary to organize their products better — with a catalog of over 50 products, it can feel overwhelming to choose the right ones for your needs. The updated logos should help make it easier to pick-and-choose.
3. Starbucks 

Over the years, Starbucks — one of the most valuable brands in the world — has proven the true power of a good brand. And one of the telltale signs of a good brand is the ability to consistently innovate and push the boundaries, rather than settling for what’s already working.
In 2020, Starbucks released its “Starbucks Creative Expression” brand expression guide. Among other things, the site focuses on Starbucks’ defined voice, typography, and logo in an effort to create consistency across channels and Starbucks locations.
In a few words, Starbucks aims to create a brand that is open, creative, carefree, and modern. On the Voice page, for instance, it reads, “We’re confidently turning down the volume of competing messages to elevate experience, removing obstacles in the way of people finding exactly what they seek at Starbucks.”

“By using both functional and expressive voices, we’ll create more space for brand relevance, connection and joy.”

The guideline adds, “When we have the space, we tell a passionate coffee story. But even with just a few words, our copy can make you smile.”
Similarly, Starbucks recently rebranded its logo to the simple Siren logo without the “Starbucks Coffee” wordmark wrapped around it. The company notes, “The preferred approach is to use the Siren logo by itself, unlocked from the wordmark. This allows flexibility to present the Siren with greater prominence while maintaining a considered, open and modern presentation.”
Ultimately, this most recent Starbucks rebrand is simple and effective. Rather than moving too far in the opposite direction of the brand’s roots, the company sticks to its fundamental company vision while making slight alterations to continue serving the needs and preferences of its consumers.
4. GoDaddy 

A web hosting service founded back in 1997, GoDaddy was in need of an upgrade. In early 2020, they did just that, creating a brand-new logo, refreshing their website design, and creating new marketing campaigns to match the new look. Their design page reads, “A new brand for a new era” and focuses on how GoDaddy’s users — the everyday entrepreneurs — inspired the new look.
One of GoDaddy’s most striking changes is the new logo, named the GO. GoDaddy believes the GO represents “the indomitable spirit of everyday entrepreneurs … joy that entrepreneurs everywhere experience … and [a] continuous, overlapping stroke [which] symbolizes the connection all entrepreneurs share.”
GoDaddy’s new design uses bold, colorful visuals, hand-drawn illustrations, and a bold, serif font evokes a sense of inspiration and joy. GoDaddy’s brand voice, depicted in recent campaigns, aims to be casual, human, and friendly.
While some brands might need less of a full makeover, GoDaddy’s older image felt outdated and less cohesive. Their rebranding reflects the modern tastes, personalities, and needs of the GoDaddy’s user in 2020.
5. Pottery Barn

This last example is a subtler, more internal rebrand than the others in this list, but equally important. Pottery Barn, a roughly 70-year-old home furnishing company, has now put sustainability as the central focus of their brand, promising consumers that what they purchase will be worthwhile — both in terms of quality, and in terms of environmental impact.
Pottery Barn, named the most sustainable home furnishings retailer, has focused its efforts on sustainability with a dedicated landing page outlining its commitments.
Among other things, Pottery Barn promises to:

Plant a tree (with the Arbor Day Foundation) every time a consumer purchases a piece of indoor wood furniture.
Reach 100% responsibly-sourced cotton by the end of 2021.
Keep products out of landfills by restoring items with a new Pottery Barn “Renewed” line.
Contribute money for communities to invest in health clinics, water filtration systems, and more (the brand has currently contributed $3 million).

While this focus on sustainability isn’t brand-new for Pottery Barn, its recent efforts are more hyper-focused on it than ever. Consider, for instance, how this detailed Fast Company article about Pottery Barn’s style, published in 2003, doesn’t mention sustainability once.
The article also highlights how, more than 20 years ago, Pottery Barn used to purchase merchandise from outside vendors and assemble into a collection — this lack of ownership likely made it difficult to ensure sustainable products. Additionally, Pottery Barn announced its partnership with the Renewal Workshop in September 2020.
Ultimately, as your brand grows with your consumers, it’s important to take into account what matters to them today. Pottery Barn has done an excellent job identifying a sweet-spot in the furniture marketplace: Sustainability. As consumers continue to use this value as a guiding light in their purchasing decisions, it makes sense for Pottery Barn to ensure all their updated marketing materials reflects this mission.
Rebranding Takeaways for Marketers
When you take a look at the examples listed above, it can be easy to spot some similarities that made them all strong contenders for best rebrands. 
If you’re considering a rebrand for your own business, here are a few takeaways: 

Keep your audience at the forefront of your plans. What tastes and preferences do they have? What inspires or excites them? How would they want your website designed? 

Use your consumers’ outside preferences to shape your rebranding. What passions do your consumers have beyond your products or services, and what do they care most about — can you weave those into your brand story, similar to how Petco focused on animal wellness and Pottery Barn focused on sustainability? 

A rebrand is more than just a logo change. To properly rebrand, you’ll want to conduct a content audit and analyze all your existing content to ensure each webpage, graphic, and advertisement is updated to fit your new image. 

A brand guideline page is critical for cohesion. Most examples in this list have a dedicated brand guideline page for ensuring each employee is empowered with the right tools to create content that fits the new look. Both GoDaddy and Starbucks, for instance, outline how the voice should sound, what fonts to use, and even what colors to include in any public-facing marketing materials. 

Ultimately, a rebranding strategy can be an exciting and effective opportunity to delight existing customers while attracting new ones. Use the takeaways listed above, as well as inspiration from examples in this list, to get started with your own fresh look for 2021 and beyond.

Few industries escaped 2020 unchanged, and digital media was no different.
At Influence & Co., our proprietary content marketing software and our process of working with hundreds of contributors, editors, and journalists offered us courtside seats to watch the industry evolve — and we compiled our most relevant digital media research for marketers and content creators into our latest “State of Digital Media” report.
Wondering how to make guest posts stand out? Our third digital media survey combines the opinions of experts with our own exhaustive content analysis, and the result is a tool that can be used to hone your content in order to gain more success in 2021.
One of the biggest findings? Guest-contributed content isn’t going anywhere. In fact, 93% of editors see themselves publishing the same number of guest posts or even more this year.
An increase in guest-contributed content is good news for prospective contributors. But just because more guest post slots are becoming available doesn’t mean guest contributors can afford to send lackluster pitches.
Publication editors haven’t lowered their standards and aren’t likely to, so read on to find out what publications want so you can give your pitches the best shot at hitting the mark and achieving acceptance.
(Note: All of the following statistics are taken from our 2021 State of Digital Media report.)

How to Make Guest Posts Stand Out
The publication editors we surveyed receive pitches day in and day out. Although they might sometimes wish for one, there’s no “unsubscribe” button they can hit to pare down this deluge of requests. That constant barrage on publication editors’ inboxes is why it’s critical to make sure your content is worth reading.
For a guest post to break through the noise, it needs to check these four boxes:
1. A pitch that is on-topic and non-promotional.
Editors receive lots of pitches that are little more than subtle ads — or, in some cases, not so subtle — for an author’s product or service.
Other pitches avoid promotion, which is great, but they also fail to fit the scope of the publication. Or the pitch might offer an opinion or perspective that readers could get from a host of other outlets.
Perhaps the best thing you can do to get an editor’s attention is to write a balanced pitch that’s on-topic, non-promotional, and fresh. And be mindful of how many other pitches editors work through each day. The path to an editor’s heart is short, so keep your pitch brief.
“I’m more likely to read a pitch on a strong topic that is pertinent to our audience and is not blatantly self-serving.” — Paul Nolan, Editor at Sales & Marketing Management
“I’m more likely to read a pitch if it’s clear that the person knows what I cover, reads our publication, and has relevant and high-level executives who are willing to chat on record.” — Allison Schiff, Senior Editor at AdExchanger
2. Multimedia content.
Given that 20% of editors are looking to publish podcasts in 2021, it could be worth pitching yourself as a potential podcast guest for publications that have podcasts. If you go this route, include any experience you might have that demonstrates your ability to hold up your end of a compelling and insightful conversation.
Another 20% of editors plan to publish infographics, so make sure you have that graphic designer on speed dial. And 33% will make space for videos, so start building a library of video assets that could help fulfill this need.
3. Expert opinions with fresh perspectives.
The articles you submit to publications need to push ahead of trends, and you should be able to speak with authority on cutting-edge insights in your industry. In terms of content, if a trend is already being covered by some media outlets, you’re probably too late to the party.
For your pitch about a much-discussed topic to have even a slim chance of acceptance, you’ll need to offer a unique opinion or insight that readers won’t find anywhere else.
“Guest posts must be ahead of the trends. By the time we get article offers on a hot topic, we have already known about that topic and published articles on it.” — Jim Davis, Editor at HR Daily Advisor
4. A “Goldilocks” word count.
We analyzed thousands of pieces of content published during the second half of 2020 and found that the most-shared content was an average of 986 words long. This represents an increase from previous years.
It’s always imperative to follow the guidelines of the specific publication you’re targeting, but if there’s any wiggle room in terms of word count, landing in the 900- to 1,000-word range can help you create shareable content — which is a result all editors and contributors want.
Guest posting is an incredible opportunity to gain exposure, boost your credibility, and speak directly to your ideal audience, but editors are understandably protective of their publications when they’re handing the mic to a stranger.
To improve the likelihood that your pitch is accepted, you need to know how the digital media industry is changing, and what publishers want. Hopefully, the four steps identified above will help get you started.

submitted by /u/Parker_in_HK [link] [comments]

 

 

In particular, we have rolled out a couple of important improvements around email marketing and product recommendations and created new weekly and monthly reports making it even easier to stay on top of key information including revenue, campaign results, and changes in contacts databases.

 

Right now, we are running final tests on the most powerful dynamic segmentation tool on the market, namely Actionable eCommerce Insights. This AI-powered product for marketers offers tips and tricks about actions they should take to improve crucial marketing KPIs.

 

Our product strategy remains to deliver best-in-class and innovative solutions for online stores. As you know, last year ended with a number of strong new features including the Loyalty Management Program for eCommerce, Command Center, and AI Search Turbocharger for Online Store as well as the addition of Whatsapp and Viber to our AI-based omnichannel execution stack.

 

We are continuing this dynamic tech growth, and, in Q1, we have delivered two new exciting solutions: AI Visual Search and Voice Commerce.

 

AI Visual Search

 

 

This is an innovative tool, powered by Google’s AI Engine, that supports the standard operation of the online shop search box mechanism. Thanks to this feature, customers can upload a picture of something they like, and AI Visual Search will automatically display similar products that match the desired look and feel. It is a simple solution that improves customer experience and helps stores meet the most demanding expectations of the search function.  

.carousel {
padding: 0 30px;
}
.carousel-control.left,
.carousel-control.right {
background: transparent;
font-size: 50px;
height: fit-content;
width: fit-content;
color: #cdcbcd;
}

.carousel-control.left:hover {
opacity: 0.9;
}

.carousel-control.left:focus,
.carousel-control.left:active {
opacity: 0.5;
}

.carousel-control.right:hover {
opacity: 0.9;
}

.carousel-control.right:focus,
.carousel-control.right:active {
opacity: 0.5;
}

.item img {
position: absolute;
top: 50%;
left: 50%;
transform: translate(-50%, -50%);
}

.carousel-control {
top: 50%;
transform: translateY(-50%);
}

.item {
min-height: 670px;
}

@media (max-width: 440px) {
.item {
min-height: 380px;
}
}

Previous

Next

 

Voice Commerce 

.carousel {
padding: 0 30px;
}
.carousel-control.left,
.carousel-control.right {
background: transparent;
font-size: 50px;
height: fit-content;
width: fit-content;
color: #cdcbcd;
}

.carousel-control.left:hover {
opacity: 0.9;
}

.carousel-control.left:focus,
.carousel-control.left:active {
opacity: 0.5;
}

.carousel-control.right:hover {
opacity: 0.9;
}

.carousel-control.right:focus,
.carousel-control.right:active {
opacity: 0.5;
}

.item img {
position: absolute;
top: 50%;
left: 50%;
transform: translate(-50%, -50%);
}

.carousel-control {
top: 50%;
transform: translateY(-50%);
}

.item {
min-height: 470px;
}

@media (max-width: 440px) {
.item {
min-height: 280px;
}
}

Previous

Next

This is another exciting feature which connects CDP data, NLP, and AI product recommendations to deliver a next-gen mobile buying experience. One-click access to Voice Commerce enables users to search and purchase products quickly using vocal commands, and an advanced reporting and search analytics dashboard means its success can be measured.

 

We are currently working on further cutting-edge features. I am extremely proud of all of these developments, and their market launch is just around the corner.

 

 

Marketing Insights

 

In another innovation, this AI-powered tool includes actionable business insights to enable marketers to make informed and timely decisions about improving current marketing campaigns. Sophisticated tips and tricks are provided that contain information on what should be done to get the most out of SALESmanago and thereby boost revenue. 

 

Customer Segmentation Center 

 

The Segmentation Center is a new solution that includes simple, yet advanced, predefined dynamic market sectors and allows users to create custom contact groups to run focused marketing strategies. It is a single place where customer data can be managed, with extensive filters and advanced criteria to specify recipients according to context. It is a simply unbeatable feature, giving our customers unlimited segmentation possibilities, and it will become the best such module on the market. 

 

We aim to provide clients with the best, most innovative solutions to stay one step ahead of their competition. As such, we are renewing and enriching existing Web Push Notifications and agreement forms so their full potential can be utilized. After reviewing customer feedback and analyzing market solutions, we have developed a project to make web push campaigns more intuitive, easier, and quicker to implement. 

 

Given what we have achieved in the last three months, we would like to share some of the amazing projects coming next on our roadmap. 

 

One of these is the Notification Center, a state-of-the-art solution that allows personalized direct communication with customers through the website and displays products that perfectly match their interests and needs. We want to enrich the Notification Center with a Products Like mechanism which will let customers create a wish list, save their favorite products, and review them anytime. 

 

Another project we want to introduce is the Customer Preference Center. We want to continue meeting our clients’ expectations in line with the changing requirements and trends related to data ethics, and we believe that this feature will help them better understand their customers’ preferences. This Customer Preference Center will enable customers to manage their interests through personalization and purchase intentions. We are focused on zero-party data and the processes which will help enrich 360-degree customer profiles.  

 

“Zero-party data is gold…When a customer trusts a brand enough to provide this really meaningful data, it means that the brand doesn’t have to go off and infer what the customer wants.”

Fatemeh Khatibloo, VP Principal Analyst, Forrester

 

If you are reading this article as a SALESmanago customer, you will know that we like to surprise you, and we will share plans for additional features very soon. Please do not hesitate to contact me: katarzyna.rejdych@salesmanago.com