Anyone who has been involved in a rebrand or brand refresh will gladly tell you how complex and stress-inducing it can be.

There are many moving parts to stay on top of, from managing the personnel at the heart of this change, to implementing updates to your visual identity across your entire suite of brand assets.

Done right, a rebrand can revitalise your organisation, cut through to a whole new audience, and take your brand’s visibility to a whole new level. But, if handled poorly, it can burn precious time and money, and alienate your most loyal customers.

To put your team in the strongest position to overcome the plethora of rebranding challenges, it’s imperative you equip your employees with the right tools and technology to deliver an effective rebrand on schedule and on budget.

Here, we’ll show you 10 tools you should prioritise to ensure your new brand identity is managed as efficiently and seamlessly as possible.

What are the steps to a successful rebrand?

Before we outline the rebranding tools and marketing technology crucial for the best possible outcome, let’s first break down the rebranding process. After all, knowing the steps to a successful rebrand is key to understanding where these tools can slot in.

While your specific checklist will be unique to your organisation and the scale of your rebrand, we have broken this down into 9 top-line actions that are typically essential to any effective rebrand:

1. Conduct a brand audit, identifying your strengths and weaknesses and establishing any change in target audiences, vision or identity
2. Carry out research into competitors and other brands as inspiration to guide the direction of your rebrand
3. Determine your rebrand’s scale – are you planning on a partial rebrand, a brand refresh, or a full rebrand?
4. Create your rebrand strategy, define your new brand identity and set your ambitions for this project
5. Develop the assets needed for your rebrand – brand elements, marketing materials, designs, names, slogans, etc.
6. Build new brand guidelines that encapsulate the visual identity, tone and overall essence of your updated brand
7. Communicate your brand revamp with your internal stakeholders, marketers and employees
8. Engage your customers and wider audiences about your rebrand so they are informed and prepared for this shift
9. Roll out your rebrand launch and manage the post-rebrand journey

As you can see, there’s a lot to contend with – especially when you take into account the wide range of marketing channels you need content for and the importance of managing the expectations of your existing customers.

The right tools and technology can support you and your team at every step of the process, putting you on the path to a rebrand that achieves the success of Meta or Guinness rather than the unwanted results of GAP or Tropicana. Here are 10 to consider adding to your rebrand toolkit.

10 rebranding tools and technologies to activate your rebrand 

1. Market research tools

Great marketing is forged from great research – a rebrand is no different. High-calibre market research tools give you the data and insight you need to guide your rebranding strategy, from identifying the wants and pain points of your target audiences, to understanding the sentiment surrounding your existing brand.

With the right research behind you, you can make informed decisions about the scale of your rebrand, determine where to focus your attention to resonate with potential customers, and discover what competitors and other brands are doing to inspire your evolution.

Of course, market research is a large category in itself, so here are the specific types of tools you should look into in this area:

2. Brand portals

A successful rebrand must be applied consistently across all channels to stick with customers. You cannot afford for old designs, logos, slogans and beyond to creep back into your marketing – everyone in your team must be informed and educated on your up-to-date identity so they follow it as intended.

A brand portal (or brand hub) can be a valuable tool for achieving this requirement. By gathering everything that dictates your new brand strategy in one cloud-based, online location – guidelines, handbooks, tutorials, example assets, etc. – a brand portal becomes the “home” of your rebrand, communicating this change to every relevant user without hassle or confusion.

Bringing your brand values, logo policies, colour palettes, typography, visual elements and more into a single, accessible place, you go a long way to ensure brand consistency in the weeks, months and years after your rebrand launch.

3. Digital Asset Management (DAM) systems

In a similar vein, an effective Digital Asset Management (DAM) solution enables you to lock down the assets at the core of your rebrand. Many marketers have struggled with outdated logos or obsolete branding emerging from different areas following a refreshed identity.

A DAM system keeps all of the latest, verified and approved assets in one library, which your teams across the globe can refer to for their marketing campaigns and other activities. Plus, a good-quality version will include user permissions that prevent users from accessing outdated assets, so there’s never a risk of old materials resurfacing.

Through this “single source of truth”, investing in a DAM goes another step toward guaranteeing your branding is applied consistently on all platforms, and creates a sensible, easy-to-navigate repository for every asset created for your rebrand.

4. Project management tools

The many moving parts behind a rebrand mean strong project management is vital to keep these organised, aligned and progressing in the right direction. Any oversight or gap can cause mistakes that set your rebrand back weeks, send costs skyrocketing and lead to a rocky rollout.

There’s a wide variety of project management tools and software on the market to help you ensure tasks are assigned to the right people, maintain collaboration among the key players in this process, and track progress from start to finish. Here are a few of the leading names to consider:

• Trello
• Asana
• monday.com
• Basecamp
• Smartsheet

Investing in one or more of these tools can keep your rebranding project on time and on budget, as well as support your marketing activities post-rebrand.

5. Team communication platforms

In addition to project management tools, team communication platforms are an essential element to keep everyone on the same page during the planning and execution of your rebrand. 

If your marketing teams are spread out across the globe or work remotely, relying on emails and phone calls will only slow down progress. A more instant, purpose-built communication tool such as Slack, Hive or Zoom will enable your people to interact more efficiently, leading to a more streamlined and organised journey.

6. Content creation and graphic design software

If you are handling your rebrand in-house, then powerful content creation and graphic design software is an absolute must. This will form the basis for your new logo, visual elements, designs, imagery and beyond, setting the standard that your wider teams will replicate moving forward.

So it’s crucial you choose this technology wisely. With many, many options out in the market, be sure to ask the right questions to locate the design software that’s right for you, such as:

However, if you are working with a dedicated rebrand company or design agency to oversee the development of your rebrand, this technology becomes less of a priority.

7. Design template software

Regardless of whether you are spearheading the creation of your refreshed brand identity in-house or leaving this task to an external partner, your teams must be able to recreate it for your day-to-day marketing demands.

As the demand for digital content and asset creation continues to grow, there will be limits on how fast your marketing team can keep up. Instead, using your rebrand as the basis for a wide range of on-brand design templates can empower anyone in your organisation to produce assets in line with your new identity, making your teams more agile and consistent.

With the right template software in place, your marketing becomes more self-sufficient and your teams can hit the ground running with asset creation as soon as your rebrand launches.

8. Campaign planning tools

Your rebrand launch is a make-or-break moment in this process. It should be built up through your marketing to build anticipation and gradually introduce your audience to your brand’s new look and feel – not forced out without warning like the transition from Twitter to X.

A successful rebrand requires a successful launch campaign. A capable campaign execution tool empowers you to map out this event with precision and care, plotting out the teases, rationales and explainers that will help your rebrand resonate with both new and existing customers.

Beyond the launch event, campaign planning tools can also add structure and consistency to your marketing activities long after your rebrand has taken centre stage.

9. Data and analytics tools

When you formed your rebrand strategy, you undoubtedly would have established targets and KPIs to measure the success of your rebrand. These targets may include:

To track your performance against these and other parameters, you should invest in robust data and analytics software.

From brand sentiment and social listening tools that enable you to gauge the reception of your rebrand, to financial analysis software to assess the tangible outcomes of this refresh – gathering data in the weeks and months after you rebranded will help you identify any areas for improvement.

10. Brand management suites

A successful rebrand is built on the strength of your brand management. This encapsulates the strategies, techniques and processes your organisation uses to maintain and improve your brand in the long term.

An end-to-end brand management suite incorporates several of the tools outlined above – DAM systems, content creation, brand portals, campaign planning – into one universal solution.

This consolidated platform can make it simpler to handle your numerous responsibilities without needing to juggle or invest in multiple disparate tools. This multi-layered approach streamlines your technological load, while still giving you the same all-encompassing support.

Make your rebrand stick with the right tools and technology

Rebranding is a heavy undertaking at any scale. You need the right vision, the right people and the right technology to deliver a result that places your new-look brand on the best footing possible. A direction that takes your company forward and builds deeper connections with your audience, rather than alienates people so much that you have to return to square one.

We hope this article helps steer you toward the optimal rebranding tools for your specific marketing efforts. By using our categories as your starting point, you can look forward to a more straightforward, efficient and stress-free journey, and start preparing for a bright future under your new brand identity.

From establishing the reasons for a refresh and conducting competitor research, to securing stakeholder buy-in and internally communicating changes – the challenges involved in launching any rebrand are significant.

In fact, so much energy goes into developing these new identities that by the time they are unveiled, companies often find they lack the infrastructure and energy to fully support and manage their brand as it enters the real world. 

History is littered with examples of rebrands that never captured the imagination of customers or pushed their companies forward – and a substantial number of these might have stood a better shot had their post-launch process been properly planned out.

So, how do you ensure your new brand identity sticks the landing? Preparing just as thoroughly for the weeks and months after a rebrand as you did for its development can make the difference between a rebrand that stands the test of time and one that falls flat on arrival.

Below, we break down the challenges your identity has to face post-launch, and share our top tips to overcome these pitfalls and empower your new look to thrive.

3 challenges your rebrand rollout has to overcome

The brand rollout checklist is complete: your style guides are built, your team members are on board and your new identity is off the ground.

To keep it there, it’s really important you’re taking the time to properly nurture and support your new look. Doing that effectively requires a considered approach – one cognisant of the challenges ahead.

Challenge #1 – Addressing customer resistance

Perhaps one of the biggest hurdles your rebrand will face is pushback from customers.

It’s not just because humans are creatures of habit. In a world where social media and personalisation are at the tip of every campaign, chances are that many of your customers have formed strong emotional connections with your brand and what it represents. 

Tampering with that balance by introducing a new name, image or identity to the mix risks causing upset among your customers and damaging that all-important metric: trust.

Although the route to rebuilding trust and customer loyalty can be a long and involved process, letting negative sentiment run wild in the weeks, months and years after launch can have severe repercussions for your rebrand.

You only have to look back at American retailer GAP to see what’s at stake when you get it wrong.

After investing months of time and an estimated $100 million into a new, more high-brow identity, customers struggled to relate. This gave way to a wave of negativity they never planned for, causing the brand to revert to its original branding just six days after launch.

Challenge #2 – Upholding a consistent brand

With the introduction of new visual elements, colour palettes, names and branding guidelines across your company, it’s imperative your teams do all they can to present a consistent image across every brand touchpoint.

The last thing you want when investing significant amounts of time, effort and money into new marketing materials is to water down your newly built brand identity with a disjointed appearance. 

It doesn’t matter if a single old asset slips through the cracks, or an office in another region is slow to catch up. In today’s hyper-connected world, incoherence like this breeds confusion, distrust and chaos.

To present a strong brand identity to consumers new and old, you need every employee to understand your new identity – as well as how to activate and apply it – regardless of the office they work in or their role in your business.

Challenge #3 – Managing the ongoing logistics of your identity

Another major challenge your new brand identity faces in the journey to long-term recognition is logistics.

From being able to deliver on-brand content creation at the required scale to express your new identity, to ensuring individuals from across your business are kept on the same page at all times, the details involved in nurturing your ongoing rebrand can be enough to make even the most experienced brand manager dizzy.

And as the library of new assets grows from the hundreds into the thousands, maintaining control over your company’s new image only becomes harder without the right content creation and Digital Asset Management tools.

Combined with the addition of new hires to your teams and the small adjustments you may make as your identity matures – you can start to see the immense hurdle that logistics presents to a long-lasting rebrand.

5 tips for long-term rebrand success

There are many hurdles involved in executing a successful rebrand launch. But by overcoming them, you position your new brand on the path of long-term success. 

To help you get there, these are our top 5 tips to give your new brand identity that all-important staying power.

1. Refine your communication strategy

Communication is one of the most important aspects to ensure your updated brand becomes a permanent fixture.

Whether that’s with employees throughout your business or customers across your markets, you need to ensure that anyone, at any stage in your journey, knows exactly what has changed, how it affects them, and why you decided to make this transition.

How you do this will depend on the specifics of your brand, but as a general rule of thumb, when you’re tired of repeating it, your target audiences are only just starting to get the message – so keep up the conversation as often as you can.

2. Invest in employee training and engagement

Over time, as your identity matures, your goals change, and perceptions shift, you’ll naturally start to make subtle changes to your tone, logo and more.

To make sure everyone throughout your company can remain both agile and on-brand from tweak to tweak, few things are as important to the ongoing success of your rebrand as employee training and engagement. 

Your colleagues are the true activators of your brand from the moment it’s launched – any deviation from your old branding will reflect badly on you and your company overall. So the fundamentals of your updated brand must be drilled into your personnel long after the rebrand is rolled out.

Tools like centralised brand hubs can be a real asset in this regard. Containing everything from style guides to brand strategies, these tools can make immersing your colleagues in your living, breathing identity a seamless formality.

3. Gather feedback from your audiences

Feedback is the cornerstone of any successful rebrand rollout plan. It’s how you align your image with customer expectations, and deliver an identity that sticks in their minds for years to come.

So, after you’ve revealed your new look to the world, make sure you listen to what your audiences have to say.

People will probably have an opinion on your new look, be it positive, negative or somewhere in between. By capturing this insight, spotting patterns and addressing common criticisms, you can put your rebrand on the best footing for success, and garner some much-needed goodwill along the way.

4. Track data and make refinements

When you initially embarked on the rebrand process, you will have had clear goals in mind with what you wanted to achieve, be it reaching new audiences, raising revenue or boosting your brand equity.

So, to determine whether your rebrand is delivering against the KPIs you set out from the outset, it’s crucial that you continue to track relevant data in the period past your launch date.

While the specific metrics you need to track will be individual to you, some of the most common figures to keep an eye on in the weeks and months after the big reveal may include:

• Net Promoter Score (NPS) – a measurement of customer loyalty, often gauged through the provision of a single-question survey
• Social media engagement – a way of assessing how well consumers are responding to your new look and feel
• Customer retention rate – a figure that demonstrates how well you are retaining patrons post-launch
• Revenue growth – a way of determining the return the launch of your new brand has gained for your business

With this data in hand, you can gain the insight you need to make meaningful adjustments to your rebrand after launch and improve its long-term impact.

5. Utilise brand management software

Maintaining brand consistency. Educating global teams. Keeping on top of asset production. It’s no secret that managing the long-term deployment of your brand is a herculean effort – one you can’t afford to take your attention away from.

With so much on the line, you need to nail every campaign, keep teams on-brand, and manage your ever-growing library of brand assets. But that’s a huge ask for any brand manager or marketing team.

That’s why more and more organisations today are investing in broader, end-to-end brand management suites to ease the burden from their shoulders.

From enabling your entire team to organise, share and control your marketing assets in a Digital Asset Management (DAM) system, to empowering everyone to produce professional, on-brand assets at scale – these broad platforms are enabling modern businesses to create and manage their content with unparalleled efficiency and consistency.

Create a brighter future for your new brand to thrive

Revitalising your brand is a complex, costly and lengthy undertaking – one that can require the combined effort of your entire marketing department, a six-figure investment, and months of hard work.

But simply forming this identity is not enough. To succeed in the same way Old Spice and Lego have, it’s up to you to carry that image into the minds of new and existing customers, day in, day out.

Even the smallest inconsistencies in appearance or oversights in logistics can send your freshly launched brand crashing down. But with the right approach after this moment, you can build trust back among your audiences, inspire new customers into your ranks, and secure the future of your fresh new identity.

All it takes is a considered approach and the right rebranding tools – topics we hope this article has given you the advice and confidence to progress towards. 

Most modern-day brand managers will tell you their job has become infinitely more complex in the last few decades. 

As organisations look to reach an increasingly global audience, navigate more marketing channels than ever, and work to stay consistent amid growing consumer expectations, controlling brand identity has become an ongoing battle.

In this battle, technology is your great equaliser. That’s why more and more brand marketing teams have enlisted the help of a DAM (Digital Asset Management) system to bring their sprawling collection of digital assets under one roof.

The right DAM solution ensures marketing teams know exactly where approved brand assets are, and can locate relevant content in seconds. Combined with the right user permissions, tagging systems and approval workflows, your DAM becomes a single source of truth for your organisation.

Sounds like the perfect solution, right? Well, not quite.

Don’t get us wrong, we know how valuable a great DAM system is – our own DAM is ranked one of the best worldwide according to Forrester. But this also means we understand its limitations and that, alone, it can’t deliver the end-to-end brand governance today’s marketers need.

DAM gives you control over your marketing collateral; a brand portal offers you control over your brand identity.

What is a brand portal?

A brand portal, also often referred to as a brand hub, is a dedicated cloud-based platform that brings together everything that defines your brand culture. A true “home” for your brand.

In its optimal form, this central hub provides a one-stop shop for anyone – from your executive marketing team to your ground-level employees – to understand your branding style and what your organisation represents. This includes:

• Clearly defined brand guidelines and style guides
• Your company vision and mission statements
• Actionable on-brand templates for all types of marketing materials
• Tutorials, handbooks and FAQs on brand application
• Resources for employees to use your branding for their teams’ purposes

Essentially, a quality brand portal ensures brand consistency, educates users and empowers your marketing teams. It showcases the blueprint of your brand in a presentable, digestible way, so you can keep your identity locked down on every channel.

3 limitations of a standalone DAM that a brand portal fixes

You may be wondering: “Can’t DAM software offer this same level of brand management?”

DAM systems are great at what they do, which is manage your digital assets. But their potential as an end-to-end brand management suite falls short in several key areas:

1. Supports user adoption

Firstly, a DAM system is only valuable if people use it. Many DAM implementations never deliver a return on investment because employees don’t universally adopt it, meaning parts of their workforce retain the same cumbersome, inefficient approach to digital asset management.

There are many potential reasons for this lack of adoption: minimal training and onboarding, failure to inform employees, a set-and-forget mentality, etc. But in our experience, one of the major roadblocks is education. Put simply, users don’t know how to access the DAM system itself, let alone the brand assets within it.

A brand portal addresses this issue. Establishing an assigned “home” for your brand that your people know about and is immediately accessible on any work device can act as the gateway for your DAM system.

This helps your team understand that your DAM solution is part of your overall brand management ecosystem, enabling them to recognise its purpose and improve its adoption rate.

2. Educate, not dictate

Next, while a standalone DAM system brings together all approved brand assets – something that can effectively illustrate how future assets should look – it is not the same as someone truly understanding your brand.

This approach leaves room for misinterpretation and inconsistency. A user may create a brand asset based on one they saw on your DAM, only for it to be ill-fitting for that particular marketing channel, target audience or application.

A DAM is not brand management in the same way a centralised brand portal can be. By ensuring this incorporates guidelines, handbooks, tutorials and more alongside exemplary brand assets, you can properly educate your users on how to apply your brand correctly on every channel towards every audience.

3. Communicates evolution

Finally, a standalone DAM system is a snapshot of the current stage of your brand’s journey. If you undergo a rebrand or a brand refresh, how can your DAM communicate this to your users instead of them gradually seeing old assets being replaced by new ones?

A brand portal can represent your brand’s evolution deliberately and transparently to your global workforce. Designing and moulding this central hub around your brand’s visual identity allows you to instantly communicate your updated identity after a rebrand or refresh.

No mixed messages. No opportunities for old assets to resurface. Immediately people know your new identity and have this reinforced with up-to-date guidelines and examples, making a brand portal a valuable ally as your company develops and scales over time.

Plus, for design agencies guiding a company through a rebrand, a brand portal is a perfect tool to visualise this change both succinctly and distinctly.

Remember – a brand portal complements a DAM

We are not advocating for a brand portal to replace a DAM system. Instead, a good brand portal acts as its perfect partner, encouraging company-wide adoption and providing much-needed context to the brand assets within your DAM.

Want to know more about making the most of your DAM solution? Check out our 7 steps to Digital Asset Management success.

4 more ways brand portals deliver true brand management

So, we’ve identified 3 examples of how a brand portal builds upon a DAM in the brand management landscape. But the benefits of a high-quality brand hub extend even further:

1. Absolute brand consistency

Fundamentally, your brand portal is the key to a consistent presence on all marketing platforms. By bringing everything that underpins your branding in one place, you can ensure a harmonious message to your potential customers, which goes a long way to building trust, raising awareness and improving user experiences.

2. Increased marketing efficiency

If your people are only a click away from the guidelines that steer your content creation, they can produce collateral faster. 

Combined with intelligent custom templates, this can mean less strain on your marketing team and graphic designers to produce around the clock. In turn, local teams are empowered to create for their own campaign needs, leading to a more efficient process.

3. Security over your brand culture

Allowing the right people access to your brand guidelines, style guides and wider resources preserves your brand’s equity. This can alleviate the burden on you and your brand management team, reducing your need to review and approve every asset created, so you can concentrate on more pressing matters.

4. Company-wide collaboration

Finally, having a cloud-based portal at the heart of your brand, shared across your entire workforce, can serve as a means for stronger collaboration workflows. Especially for teams with users spread worldwide, this single point of reference can help you keep everyone on the same page at all times.

What features should I look for in a quality brand portal?

Now you understand how a quality brand portal opens the door for comprehensive brand management, what does a good brand portal look like? 

Here are 6 of the key features you should prioritise in your hunt for the optimal brand portal:

1. Customisable layouts: It’s crucial your brand portal feels like your own, so the layout and its components should be completely customisable using your visual elements
2. Multiple languages and translations: Your brand portal should allow you to create dedicated versions for users who operate in different territories, written in their language and outlining any unique nuances to your brand in these locations
3. Drag-and-drop functionality: You should be able to reposition content on your brand hub in a couple of clicks for absolute ease of use
4. Simple section builders: Your brand portal should give you the flexibility to design page layouts and grids that maximise the impact of your content
5. WYSIWYG software: A WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) format allows you to update and refine your brand portal without any coding expertise
6. Easy integration: Your brand portal should be an extension of your existing marketing technology and be simple to integrate within your existing ecosystem

As well as these key features, the ideal brand portal must also be backed by a reputable, reliable provider. With this in mind, we encourage you to research available options and ask the right questions to locate your perfect match:

Better brand management starts with your brand portal

To stay in control of an overwhelming wave of digital brand assets, a DAM system is your best bet.

From providing the consistency your brand and customers demand, to unlocking efficiencies within your marketing operations, we hope this article has helped you understand exactly why a solid brand portal is so important, and the ways a DAM system falls short on its own.

Similar to how you work alongside your marketing teams, agency partners and wider colleagues to push your brand to new heights, brand management technology is also a team effort.

Pairing up your DAM solution with a compatible brand portal allows you to control, share, and activate your brand as it is meant to be.

Whether your agency is in charge of crafting a complete rebrand for a client’s business, or putting together the design elements for a multichannel marketing campaign, creating content for your partners is a substantial undertaking. One that can occupy your focus for days, weeks or even months. 

With so much time and effort invested into these endeavours, the last thing you want is for clients to misunderstand your vision. Being forced into a complete rethink at this stage could mean lengthy delays, soaring client costs and damage to your agency-client relationship.

To ensure your projects succeed with minimal setbacks, it isn’t just important to deliver high-quality graphic design. Your agency needs to master the art of brand presentation.

Making a deliberate effort to immerse your clients in your ideas is essential if you want your clients to walk away fully comprehending exactly what your proposal entails.

It also gives you a valuable opportunity to fully showcase the design elements you’ve created, explain the rationale behind your creative process, and outline the guidelines your clients can use to successfully roll out their rebrand, brand refresh or new campaign.

But how do you make an illuminating first impression? In this helpful guide, we outline the techniques you can use to inform and excite stakeholders during your brand presentation, and explain how brand portals can help at this important stage.

5 techniques to elevate your brand presentation

Between miscommunication, confusion and a lack of clarity, securing client buy-in for your design project can be an uphill battle. Thankfully, with the right strategies and techniques, ensuring you and your partners are on the same wavelength doesn’t have to be a source of stress. 

1. Establish a mood board

Getting your clients in the right mindset early on in your brand presentation can immediately dictate how likely they are to understand and embrace your new vision, concept or marketing collateral.

To set the scene, mood boards are a useful tool you can use to showcase the influences that contributed to your design project, from images and themes, to colours, tones of voice and other pieces of content.

2. Showcase prototypes

Another way to get your agency’s vision across at this pivotal early stage is by mocking up or prototyping your concepts.

This could mean producing prototype packaging for your client’s final products, or building a set of social media posts to showcase a new logo design in use.

However you choose to approach this, developing these examples gives your clients something tangible to base their opinions on, which can be effective in helping them visualise your branding.

3. Create a style guide

It’s one thing to share your vision for a client’s new brand identity or marketing campaign. But taking the time to define their brand and showcase exactly how it will be applied is often a fast track to superior understanding and trust.

Acting as a playbook for every conceivable visual element, style guides set specific parameters for your clients’ visual identity, so they can see how your content works and what they need to do to present a consistent brand across every touchpoint.

These not only add another layer of explanation for how your brand concept looks and feels – they also reassure your clients that it will be ready to deploy as soon as they give the green light.

4. Weave a compelling story

Strong storytelling has been at the heart of successful branding for decades, with 55% of consumers saying they are more likely to buy from a brand if they love their story.

So, naturally, it can also be a powerful way of presenting your work to clients and winning over their hearts and minds.

Adding context to design choices made throughout the course of your project by laying out a narrative is a great way to convey meaning and get your partners invested from beginning to end. 

To do this, make sure your brand presentation story:

• Aligns with your clients’ core values
• Is clear and concise
• Uses language your clients understand
• Remains genuine and authentic

5. Leverage VR and AR

Finally, to fully immerse your partners in their new brand assets, virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR) are emerging technologies that can place your clients at the heart of your experience.

From showcasing the look of a rebranded store to enabling clients to see how their new marketing materials look up close, taking a more direct approach through technology can bring your ideas to life and inspire an emotional connection towards your client presentation.

The value of a brand portal

As important as the right techniques are, few things trump the importance of medium when it comes to building compelling brand presentations.

What do we mean by medium? Simply put, it’s the method by which you present your ideas to your clients, educate them, and secure their buy-in.

Many design agencies turn to the dependable slideshow to present their brand concepts. And while sometimes you can’t beat a classic, the restrictive, static and non-immersive nature of this medium can be a hurdle to client understanding.

In its place, numerous forward-thinking agencies are turning to smarter technology to better showcase their marketing materials, manage their partners’ brands and secure client buy-in. And among these, brand portals stand out as an ingenious way to help people visualise your ideas.

Demonstrate the full scope of your vision

Digital brand hubs, alongside Digital Asset Management (DAM) systems, are used to store and share on-brand content internally within a company. Being interactive, this technology enables you to store every visual element you have created in a single place.

As well as allowing decision-makers to explore your materials at their own pace, having everything laid out in this dynamic format makes it possible for your clients to see how individual components work together, putting your proposal on the best footing for success.

Completely immerse clients in your work

With the added ability to create and tailor these online brand portals to your clients’ new identity or campaign style, partners can easily immerse themselves in your designs as they explore the compelling marketing materials and strong brand identity you have created.

Compared to the limited interactivity and visual branding of traditional presentation software, these platforms can effortlessly convey what your newly crafted collateral will look and feel like in real life.

Facilitate long-term collaboration

Iteration is an important part of any design process. Not even the world’s best marketing agencies get it all right the first time, so it’s only natural to have some back and forth with your clients on your journey to make the best materials possible.

To ensure you’re getting the highest quality feedback, brand portals give your partners the freedom to examine your brand assets up close.

From how their new brand guidelines are laid out, to the specific design templates they will use, placing your content in your clients’ hands through a brand portal allows for productive input that makes managing their brand more collaborative and less reflexive. 

Streamline content sharing

Lastly, if you’re an agency that relies on emails and content-sharing websites, you know that sending over files can be a time-consuming and cumbersome process. 

Hosting these materials in a single centralised hub means your design teams no longer have to spend hours setting up file transfers or clarifying which brand asset is the latest through lengthy email chains. This paves the way to better productivity and cost efficiency during the design process.

How brand portals empower your clients beyond delivery

As you know, for any rebrand or campaign to truly succeed, you need buy-in from everyone across your client’s organisation, not just top decision-makers.

However, educating all staff within even a small business can be a daunting prospect for your agency. You don’t have time to brief dozens of stakeholders, and sharing your initial presentation company-wide risks watering down the work your team just spent so long crafting.

That’s why a brand portal is valuable not just during the initial brand presentation, but as a tool that your clients can carry over into the day-to-day delivery of their marketing.

When incorporated within or alongside a wider Digital Asset Management and content creation suite, this gives you the capacity to not only help your clients truly understand your vision, but also efficiently execute and manage the assets and campaigns that will bring this project to fruition.

Enter a new era of agency success

For an agency, few things are as important as brand presentations. They’re how you educate your clients, deliver top-notch content creation, and establish a strong working relationship with your partners.

But getting every client on board with your vision takes more than a simple run-through of your concept, project and ideas.

To help you elevate your brand presentation, we hope this article has given you insight into the techniques and technology you need to cement your clients’ understanding, so you can focus on realising concepts that contribute to their long-term success.

The retail ecosystem never stops changing. In the last decade rapid evolutions in technology, shifts in consumer behaviour and global instability have forced retailers to adapt to survive.

Looking at 2024 and beyond, this ever-changing landscape shows no sign of slowing down:

• The emergence of Generation Alpha as shoppers will introduce an entirely new set of consumer demands and expectations
• The power and accessibility of technology is reaching new untold heights
• The balance between physical retail stores and e-commerce is in flux
• Customers are more conscious than ever about the social, environmental and ethical impact of the retail industry

Taking these overarching patterns into account, combined with our decades of working with retailer brands and marketers, we’ve identified 6 standout retail trends that you should stay on top of this year and in the years ahead.

Are you ready to embrace the future of retail? Start your journey below.

Retail trend #1 – The value of omnichannel retailing

Omnichannel retail. Hybrid shopping. Phygital retail. However you choose to label it, modern retailers must prioritise multichannel marketing to enhance customer experiences across the board.

Today, over 73% of retail consumers use multiple channels in their shopping experience, while 95% review products online before they buy. Gen Z and Gen Alpha identify products on their mobile devices, research these on search engines, test them out in physical stores, and complete the purchase online.

These multilayered journeys are far from uncommon for the latest wave of shoppers, which is why terms such as “showrooming” and “webrooming” have entered the retail vocabulary.

“Smart store” is another emerging phrase. These are brick-and-mortar stores that incorporate technologies to enhance the shopping experience, from smart sensors and cashier-less checkouts to interactive digital signage, mobile apps that work in-store and beacon technology.

As retailers aim to appeal to different generations of consumers, omnichannel retailing integrates multiple touchpoints to give customers flexibility, information and more seamless shopping experiences. And many successful retailers are already taking strides in this direction:

• Starbucks’ physical and mobile customer cards allow users to accumulate reward points that they can spend in-store or online, while their app enables them to find menu options in their local cafe or add songs playing in-store directly to their Spotify playlist
• Sephora’s Beauty Insider loyalty program lets users shop directly online, scan in-store items to explore alternative options, watch tutorial videos and gain reward points for discounts, capturing over 11 million members
• Timberland utilises near-field communication technology to give in-store shoppers access to tablets that explain more about the products they’re browsing, allowing them to shop independently and get personalised product recommendations

These are just some notable examples, but the reach of omnichannel permeates every level of the modern retail industry. So, to appeal to the next generations of shoppers, you must offer multiple routes across their purchase journey:

• Unified shopping carts that allow people to purchase in-store or online
• Geolocation technology that sends push notifications with personalised offers when customers are near a physical store
• Digital in-store kiosks where customers can browse your catalogue and check inventory
• Virtual fitting rooms that allow shoppers to try on clothing digitally
• Click-and-collect delivery where customers can buy online and pick up in-store
• Integrated loyalty programs that let customers gain points to use in-store or online

Consistency is also key to ensuring each component of your omnichannel network is aligned and trustworthy. Using brand management technology can help marketers maintain the harmonious presence that today’s customers demand.

Retail trend #2 – The explosion of generative AI in retail

The rapid evolution of artificial intelligence (AI) is touching every area of the world, and the retail industry is no different. A reported 40% of American retailers currently use AI solutions in some form, a number set to grow exponentially in the next few years.

Why is it on our trending list? Because the power of AI is already revolutionising the retail experience in numerous ways:

• AI algorithms analyse consumer behaviour to deliver more personalised shopping experiences – from relevant product recommendations to seamless buying journeys
• Chatbots, virtual shopping assistants and similar aids offer 24/7 customer support and personalised shopping advice, efficiently guiding customers on their path to a purchase
• AI tools can assess historical data to forecast sales demand for products and services, allowing retail marketers to tailor campaigns and promotions based on these predictive insights
• AI applications such as smart mirrors, automated checkouts and personalised in-store recommendations enhance physical shopping experiences

And this is just the beginning. With the speed and capabilities of AI platforms doubling every 3 months, retailers will soon be able to optimise supply chains and introduce dynamic pricing, adjusting price tags based on demand to maximise profitability.

AI can also ramp up brand asset creation for retail marketers, enabling outlets to generate content in real-time to meet local trends, while always remaining brand-consistent. This is just one example of how AI-driven brand management can increase efficiencies for retail teams.

Fundamentally, responsible AI adoption offers retail marketers a route to understand and predict consumer behaviour, which they can then use to customise their shoppers’ experiences. With 70% of consumers saying that their loyalty is influenced by how well a brand understands their needs, AI is essential to deliver true personalisation in retail stores.

Retail trend #3 – The growth of AR, VR and other retail technologies

AI is not the only technology that retail marketers must get behind. Augmented reality (AR) shopping is a fast-growing trend, bringing the in-store experience directly to customers via their smartphones, tablets and other devices.

Nike is a great model to follow to see the potential of AR in retail. They offer a variety of apps to enhance the customer experience, including Nike Fit, which scans a customer’s foot to generate a 3D model of their shoes, recommending the ideal size and style for them.

Another, Nike By You, empowers customers to see detailed 3D renderings of custom shoes, with the ability to zoom in and view them from different angles. From here, they can immediately purchase their custom design and share it on their social profiles, giving Nike a healthy stream of user-generated content.

Both AR and virtual reality (VR) are becoming increasingly favoured by customers, enabling anything from virtual try-ons and immersive showrooms, to interactive product displays and gamification opportunities, such as Pepsi’s 2020 ‘For the Love of It’ campaign or IKEA’s virtual furniture placement app ‘Kreativ’.

Brand management software is another evolving technology that retail marketers should keep an eye on. As modern shoppers prioritise a consistent, seamless experience with any brand they do business with, these tools help retailers lock down consistency, upscale asset production and coherently execute marketing campaigns.

Similarly, Digital Asset Management (DAM) systems can be incredibly advantageous for retailers with a global reach. These tools provide a single dedicated resource for all branded assets – critical to maintain brand consistency in an increasingly omnichannel landscape.

Retail trend #4 – The rise of recommerce

Also known as resale commerce, recommerce represents the growing focus of consumer spending on pre-owned items. This is apparent with retailers such as Selfridges, which expects to derive half of its sales from resale, rental or repair by 2030.

Why is recommerce on the rise? The answer is two-fold. One, modern customers care a lot more about sustainable retail – close to 80% of consumers have changed their shopping habits based on social responsibility, inclusiveness, or environmental impact.

Resale initiatives encourage the reuse of items that would otherwise be neglected or scrapped by their previous owners. For a more conscious consumer base, this offers a compelling alternative – and it also inspires stronger feelings toward your brand.

Second, it is often a more cost-effective option, both for shoppers and retailers. In an uncertain economic landscape, the opportunity to purchase pre-owned products is a realistic and frugal choice for younger buyers. For retailers, it allows you to expand your product range without additional production costs, while giving your marketers more goods to promote.

Retail trend #5 – The evolution of creator and social commerce

Influencer marketing has already proven a powerful asset for retailers in recent years, and that power will only continue to grow in the years ahead. Goldman Sachs has predicted the creator economy market will double in size in the next 5 years, and approximately 50 million global creators will grow at a 10-20% compound annual rate.

Remember 69% of consumers trust influencer recommendations over what they hear from brands directly. Modern customers want to engage with people they trust and support; lending these voices to your products can make a major difference to their attractiveness.

In a similar vein, social commerce is also expanding to new heights thanks to the unstoppable juggernaut that is TikTok. In 2023, TikTok became the first non-game app to surpass $10 billion in consumer spending, while their own retail insights reveal that 4 out of 10 users will buy a product after seeing it in their short-form videos.

With TikTok Shop enabling direct purchases for customers, and TikTok One offering one-stop-shop access to the platform’s top creators, building a presence on this app should be a number one priority for retailers this year.

Of course, the social commerce market doesn’t begin and end with TikTok. Instagram, Facebook and YouTube remain vital ways for retail marketers to engage consumers in unique, creative ways.

From video tutorials and livestreams showcasing your products, to shining a spotlight on your customers through dedicated user-generated campaigns – robust social media marketing is more imperative than ever to retail success.

Retail trend #6 – The prevalence of ethical retailing

As noted earlier, the latest generation of shoppers is significantly more socially conscious than generations past. From sustainability and the environmental ramifications of the retail industry, to a clear passion for social movements and DEIB trends – the evolution of ethical consumerism shows no sign of slowing down.

For retail marketers, this means ethical practices can no longer be hidden in the background; they must be positioned front and centre to build your brand’s reputation with socially active shoppers:

• Highlight the ethical sourcing and manufacturing behind your products, both on the packaging itself and through explainer videos
• Build campaigns around your LGBTQIA2S+ employees and customers, showing your commitment to these causes
• Showcase your efforts to reduce environmental impact, such as eco-friendly packaging, recycling programs and carbon footprint reduction schemes
• Participate in and sponsor local events, charities and initiatives that align with both ethical values and your wider brand values
• Offer rewards and incentives for customers who make ethical choices, such as discounts for bringing reusable bags

Of course, marketers are simply messengers – the real change in this instance must come from the top. Retailers such as Patagonia, which utilises 98% recycled materials in its clothing, and Lush with its firm anti-animal testing stance and environmental policies, have shown how a strong position on ethics can build lasting customer relationships.

The newest wave of shoppers care a lot about people and the planet – it’s crucial your marketing demonstrates that you do too.

Enter 2025 with the right retail insights

There’s rarely a moment to rest in the world of retail, and the need to evolve has never been greater. Embracing these 6 prominent retail marketing trends will give your company a foundation to connect with ever-changing consumer expectations and guide your marketers on how to manage your brand in the years ahead.

So, to round up:

1. Prioritise omnichannel retailing, offering your shoppers a range of ways to interact with your brand
2. Embrace generative AI to streamline content creation and produce more personalised shopping experiences
3. Harness AR, VR, brand management software and more to raise the efficiency and potency of your marketing
4. Focus on recommerce to extend your product range and promote sustainability
5. Unlock the true potential of creator and social commerce by utilising the right channels with engaging content
6. Showcase the social, environmental and ethical responsibility of your brand to capture the loyalty of more conscious consumers

By taking these trends to heart and crafting your marketing around them, you can deliver exceptional retail experiences for your target audiences across the globe.