There may be a zillion different brands in the world, but in our experience with rebooting, they all have one thing in common—a life cycle. Whether that stage of the life cycle is an overnight success story, a maturing start up or well-established legacy brand, success is implicitly built upon understanding who you are and who you need to be and - perhaps more critically - recognising the signs when things aren’t going so well.

There are a number of those signs to look for. The first ones are internal indicators like financial stresses—dipping sales and disappearing market share. Then there are the external indicators, the sales and marketing 101 stuff: high and regular discounting or more promotions, particularly in the FMCG space. But the same can go for services; when things start declining then it’s time to tick it up again with something new. A common response is to pretty things up, but often cosmetic changes won’t be enough and the reboot will need to go through the entire organisation to really effect a reversal of trends.

The difference a brand reboot can make to business can be immediate, creating a wave of positivity not only to the people within the business but to the consumer as well. When you develop something that starts adding real monetary value to a business and that brand becomes an asset to the business—that’s when I know our job’s been done well.

We’ve seen brands turn around from deep discounters to ones where sales skyrocket, all through the power of a well-executed brand reboot. Obviously, there are other elements involved but basically when you see the client’s market share grow, that, to me, is awesome.

Naturally, it takes courage to take the first steps in admitting you need a reboot but the whole process allows you to get back to your roots and challenge the status quo of the market. It allows you to challenge yourself and to take risks to grow. Brands with lower budgets have more freedom to be creative, and that’s freeing and challenging in the best ways.