To rebrand or not to rebrand?

Remembering the case for change.

Voco has been operating since 2001, and for most of that time our visual identity has been pretty consistent. Sure, we've made a few tweaks here and there — the last time was about seven years ago — but we've never really made any dramatic changes.

Over that same 20 year+ timeframe, our business has changed dramatically. And, in the last three years in particular, we've made massive strides, growing the team to more than 40 people and developing a bigger, more diverse client portfolio.

We feel different internally. We've grown up. But we still looked and felt the same to the outside world.

It was time to consider a change.

What do we change to?

Rebranding is a big decision. Would we be giving away equity in the old brand? Do we change our name, or just the logo? What do we change it to? Would anybody care? Would our people and clients care too much?

We asked ourselves all of these questions and more. And there's no such thing as a conclusive answer with this stuff.

Rebrands are so subjective. Some people love the old brand while others can't wait to change it. One person in the team likes blue while somebody else prefers red. It's very hard to get consensus. And in many ways you don't want consensus. The more opinions you try to appease, the less likely it is that you'll land something distinctive.

So we tasked a small team to take the lead and find the right partners to work with to make sure we did it right.

Landing the right direction.

We explored a range of concepts in the early stages of the process - some dramatically different from the Voco brand as we knew it, and others that were more evolutionary.

We were looking for something that made us feel modern and contemporary. Something that did a better job of conveying the full breadth of services we now offer - including our Business Apps practice that designs and builds process efficiency apps that save clients millions of dollars through automation.

We agreed that our new visual ID needed to retain the core DNA of the original Voco brand, but with a lighter, brighter, more colourful and playful tone.

Another type of business transformation.

When we landed the new logo and brand palette, it just felt right. As we started developing our new assets — the website, business templates, email signatures, etc — it just got better and better.

Then we shared the new direction with the wider Voco team and you could just feel the pride and the positive energy about what we're evolving into.

That's when we realised this is another form of business transformation.

We spend much of our time helping clients transform their businesses by re-designing their technology architecture, digital platforms, operating models and sourcing strategy. It's big and complex stuff. But changing the way you look and feel as a business can be just as transformational. It can bring a new energy to the team that pushes you to another level.

That's what we're feeling at Voco right now as we share our new brand with the outside world. And the really exciting thing is we're just getting started.