Reinvent Yourself, Reinvent Your Brand — Nothing is Off-Limits
Back in April, the New York Times ran an opinion piece titled, “You Can Be a Different Person After the Pandemic.” It did what any good, relatable opinion piece does: It went viral by spawning a meme. Referencing Don Draper and Nic Cage/John Travolta in 1997’s Face/Off — the internet took it literally, citing masters of becoming bonafide new people.
The article did make some good points, discussing that researchers have found that it only takes a few months to consciously change the five traits that make up your personality — extroversion, openness to experience, emotional stability, agreeableness and conscientiousness. And that there’s no better time to put those changes into action than re-emerging into the world.
Most of us aren’t strangers to little reinventions, but they’re typically a slow burn. There’s something about an extended period of absence, though, that really makes a statement without having to articulate it. It’s why, as teens, people returned from summer break hotter than they were the school year before and why, as adults, there’s a post-quar demand for cosmetic surgery. It’s just as intentional as an overnight change, but it seems less calculated. It might not be noticed right away, but it makes a difference in how you’re perceived. A conscious but quiet, “Oh, this old thing?”
The reinventions that draw the most immediate attention seem like the flip of a switch (like Lady Gaga’s stage personas from album to album). But those aren’t always the most impactful. In fact, they usually aren’t. Think about what legitimately surprised more people… Gaga’s meat dress, or her Sound of Music performance at the Academy Awards? The first was a stunt, while the second was an earnest attempt to be seen as a serious artist, before releasing a stripped down album, free of (most of) the theatrics she’d become known for.
The same goes for branding. A quick website revamp is a meat dress. Adding serifs to your marketing materials because they’re trendy again is a meat dress.
The fluidity of human personalities > Lady Gaga as a human and a brand > the fluidity of branding.
Maybe that transition was a bit of a reach, but you get what I mean. I speak in Pop Music Metaphors, and I won’t be changing that aspect of my personality post-pandemic.
This isn’t a new or particularly interesting take, and it was honestly boring for me to put it into words again, hence the metaphor. But bear with me. Of course, all of these meat dresses are a part of an overall strategy created to send a certain message to the world — but these aspects are superficial. If you truly want the perception of your brand to change, you need to dig a little deeper and determine why. And why now?
Chances are, this last year+ has had a drastic impact on your view of the world and your place within it. It’s very likely that it’s thrown your brand into turmoil at the same time. You’ve been through a lot. Your company, product, business, etc. has been through a lot. You’ve bent, you’ve flexed, you’ve persevered. In marketing lingo, you’ve ideated and you’ve pivoted.
If you haven’t been totally shaken, what was important at the beginning of 2020 might just not matter as much to you anymore. But it’s also possible that your whole mission has changed. Does your branding still represent what you want to communicate to the world? Reimagine, rethink, rework, until it does.
As the country starts to crawl out of the hole we’ve been languishing in, it might seem like an unnecessarily drastic measure to upend a brand that your clients or customers have become accustomed to. But I’m here to say, nope.
The NYT determined that you, personally, have the option of being a different person when *all of this* is over. But you also have the option to create a different brand when all of this is over. One that truly aligns not with what your company was in 2019 or 2020, but what it is now.
The type of clarity that comes from being in a state of flux doesn’t come around too often. If it’s been dropped into your lap, run with it. Before life returns to its constant grind and we forget that we even had that moment to stop and examine what we were really doing here.
