Just when you have found the perfect placement and rhythm for navigating through all your apps on your home screen, a company will go ahead and tweak their logo by one letter and three shades, ruining your entire flow.
While this does often feel personal, we understand that corporate rebranding is far too common an occurence in the business world today. Rebranding is no joke and ad campaigns, logos and messaging get the bulk of internal and external scrutiny. Newly formulated style and messaging guidelines have to be followed to the T. However, in merchandising, companies have a great opportunity to experiment with their messaging strategies and push the envelope.
Opportunity to be Creative
Need we say more? A KitKat shaped box for KitKat, a XXXXXXXXXX
Opportunity to infuse local flavor
For an American Company opening a branch in another country, or introducing a new product line at Christmas, merch is an effective way to honour the local heritage of the country or infuse the Christmas spirit. It is a move that guarantees maximum impact with minimum effort. Making merch that serves a temporary purpose or period of time helps the company to leverage the moment, create an impact and test out different design styles to find a winner.
Opportunity to make a statement
Companies prefer to maintain a neutral stance when it comes to political causes, Yet sometimes they want to make a statement of their own. For instance, going completely green, or encouraging safe driving or working against child trafficking. Companies rely on merchandising to make this statement – bold or subtle, colourful or sober, maximalist or minimalist – the opportunities are endless. It allows a brand to stand out, comunicate its values to the employees and convey a unified message on a certain issue.
