The challenges of refreshing your brand

After a brief hiatus, the Future Tribe team is back with an all-new season of the show. We are excited to bring you some of our best interviews yet, as well as some other valuable content that will hopefully help you make your goals come true. To kick us off, Germaine sat down with Futuretheory’s new marketing coordinator, Kelsey Allen, to discuss Futuretheory’s recent rebrand. During the episode, our team members discuss what rebranding campaigns are meant to achieve and what the process looked like for us internally. This leads to a more general discussion about what constitutes branding, how to align your branding with your company’s market position, and how branding can affect business functions such as recruitment as well as just sales

What we talk about

  • Brand personality
  • Logo design
  • Aligning brand elements with company values

Links from this episode

Transcript

Disclaimer: This transcript was generated automatically and as such, may contain various spelling and syntax errors

Germaine: [00:00:00] Hello, Future Tribe and welcome to season three of the podcast. you’ll notice actually that there’s a few things that have changed this season, a few things with the podcasts, with the podcast cover with the intro and things like that. So I’d really love to hear what you think about. These changes that we’ve made this season is a little bit different.

[00:01:08] It’ll feature all the usual conversations, but we’ll also hear from three of our team members at feature theory, the team behind the podcast behind the Future Tribe podcast. if you didn’t know, that’s a good segue to get into our first guests this season on this episode. And that’s Kelsey’s our marketing communications coordinator.

[00:01:28] And she’s here to discuss, a few of the changes that I’ve mentioned above and a few of the changes that we’re making at Futuretheory. How are you today, Kelsey? 

[00:01:36] Kelsey: [00:01:36] I’m good. Thank you. How are you going to Germaine? 

[00:01:38] Germaine: [00:01:38] Good. Good. it’s a little bit funny because we’re in two different rooms, recording, but it’s the best way that we could think of Jamaica to happen.

[00:01:47]tell us a little bit first about sort of your experience and then. Tell me a little bit about your experience of feature theory when you applied for the role of what two, three months ago. 

[00:02:00] Kelsey: [00:02:00] Yeah. Gosh, it does. It feels like it’s gone very quickly actually, but yeah, it’s about that time now.

[00:02:05]so yeah. my background in marketing, graduated from Monash with a bachelor of business in marketing, and I’ve worked at across a few different roles. In the past few years as I’m developing career, I’m one of those included being in London, which was an incredible experience, really loved that.

[00:02:19]and that was at a pharmaceutical company, internal comms, and also, various marketing comms roles, just, developing different companies, outward facing personas, so yeah, when I I dunno, it’s a bit of an interesting story of how I came to Canberra. Not sure if it’s appropriate for right now, I can go into that a different time.

[00:02:37]I found myself in Canberra during COVID and had some time to spare. So I was like, Oh, let’s see what’s out there. and this role popped up for Futuretheory as marketing coordinator for a couple of days a week. And I thought, wow, this looks great. It would be a fantastic way to continue to develop my career in a sort of local environment and everything.

[00:02:54]supplied for the role came in, had an interview with humane. We are now. 

[00:02:58] Germaine: [00:02:58] So yeah, 

[00:03:01]Kelsey: [00:03:01] exactly. And yeah, it was just a, an opportunity to really take a bit of ownership in the company. and. help take a company somewhere as well. with the team of very clearly passionate people. So super excited to be here.

[00:03:15] Germaine: [00:03:15] Yeah. Yeah. And, we should say in, you have been offered a full-time role, so you’ll be coming on and around a lot more, you were with us part-time but you’ll be around a lot more. Part of the reason why we hired you, was that we were looking for someone to look at Futuretheory, look at Future Tribe and look at everything that we’re doing.

[00:03:34] And I guess look at it from an external in point of view. cause what I found was thinking about the business, thinking about everyone involved was that everyone who was already involved. Had almost what’s the saying, like where you can’t, when you’re, so like in the forest, you can’t see the trees or something like that, or your, we were so lost in it that we didn’t necessarily see everything from the outside in.

[00:03:59] Did you, when you first saw Futuretheory and was exposed to the brand. What sort of first impressions did you get? What did you understand about what we do? 

[00:04:09]Kelsey: [00:04:09] Yeah, that’s an interesting question. Cause I think, part of the application process was, a bit of a practical application, where you asked.

[00:04:16] Some notes on the website, for example. and I think from memory, I might’ve ripped into it a lot. 

[00:04:22] Germaine: [00:04:22] Hey, that’s what we liked. We were looking for someone with honesty. So 

[00:04:26] Kelsey: [00:04:26] Exactly. yeah,  the website. Did what it needed to do to an extent, but I think I initially just saw a lot of opportunity for development.

[00:04:34]and to take it a little bit further, specifically looking at the website, beyond that, I I think I had a, quite a generic understanding of what the business was. just in the context of the space that the work that you do is in, But then, I guess coming into the interview process, it was very clear, the passion and everything that you Damien the rest of the team have for what you do.

[00:04:56] And I think for me, I saw a bit of a disconnect between the website and speaking to you in the interview and how they were presented so differently. So many, first impressions were that the website just wasn’t doing the company justice. And there’s a lot of opportunities to develop further on that.

[00:05:11] Germaine: [00:05:11] Yeah. And that’s something that we identified as well, is that, every organization that we work with, basically all our clients have build something. They work on something with them, they make it themselves, or they get someone to develop it a few years ago thing before they come to us.

[00:05:26] And what we find is that, and ironically enough, we were in a similar position. What we found and what we find is that people just it just it’s enough for a little while. So you just create that and you let it stay. And do you get stagnant, where in reality and organization, especially an organization that’s thriving continues to change and continues to evolve, and it’s important that our website and everything that you do represents that, For us, we’d when we built that website, it was not that long ago, but we were at sort of a point where we were starting to ramp up and things have changed a fair bit since then.

[00:06:04]when we introduced the podcast presence on the website was very sort of ad hoc. I don’t know if you felt like if it looked like it to you, but it looked like it was just like. Glued in just attached as this side thing. did you see things like that through the website and through your initial interaction before you came in?

[00:06:25]Kelsey: [00:06:25] yeah, I suppose a little bit, Yeah. As I said, it just didn’t feel like an overly cohesive yeah. Sort of website, that pulled together and communicated really effectively what you guys do and all the passion and everything. and I think, yeah, when it comes to the podcast as well, obviously that wasn’t, as present, I think when you did the website, so checking that on afterwards, it’s quite easy to fall into that trap of not considering it as.

[00:06:49] Part of the overall website, and having it tacked on in that sense. 

[00:06:53]Germaine: [00:06:53] yeah. And then when he joined, we had a logo, we had the bones of some sort of brand, but I think what we’ve done over the last, just the last few months is really start to flesh things out. and what we needed was this external person.

[00:07:08] And I keep telling Kelsey, we want to get all this stuff done from. get, I guess Kelsey’s output before she gets into the second mentality. Not that it’s a bad mentality, you become part of it. And then you just don’t see, or don’t always see the bits and pieces that a completely independent third party might see.

[00:07:27] So we just tried to over the last few months, what you will see is, and. Tomorrow or, on the Friday. So this episode will come out on a Thursday as usual. And on the Friday we’ll be launching our new website. What you also see with that is that feature there is now got a new logo, a new website, and we’ve taken the time to really consider who we are, what we are and position ourselves and make sure that the whole website.

[00:07:53] Is a true reflection of that. So if you want to, I guess I want to get into a little bit about rebranding because it’s not, I think some people see it as a very like easy thing, where people just want to, they just want to start like current new logo. They just want it. They just want to do it.

[00:08:11] And it’s so easy, but let’s get into a little bit about what should be considered, when you’re looking at Creating a new logo, creating a new brand, or at least refreshing and replacing what you already had because there’s some equity with any logo, especially if you’re a functioning business.

[00:08:28]So it’s not a, it’s not a light task like for us. how many we worked on hundreds of different sort of ideas. 

[00:08:37] Kelsey: [00:08:37] Yeah, I think we had about 250 sketches all up and that’s just the sketches beyond just what’s going on with the thoughts and all the other process and everything is 

[00:08:47]Germaine: [00:08:47] ended up putting on paper.

[00:08:48]let’s talk about the, that process. What we were doing, where was that? Essentially different people were coming up with ideas and then they were doing some self selection and then presenting it to everyone. And, we were discussing it, but I think for me, one of the big things that came out of that conversation was that we were looking for a logo that was simple enough.

[00:09:09]condensed down to the bare minimum while still being unique while still representing Futuretheory while still being flexible. And a big thing that I picked up from this whole journey was that it was, we wanted to come up with a logo and I think this applies to most organizations. Yeah. we wanted to come up with a logo that didn’t have any negatives rather than a logo that had a whole bunch of.

[00:09:32] Positives, because I feel like you can fall into the trap of coming up with a perfect logo that fits all these. Arbitrary requirements. Do you agree with that? 

[00:09:44] Kelsey: [00:09:44] Yeah, a hundred percent. it was interesting going through the whole process of it and realizing, I guess from the initial stages of, we need a new logo to then figuring out what actually really had to go into the logo.

[00:09:56] It was a lot. and I think we went back and forth between trying to put a lot into it and trying to communicate. A lot of things and then scaling it back and then going back and forth a lot. And I guess just seeing all the different iterations that all of the team members were coming up with as well, it was really interesting to work together on that with all the different viewpoints and what we were trying to achieve with it.

[00:10:15]but I think we ended up at a really nice spot, which as you said, wasn’t trying to achieve all of these amazing positive things and have this like incredible our logo. Just having something that. Isn’t you know, offensive, And it’s, it just does the job as it needs to do. It’ll last a while before we have to revisit it again and it’s know really versatile and usable.

[00:10:35] And then I think that’s what we’ve ended up with, which is really, 

[00:10:38] Germaine: [00:10:38] yeah. And when it comes to a logo, that’s the important thing and a lot of people, and another thing that we came up with is that we didn’t need a logo. Shouldn’t be an explainer of what you do. It should be an identifier of.

[00:10:51] Who you are, in the sense that the Nike tick or the McDonald’s golden arches, don’t actually tell you that, Nike is a sportswear brand or that McDonald’s is a fast-food franchise. what they do tell you though, is that this is McDonald’s and this is Nike. and. There’s a little bit of a difference between logo and brand as well.

[00:11:10]and we’ll get into that shortly because for anyone thinking about a logo, thinking about rebranding or thinking about designing a new logo and setting up a new logo, I think it’s important to think about the difference between the two. so as we wrap up the logo side of things, I guess this is just us saying, when you think about your logo, think about something that just works in as many instances as possible.

[00:11:34] And to an extent doesn’t evoke too much, positive or negative feeling, because I think when it, when something does that means that it’s polarizing in some way. And when something’s polarizing, that generally tends to be, it tends to mean that it has some sort of. Time limit on it, some sort of finite sort of restrictions, because a trend is going to pass or a colour’s going to go out of fashion or, the boss of the business is going to change or the marketing manager is going to change.

[00:12:05] And suddenly you end up with, it’s a polarizing thing and the other person is on the opposite end of what the original people felt. And then you’re stuck having to change it. 

[00:12:15] Kelsey: [00:12:15] Yeah, exactly. and I think, polarizing can be good for some companies, but it’s very difficult to pull off and you just don’t really want to be going down that path.

[00:12:23]as you said, as well with colours, we an interesting thing we did go through with changing the Futuretheory, blue just slightly but enough that it wasn’t quite In your face, which I think was a really good exercise. I’m pretty happy with that as well. 

[00:12:35]Germaine: [00:12:35] it was all part of maturing as well.

[00:12:37] Like originally a few years ago, our original colours were purple and yellow and they were like, they were completely blinded and there were neon 

[00:12:45] Kelsey: [00:12:45] and 10 got less to put together, 

[00:12:47] Germaine: [00:12:47] really work together either. But the whole point at that time was to hand people say a business card that was almost like, I think of it as like a business card that was like, Glowing like uranium, because it was, we were young.

[00:13:00] We were happy to be polarizing because at the time being different, let us stand out. But then as we’ve matured, we then ended up with the blue. That was still a fairly intense blue, because we were still On the journey to maturing. And then now that we’ve reached a position where, we’ve nowhere near reached all the people who we want to reach as featured theory as a brand, but we’ve reached a place where we can start to mature.

[00:13:27] We can stop to be a little bit. A little bit more palatable to more people. because we don’t need to stand out to a minority. We need to be accepted by a majority because we can, we have the capacity to help more people as well. And that was part of that journey. And if you’re listening to this, I could all, I would also add.

[00:13:46] Think about having one colour for your yellow look, one colour for your brand. You might have different colours in your logo, but try and have as few elements as possible when it comes to your logo, when it comes to colours, fonts, things like that, because nowadays everyone’s just low attention. Hard to keep attention hard to get attention.

[00:14:05] So you want us? Yeah, exactly. And within a couple of seconds, if you have too many things to notice people, aren’t going to remember all those things. it’s much easier to show someone two things for five seconds than to show someone 10 things for a one-second date, what’s more likely to be remembered and that’s what we had to go through as well.

[00:14:24] And, look into the colour psychology. Like it’s. Crazy. When you look into college psychology, all the meanings behind colours and things like that. But let’s now get into it brand a little bit. What would you define as branding as obviously, it’s more than just the logo, because the logo for anyone listening a logo is literally, a symbol, a sign, some texts, that is an identifier of your it’s like a signature.

[00:14:51] But what’s branding. How would you put it, Kelsey? 

[00:14:55] Kelsey: [00:14:55] That’s a big question. yeah, branding, it’s an interesting one. but I’m in branding really encompasses, everything about who you are. and it does go beyond just that visual element of the logo. as we have touched on, it mentioned, the colours for example, but it also talks about brand personality and that really initial understanding of your business.

[00:15:17] From those visual cues from how you interact with people from even sometimes like location of office can be really interesting one. And especially in Canberra, there’s certain areas that can be like young and trendy or, where you choose can impact your brand because it can communicate certain things about who you are and what you want to be.

[00:15:34]it’s gosh, yeah, branding’s a whole different podcast that you could go into really it’s such a massive topic to go into, but yeah, I think for us, 

[00:15:41] Germaine: [00:15:41] Do you think it’s fair to say that a logo is someone’s signature and, but the brand is your personality, what you wear, how you wear it, what you care, like, how you carry yourself, to an extent where you work and where you live as well.

[00:16:43] Kelsey: [00:16:43] Yeah, exactly. and I think branding is super important as well for the people that you’re working with, because for them, they want to be working with somebody they identify with, they want who they want to be. For example, all those different. targets that you’re going for with your brand can influence who’s coming to work with you really.

[00:17:01]it’s a 

[00:17:02] Germaine: [00:17:02] very important, massive job. No, I don’t think I’ve I counted the number of times that I’ve I was talking to the team and I was explaining to you guys like our ultimate goal isn’t to build more websites isn’t to design more logos. It is to help more people make something of, make their goals come true, whatever they may be, whether it’s to right behind Kelsey, if you’re watching the video, she’s, she’s in our meeting room.

[00:17:27] So there’s that we’ve put up a slogan behind that every client that comes in can see what we’re trying to do. and she’s pointing it out, for a little while there you, no one else apart from myself and Damien, who’s a visit director of the business as well. Apart from us, or even Damien, to an extent didn’t really get what we were working towards.

[00:17:46]and the more we’ve started to flesh it out, the more we’ve talked about brand and branding and our services, I think you guys have come closer and closer to understanding the ultimate goal, which is to help people make their goals come true. and not necessarily build more websites or, execute more marketing strategies or.

[00:18:05] Anything like that. And like you were touching on Kelsey, having a solid brand means that when you employ someone, they would you say they even self-select because they, I would say so, right? Like you wouldn’t apply to work with a company that you disagree with. 

[00:18:21] Kelsey: [00:18:21] Absolutely. And that’s such a massive thing as well in the recruitment process these days, that’s why values and things are.

[00:18:27] So significant and that sort of plays into the whole brand because it is who you stand for. And it’s very difficult, even from a client sort of side of things, working with a company and teaming up with the company. If you don’t agree with the values of who they are or what they’re trying to do, it’s very hard to But you just wouldn’t, you just wouldn’t do it. 

[00:18:43] Germaine: [00:18:43] Yeah. It wouldn’t make any sense to go in, walk in the door, thinking to yourself, ah, we disagree on a few, important points, but we’re still going to try and work together like that. Doesn’t really make a whole lot of sense. 

[00:18:56] Kelsey: [00:18:56] It’s just not going to be a good relationship from the start.

[00:18:59] Germaine: [00:18:59] And I feel Anyone and everyone should be thinking about not just their logo, but that branding as well, because branding comes in mean for even things what you post on Instagram or social media, how you sign off on emails, what your email signature looks like? How do you answer the phone?

[00:19:17]do you answer the phone, say, hello, this is Futuretheory, Germaine Muller. The director is speaking with you. How can I help you? audio, just say, hi, Futuretheory. Germaine -speaking help. how can I help Germaine speak and just leave it at that, like even small things like that affect your brand, because you’re also talking to talking in a way that, I guess pushes forward, who you want to work with as well.

[00:19:39]we really enjoy being, quiet. Casual is probably the wrong word, maybe informal with how we do things, but then being very formal with how we report and how we track and how we look at, the results that we generate. because for us in our, we, and it applies to. we work with as well.

[00:19:58]we care more about the results, than necessarily how someone looks or what someone wears and our brand, I think encompasses that. would you agree with that, Kelsey? 

[00:20:09] Kelsey: [00:20:09] I think so. and I think another part of it as well is just. In that sort of informal versus formal focusing the formal stuff on, as you said, results and things, but having that informality so that when we do have people, clients coming in or meeting with people, it’s not a stressful thing where, all of us have to dress up and it’s, really cutthroat kind of stuff.

[00:20:27] It’s just. Casual conversation and we’re free to have open discussions about things and it really sets a good mood for working with the clients that we do work. But 

[00:20:35] Germaine: [00:20:35] yeah, because we want to hear when, if we’ve not done something that they’re happy with or not quite say ticking the right boxes.

[00:20:43] We want to hear that from our clients. And we want to set a tone that’s completely fine. Please let us smoke. Because at the end of the day, we want to make your goals come true. We don’t necessarily want to leave every meeting with, feeling happy and, having, feeling like we’re on top of the world.

[00:20:56] That’s not what we’re after. because if your goals aren’t being met, if you’re not ticking things off, then we need to be unhappy. because. Because that’s what we exist to do. and we do that in a multitude of ways, that we’ve generally outline into five different areas.

[00:21:12] That’s, websites, marketing, and design. So that sort of encompasses our professional services. And then we get into community and the podcast. Which sort of gets into our other two areas at this point, we’ve got more things happening, but, it’s still a little bit too early to announce the other things, but this is, I guess my segue later into.

[00:21:33] Feature tribe, the, and the community side of things. So you would have noticed if you feel listening to this episode that we’ve got a new intro, we’ve actually got a new podcast cover as well, and more of a logo for Future Tribe. And then part of that is they were very excited to launch our Facebook group, which is our effort to build out a community of people who, basically optimistic go get as who want to do.

[00:21:59] Amazing things with their lives, whatever they may be. We want to be there to support you. And we want to be there to, assist you and help you and enable you to make your goals come true. Is there anything that I’ve missed with that little sphere? 

[00:22:14] Kelsey: [00:22:14] No, I think that’s a pretty comprehensive, elevator pitch for it.

[00:22:17]obviously within the group, we’ll be able to explain a little further about. Some of the discussions and things we’ll be able to have, but I think you’ve covered 

[00:22:23] Germaine: [00:22:23] it pretty well. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. it’s very new. We’ve attempted to do it in the past, but we haven’t really had the resourcing to do but we’re really investing into this moving forward.

[00:22:32] We’ve got a lot of content coming out on the website, on the Futuretheory website, we’ve got the Facebook group. so this, Is a bit of a call out to you, the listener to anyone listening, please check us out. We’ll have all the links in the description. have a look at our new website when it launches, on the last Friday of October.

[00:22:52] So that’s the 30th of October. we’ll be launching our web new website, as always we’d love to hear. What you think about all of this, what you think about what we’ve done. And of course, we’d love to hear if we can, help you with any of this, moving forward. I think that is there anything else that we haven’t talked about, Kelsey, that, is worth mentioning?

[00:23:14] Kelsey: [00:23:14] No. I think you’ve pretty much covered it all. I guess in a little bit of a summary, everything was doing at the moment is a very like deliberate push, in the future direction of Futuretheory, and what we’re trying, what we’re trying to do in terms of the community and everything.

[00:23:28]and I think even with, as we were talking about with the branding and that really informal sort of stuff, this new Facebook group that we’re building is an extension of that in a way, where it’s just. Enabling that open communication just to have chats and get that assistance and whatever, you want it to be it’s.

[00:23:44] Yeah. It’s really exciting. Really looking forward to it all moving forward. 

[00:23:47] Germaine: [00:23:47] Yeah. it’s all new. It’s it’s exciting. But at the same time, I think it’s scary with anything new. we’re really putting our necks out there trying to do all these things. but ultimately, we come from a position and a place of believing that, we exist to help as many people as we can.

[00:24:04] And there are so many, like knowledge is power, and we wanna, we want to start, sharing all these things with everyone. We want to be transparent as possible with what we do as well. I think, A lot of organizations, companies think that holding their cards close to their chest is a positive thing.

[00:24:20]or something that they need to do to protect themselves. But I think, we perhaps represent a little bit of a shift, in companies moving forward. I think there’s a lot more sharing happening nowadays. There’s a lot more transparency. And while that’s it’s a bit, it’s scary because we’re really being candid about everything.

[00:24:40]and that just means that we can’t filter out the bad things that happen and we can’t filter out the mistakes that are made, but it helps us, helps us provide value. that’s what it comes down to. 

[00:24:50] Kelsey: [00:24:50] Yeah, for sure. and I think having that sort of open honest conversation and everything, even if it is the negatives, it can only be positive, which is a bit of a weird thing to say.

[00:25:00] But, I think people really value that openness and, even if there is negatives, it’s more sort of lessons learned. And, the more that you’re exposed to that sort of stuff, if you’re seeing other people do things and they’re like, Hey, here’s how not to do it, then you don’t have to go through it yourself.

[00:25:14] And, it can only be positive. It can only build 

[00:25:15] Germaine: [00:25:15] from there, even on the other end of, Hey, we ourselves went through so many different iterations of a logo, for example, like I think back to, what we’ve done. And there are so many things that I’m just thinking in my head, We would never do this with a client because we know doesn’t work, but then we go down the same road ourselves and we do it because I don’t even know, I guess it’s just because we’re human.

[00:25:38] We just lose that self control when it’s all internal. And we’re just like, okay, we’re going to call it with 250 different variations. 

[00:25:46]Kelsey: [00:25:46] it does not say us coming up with that many and I was absolutely shocked when we counted them up. And I’m sure that there’s more, that we just. 

[00:25:51] Germaine: [00:25:51] Yeah. Yeah.

[00:25:52] Like stuff that’s just been sketched on bits and pieces that have not been collated and collected. because when it comes to logos, like just yesterday, we, did a presentation to a client and. I showed them two different logo options. And that was it. And internally we may have gone through 10 to 15, but he had already 250 that’s a lot.

[00:26:14] I just don’t, I can’t think of a project where we would have had to do that, but I think that just speaks to our heart. It is to do branding and logo for yourself. And I think I’ve even seen that happen. in other mediums, I don’t know if you’ve had that experience where sort of a client tries to do something internally, and then they come to you.

[00:26:33] And because you’re looking in from the outside, you can make decisions, you can make calls and make, I guess educated. Perception sort of decisions and choices that, this is not advertising our services, but at the end of the day, we can look in from the outside and make you like decide things and make you, decipher what you’re feeling much easier than you can internally with all your, Thoughts and things that you’ve come up with and things that your family members have said, or your partners have said in the past.

[00:27:06] And, I 

[00:27:06] Kelsey: [00:27:06] think externally you definitely get, you can be a lot more brutally honest. you sorta not weighed down in all these different opinions and. you just not biased. And I think that’s a really important thing. And I think for us even may coming in new-ish, but understanding the business now for we were going through all of this logo design, the reason we got to 250 plus is because we’re we are involved in it as it is harder to take that external look at it and be really brutally honest with yourself.

[00:27:33]as much as you force yourself to. You just, as you said, we’re human, you got stuck in it. 

[00:27:38] Germaine: [00:27:38] Yeah. And I think part of that is as well, is something else that I really learned through this was that we need a logo and we need branding that represents, who we want to be and who we will be in the future.

[00:27:50] Not necessarily just representing who we are and even more critically who we were. and I think when you’re coming from at it from an internal point of view, Most people end up representing who they were and who the business was because you think about, all the clients that you used to work with, you might still work with them, but you think about the past and you think about who you are now versus what you really need to be doing is thinking about who you want to be, where you want to go aspirational, because.

[00:28:24] Otherwise, what happens when, 12 months down the line you’ve grown so much and you’ve changed so much that you’re now actually representing yourselves with this outdated imagery and brand. Yeah. So it’s a bit of, it’s a bit of a trap and even asking. I think asking too many people for their opinion as well, I think can be a little bit, yeah.

[00:28:44] Kelsey: [00:28:44] Yeah. Very easy trap to fall into, but you Oh, I hadn’t, I need all these opinions, but you just, you don’t need all the opinions. 

[00:28:51]Germaine: [00:28:51] you think you do right? Because you’re like, Oh, we’re just gonna have to go based off. What are all these other people think? But then within a business, who do you ask?

[00:28:58]you’re not, you’re never asking, potential customers, what they think of your. branding and logo you end up asking is your partner, your staff, people who already have these very solidified ideas about who you are, who your brand is. They have very solid ideas of. Not necessarily who you’re going to be either.

[00:29:20]because really you’re the only one who has that. And then ultimately they’re not going to be your customer. They’re not going to be able 

[00:29:26] Kelsey: [00:29:26] to find no, you’re not your target market. So 

[00:29:28] Germaine: [00:29:28] it doesn’t matter. 

[00:29:29] Kelsey: [00:29:29] I’m asking the wrong person anyway. 

[00:29:30] Germaine: [00:29:30] Yeah. In the wrong person. And that’s another thing that you quickly mentioned there, the target market.

[00:29:36]that’s another exercise that, we really had to go through to define who our target groups are. Our target markets are, because. When we know who we’re talking to, we can talk to them much easier, simple example of, if you were talking to someone who only speaks French, you’re not going to speak to them in English.

[00:29:54] Are you so happened? Just 

[00:29:57] Kelsey: [00:29:57] crazy. Exactly. We’re getting anywhere with that. 

[00:29:58] Germaine: [00:29:58] Exactly. and that applies to other Democrats or other sort of. I guess characteristics of a target market, their age, their gender, what stage of life they’re in, what their budget is because, if you’re trying to sell a hundred thousand dollar car to someone who’s looking for their first car and they’re just, turn 17, you’re not going to have a lot of luck.

[00:30:21]

[00:30:21] Kelsey: [00:30:21] yeah. Gosh. 

[00:30:22]Germaine: [00:30:22] it applies to everyone and anyone as well, like you should be thinking about these things. So that was a bit of a protracted end to this episode. We ended up going off in tangents, but this is all really important to anyone who’s thinking about branding logo, design, just brand in general.

[00:30:40]I also hope that it was a nice little explainer, a bit of a bit of an inside look as to why we are doing what we’re doing in terms of the Futuretheory, rebrand in terms of Future Tribe, rebranding, like I mentioned at the start of this episode. So this is our first conversation with, one of.

[00:30:56] Three of our team members who will be guesting on this season. we’ve also got a conversation with Hayden and I hate is the podcast editor, manager. So we’ll be talking about a few things in midseason, and then we’ll actually be finishing off. This season of the podcast with a conversation with, Damien who’s also director in the business.

[00:31:17] And, what we’ll be doing by that point is actually reflecting back on what we’ve just talked about in terms of the new website, new logo, and really looking at did those things work for us and how those things work for us. So it’s sprinkled in. with all these conversations that we’re having, we’ve had some really interesting conversations with, business owners, with people who do amazing community work.

[00:31:37] We’ve got 2000 and eighteens act Australian of the year on this season of the podcast. we’ve got a politician, who’s also a sustainable sort of environmental advocate. We’ve got a whole number of guests that I’m really excited for you to hear our conversations with. And on that note, thanks for joining me, Kelsey.

[00:31:56] Kelsey: [00:31:56] Thanks for having me on. It’s been really fun. 

[00:31:58] Germaine: [00:31:58] Yeah, it was. You looked a bit anxious at the start, but I think it’s a fun thing to be able to hop on and have a conversation with someone candidly and, record it and then push it out there as a podcast episode for everyone else to hear.

[00:32:15] Kelsey: [00:32:15] Absolutely. Yeah. Thanks so much for having me on.