How Two Catalogers Managed Brand Refreshes

Reflections
Both American Meadows and Eastwood worked with a creative agency for their brand refreshes. Here are some of their reflections on the experience post-project:

• We've "onboarded" our brand strategy into everything we do at Eastwood, Huck said, noting that the company's brand map hangs in its office lobby and that new employees are trained on it.
• Identify what you're good at in-house, whether it's IT or copywriting or design or whatever, and then find partners to work on the other areas, Platt said.
• Huck listed the following things Eastwood could have done better in its brand refresh: involved its customers more, created firmer dates for milestones, and celebrated its successes more with customers (e.g., giving away free "swag").
• Platt offered the following tips for others beginning brand refreshes: start with your own people; develop a formalized mission statement, values and vision; don't take on too much at once; test, test, test!; nail the tagline - likely to be descriptive or aspirational; remember that people buy from people - "You can't outAmazon Amazon"; and this project doesn't have start and end dates - it's an ongoing process.