Building a brand...
We're in the process of building a new brand/name for our ministry. We've made a lot of shifts and changes over this past summer and we figured it would be a great idea/time to 'rebrand'. So we changed the name to Granger Student Ministry or GSM.
Tim put it perfectly when he wrote "in order to simplify it and communicate big changes, we've left behind the old titles of "Oasis" and "Lifeline" and now we just call it "Granger Student Ministry," or GSM for short. It connects student ministry to the church, and makes it easy for newcomers without feeling like it is a club."
One thing I know is that a 'brand/name' is difficult to quantify - the business world classifies it as an intangible asset, but an asset nonetheless which is why they take copyright and infringements very seriously. At the end of the day, a brand is the "halo" around the product/service AND a representation of your vision.
When building our brand/name here's some things I considered:
- The 'brand/name' should define our vision: The 'brand' should communicate what we stand for, who we are, and what students can expect to get. We stand for Granger Student Ministry, we are Granger Community Church, and students can expect everything we do to feel like Granger Community Church.
- We should be Consistent: Once we've find the brand/name, we MUST be consistent in how we use it. Things like the logo, font, colors, images, etc. All should be repeated so students and leaders learn to look for it and use it in conversation. To take it even further, WE as a staff need to makes sure we always use the new brand/name.
- Evolve and improve: A new brand is a learning brand. Once students and leaders interact with it, we will get feedback on what is working and what is not. Take those learnings and evolve the brand image/logo if it's not clear. As a new brand, we don't want to completely change something when it hadn't had a chance to take hold, and we picked a simple brand/name so this shouldn't be a issue.
- We should use inspiration: Before creating our brand, we should look for other groups/companies/church that have been successful in branding. We should collect their marketing material, advertising, packaging -- and use it as inspiration. They will also help when it comes time to discuss our vision with our communications/design team. Last semester we went on the Bucket List Tour and collected tons of materials and ideas.
- Should we invest in trademarking?: Once we have our name and logo, should we invest in getting the name and image trademarked. The process is fairly straight forward and the The US Patent and Trademark Office website (www.uspto.gov) is a good resource. It is also a good resource to check availability of a name before you begin developing it. You don't want to spend time and energy on a name and logo to find out it is already registered by someone else in your area of influence.
- Is our website/blog worth remembering?: In today's Internet age, our website/blog is a key gateway for our brand. It should be simple to remember and straight forward to spell. If creating a website it is also important to get the ".com" version since people will assume it is ".com". We're not creating our own website because gccwired.com rocks, but my blog, our facebook group must be worth remembering.
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