On the 24th of April 2018, the new Deeper Christian Life Ministry headquarters was inaugurated. And alongside the inauguration was the unveiling of a new brand identity that took the ministry on a different trajectory altogether.
One notable thing about the rebranding was the change of tagline from “Your spiritual welfare is our concern” to “Achieving heaven’s goal”. From a Christian stand-point, this shows a profound adjustment in focus. A brand that was initially concerned only about the spiritual welfare of its audience now goes on to say, “we’re no longer concerned about just your spiritual welfare, but we’re now more concerned about the complete counsel of God for you.”
Perhaps, a biblical stance to this will be the passage, “I desire above all things that you may prosper and be in good health even as your soul prospers.” (3 John 1:2) So, what Deeper Life Christian Ministry was saying – with their new brand identity – is that they are no longer focusing only on the spiritual health of their members, but also on the health of other aspects of their lives.
The question is, “was it just a change of logo, or did the change also reflect in the things that began to happen within the ministry from that time on?”
From that time on, we have seen a lot of drastic changes in the nature of programmes being rolled out by the church, the kind of issues they’re beginning to address among members, their flexibility to associate with other Christian ministers and believers in other denominations for the furtherance of the gospel of Christ, their renewed belief in, and cooperation with the youth population of the ministry, their investment in media and technology to further spread the gospel, just to mention a few things.
What can we learn from here?
– The primary essence of a rebrand is to communicate a new trajectory: a new vision and a new mission. You do a rebrand when you see that your old visual identity no longer communicates what you are about, or when you are about to move into a new direction and the old visual identity will be misleading.
– A rebrand is never complete if it only addresses a change of logo/colours/typography. A complete rebrand is when activities and programmes are drawn out to validate/reinforce the new direction/trajectory you’re trying to communicate. Deeper Life Church did well by not just inaugurating a new building and unveiling a new logo and tagline. They went further to ensure the new direction is well expressed through signature programmes, campaigns, new approaches that validated that they were really serious.
– A true rebrand should come with a new tagline. If you’re truly communicating a new trajectory like we explained above, then there should be a tagline that summarizes that new trajectory. Or else, it’s just a mere logo revamp, not a rebrand. Deeper Life Church made it clear, what their rebrand was about. It wasn’t just an effort to make the logo look more modern. It was communicating something meaningful that can be seen, felt and touched.
Take a look at some of the rebrands around us in Nigeria in the last decade. Sterling Bank changed their tagline from “Shooting for the moon” to “The rising sun”. MTN changed their tagline from “Everywhere you go” to “Yello”. This is to show you that if you’re interested in playing it real, these are things you must look at.
No rebrand is effective without activation campaigns which should focus on experiential marketing of the brand. It must be experiential so that people can have a feel/taste of what the new identity truly promises. What validates your new identity are the activities, products, programmes, campaigns, etc., that create new experiences for the consumer of the brand.
So, are you a business owner trying to build a brand? You should ask yourself, “is there something of greater essence that I’m communicating beyond the quality of my products and services?” The second question you should ask yourself is, “does my visual identity align well with this essence?” The last question then would be, “does the experience my products/services/programmes create validate this essence I want to be known for?”
I remain your BrandCore Strategist
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