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This is your go-to podcast for all things marketing, branding, and customer experience. We’re bringing you honest and fun conversations with bite-sized insights. Hosted by BrightSign’s CMO Brian Rowley and Head of Integrated Marketing Laura Smith, you’ll hear from industry pros, creatives, and innovators about what’s actually working in today’s evolving, digital-first world. No fluff — just real insights on how brands are connecting with audiences and driving growth. Tune in for fresh ideas, big thinking, and all the tips you need to take your marketing game to the next level.
We called her the bee lady, because she basically looked like she was being swarmed by bees. Occasionally, bee lady turns back up in the middle of a presentation deck, and I literally lose my mind.
Laura Smith:Welcome to Prose + Comms: Engagement, Unplugged. I'm Laura Smith.
Brian Rowley:And I'm Brian Rowley.
Laura Smith:Okay. So today we're talking about something a lot of marketers run into at some point, a rebrand. They sound exciting, but in reality, we all know they're messy, complex, and they touch every part of an organization. We're digging into what it really takes to rebrand an organization, what to keep, what to change, and how to bring people along for the ride.
Brian Rowley:But before we dive in and introduce our guests today, I feel like there's been a lot of rebrands in the news lately. And Laura, I guess one of the questions that I have for you is, are there any that actually stand out that you've heard about? And I'm just curious to get some of your thoughts in regards to what you think of them.
Laura Smith:I feel like the more recent closer to home ones are like the HBO Max to Max back to HBO Max situation. Yeah. Which was like, obviously, I'm a big fan, but it's been very, you know, confusing and convoluted. And then I think the one that's probably the most, I wouldn't call it controversial, but just got a lot of hype was Cracker Barrel. Yeah.
Laura Smith:That, like, that restaurant company old school to trying to rebrand. So those are two that come to mind, which I find to be interesting because Cracker Barrel got so much attention over a logo change.
Brian Rowley:Yeah. And it was actually not even a complete low like, it wasn't like, but it was because it just removed an individual from the logo. But like visually, I felt like it wasn't that big of a move, but it was so controversial once it happened. It was like, it hit every piece of news that there was when it related to marketing.
Laura Smith:And that poor CMO.
Brian Rowley:I know. She was new too, wasn't she?
Laura Smith:Yeah, think so. But just be careful what you do, Brian. But it is, it's like interesting because I think like someone like myself who, I've never been to a Cracker Barrel, I know what it is and I know where they are, but like it didn't bother me because I, you know, it's like I didn't have a lot of connection to the brand and all that. So whereas the HBO One, it felt like, what are you doing? Like, we just got it down to like Max.
Laura Smith:Why are we going back to HBO Max? So I feel like it just hit differently, but I know there was so much passion that was put into like the the, you know, the response to Cracker Barrel that it's just interesting, like, how we as marketers really are influencing a lot of the know, it's like, it just goes to show, like, everything we do while we think it's really internal and close to our own brand, it impacts so many people that touch the brand.
Brian Rowley:Yeah, there's a lot of passion around brands, and passion that you don't really know exists until you have one of those moments. Thankfully, in either neither of our careers, we've had those moments, which is great. But I'm sure that people who do this for a living, I'm sure that they see this a lot. And it's actually the reason we're having this conversation today.
Laura Smith:Yes. So let's dive in. So it's pretty clear that rebrands are never as simple as they look from the outside. There's a lot more going on behind the scenes than just the new logo, which is why we're really excited for this conversation. Today's guest has led multiple rebrands over her career, including a recent full scale global rebrand.
Laura Smith:She's built and led teams through major transformation moments, so she understands both the strategy and the reality of making it happen. We want to welcome Sarah Moss. Welcome, Sarah.
Sarah Moss:Hi. How are you both?
Brian Rowley:We're really well. Thanks. Thanks for joining us.
Laura Smith:We're excited to have you here.
Sarah Moss:I'm excited too. I wanna know what Craft A Barrel is.
Brian Rowley:Oh, yeah. Yes.
Laura Smith:It's a US business. So oh gosh. You're gonna have to Google that one, Sarah, to read
Sarah Moss:all about it. I will. For sure.
Brian Rowley:Yeah, it's a food establishment, but I mean honestly.
Sarah Moss:Can't use that one.
Brian Rowley:Yeah, it's one that, well, there's two parts to it. It's food and then they have a significant retail side of their business, which I wasn't aware of until the controversy broke. But yeah, it was we'll send you some information after this because it's really quite fascinating how little they made in terms of a change and how significant it was when the way in which people reacted. But let's keep in touch with Anywhere Now. I mean, you just went through a big rebrand.
Brian Rowley:And I know one of the things that we wanted to talk about and probably a good way for us to kick off was really, you know, what was the real goal behind it? And in regards to making that rebrand, like what needed to actually change?
Sarah Moss:So I guess the answer in short was that we really needed to create clarity and credibility. We'd outgrown the Anywhere three sixty five brand and it really didn't reflect where the business was headed or how customers were actually using us. So that was kind of the driver and really I suppose when I joined, it had just got to the point where we'd acquired a couple of other businesses, we were growing through acquisition and the brand was, I think it felt a little bit stuck and it really wasn't where we were going so we needed to kind of reinvigorate the brand, the direction of the business and then we sort of had to decide how we were going to get there. And I think that, you know, the color palette played an important part because the colors that we had been using were, I suppose may have been perceived as being slightly outdated. They didn't necessarily sort of convey the passion that we had as a business of where the energy center of the business was coming from.
Sarah Moss:So I think that that was really the goal was to create that, I suppose, stake in the ground in terms of, right, that's who we were. And it wasn't just about the brand for us, we also changed the name. So it was then very much about this is anywhere now. And that was really, I suppose the big part that drove the direction of the logo, the rebrand, the colors, the palette, everything. So that's kind of where it started really.
Laura Smith:And did you know, like coming into your role, were you ready for this rebrand? Like was that already a decision or did you have to be part of that decision making to say this is needed?
Sarah Moss:It was funny actually because it was our CEO, Will Blench, had sort of said, I think the board would love to see a rebrand and that was like, woah, hey, great, I love a rebrand, let's go. So, he'd mentioned it and I just got straight into it. Stuff like that, you know, I guess it fuels my fire. And to go in and have the trust and the opportunity to go, this was in my first six weeks of starting as well, so it was like, right, let's go. And then, so I started in the November '24 and we wanted to launch the direction at the January or the global kickoff.
Sarah Moss:So we went full steam ahead with briefing agents, with the agency, a different agency from the one that we'd used in the past and one that I had used to kind of see where they would with a full brief and I actually looked back at the brief that I gave them this morning before this session to kind of go, okay, what did I say? And they nailed it, they completely came back with, you know, we wanted to hold onto our heritage, we wanted to kind of represent the fact that we were a Dutch founded organization, so Orange played a huge part in where, you know, our roots and where our headquarters is as an office. And yeah, we nailed the logo within six weeks.
Laura Smith:That's very fast.
Brian Rowley:That's actually incredibly fast. And so kudos to you. But I guess, you know, when you look back at it now and you've done this a few times anywhere now is not the only time you've But done in your opinion, like what actually makes a rebrand successful? So how do you know that it actually worked and you accomplished exactly what you were trying to out of the gate?
Sarah Moss:I guess it's probably like when you go to buy a new house and you go around and you visit different places and you walk into that one house and you go, this is it, I can feel it. I can see us living here. I can see how I would decorate it, and you instantly have that vision of that is exactly what I wanted it to be. And I think it does come down to you understanding the business, it does come down to you understanding where the business wants to be and probably the things that the business hasn't been that it's always hoped it would be and like you said, it's not just been anywhere now, it's been in previous organisations and even when I've done things for myself or in my husband's businesses as well. So I think you can, I'm one of those people that lies awake, wakes up in the middle of the night and that's the first thing that drops into my head and I replay it, replay it, replay it.
Sarah Moss:And I think in many aspects of my life I'm a perfectionist and others absolutely not. But when it comes to creativity, it kind of, that's my thing I think. So it was seeing the logo, presenting variations of those logos to the leadership team and them going, oh I like this one and me going, that's the one I love. So I think that it's definitely a gut instinct as well, but it is making sure that you have that buy in from stakeholders that obviously it needs to matter to.
Laura Smith:Right, and that's, you you had that winning moment because that doesn't always happen, and I'm sure in your examples or over your career that hasn't always been the case because that's part of it. It's that internal and that leadership buy in or just not even just the leadership because I think the big part of it is getting all those departments involved and the key stakeholders and trying to make sure everybody well, it may not be everyone's, you know, sane choice, but everyone's comfortable with the path forward because everyone internally has to own it. Right? So did you have or have you had in some of these experiences those really difficult stumbling blocks internally to try to convince?
Sarah Moss:Yes, absolutely. So I think there have been, multiple examples in different businesses that I've worked for, There are always people that have had a longer tenure, they've been very comfortable with the brand as it was and when they see change, they're just not necessarily comfortable with change. But I think that as a business, we were at that point where we had to change and that was very widely appreciated and understood. And it was only, to be honest, there wasn't many people that were, I wouldn't say negative, but unsure was probably a fairer way to put it about where we were going. But I did a town hall just before Christmas to the organisation and said, how does everybody feel about the brand?
Sarah Moss:And everyone now has this feeling of pride, we've got a new office, the office is fully branded and looks absolutely amazing, and I think people actually, and I think that's another important thing as you said Laura, is that people have to feel proud of who they are representing when they go to work every day and I think that this brand has absolutely elevated people's passion about where they work and how it's perceived in the market.
Brian Rowley:Yeah, I also think, you know, it's, and you touched on this a little bit, but I mean, it's a growth piece as well. I mean, businesses grow, people grow, right? And so as the business grows and potentially outgrows who they were, it's important to make sure that you keep up with that when you're explaining it to the market. So we're talking about sort of the creative elements, there's very visual elements to rebrand, but there's also messaging. Also of those elements that aren't quite as prominent in terms of the discussions that you're having, but they're really important to the people who are working with the brand.
Brian Rowley:So can you talk a little bit about like, I mean, so you obviously have the visual, the logo, but other things that you were taking into consideration during that as you're sort of making this change?
Sarah Moss:Yeah, mean, what we ended up doing, and this is probably a good place to start, is that what I did was created a monster spreadsheet. Where did the brand touch? Which departments did it touch? Made sure that we had a stakeholder from each department to kind of go, right, this is what we're doing, this is what we need to understand from your section of the business. What documentation does the brand touch?
Sarah Moss:What do we need to do to elevate the messaging? How do we go to market in a smarter way? So we use this enormous spreadsheet and are supported by an amazing person in my team, Hilary, to go through each of the departments and roll that out or understand what they needed and get them to feedback, what those priorities were, and then on a weekly basis, went through with each of them, what we had, what we needed to do, and what needed to be completely reworked. That then obviously, I mean, like I say, just to get an agreement on a logo within six weeks was amazing. We launched it publicly on the April 2, and there are still things that we are, you know, we're tweaking and looking at older documentation for service level agreements or security documentation that we have to provide.
Sarah Moss:So there's things that just have always been not at the bottom of the pile, but certainly we've had to take into consideration that weren't as urgent as other things. So I think it's about making sure that you've got that buy in from the stakeholders from each team and letting them guide you on the priorities of things that the brand touches and how you help support them rolling those pieces of material out. But as you say, it's not just a creative project, it's a lot wider than that.
Laura Smith:It's so interesting because when Brian and I came on to BrightSign, we didn't have to do a rebrand per se, mean the brand hasn't, we've evolved I would say, in how we show up in marketing and how we show up in sales presentations and things like that. So that we've definitely evolved where the brand was before our time. But just the exercise of trying to figure out where all the brand lives, because we still are finding places where we're like, oh my God, that's like the old look and feel. How did that carry into something? But you're never going to catch it all.
Laura Smith:And I think your team sounds like they did a great job in getting the alignment across departments because there's still things that people now internally are saying, oh, this probably needs the brand team to look at this. And so that is just such an undertaking, I guess, is my point there because, you know, it's we've I know we felt it where it just felt so overwhelming to think we can get just the slight evolution into place across everything quickly.
Sarah Moss:Yeah, and that for us, it was quite funny. There was an image of a woman with all these applications around her. We called her the bee lady because she basically looked like she was being swarmed by bees, and occasionally, bee lady turns back up in the middle of a presentation deck and I literally lose my mind, And I think that there's always that one thing that you absolutely tested about your old brand, imagery wise, that as you say, just pops back up and you're like, where did she come from? How on earth does she even still exist? And what on earth was that person thinking when they used it?
Sarah Moss:So I think that there is some, this is terrible, can't believe I'm about to say this, but there is some pleasure when somebody does do something like that of you kind of picking up, you know, hitting them up on teams and just going, what on earth were you thinking? And you kind of get that little power surge back going, I created this brand and you are not sticking to guidelines. And that's another thing, we had to make sure that we'd got very strict brand guidelines and a new tone of voice and all of that good stuff at the same time. So, yeah, policing the post brand rollout is an equally challenging task, I would say.
Brian Rowley:Yeah, I don't think people realize how important that is and you know, you had said it as sign of a control piece. And I think the important part to it is people tend to like consistency with a brand. So if you've got consumers that are working with your partners that are working consistency in the brand goes a long way. And I can relate to what you just said, because I literally was in a meeting two weeks ago and sitting around a table and someone threw something up on a, on a display and had said, before I even start talking to this, said, you know, Rowley's going to have a problem with this. So I was like, yes, let's take it down.
Brian Rowley:Mean, because it's true. Like, I mean, there are things where like, just like, there's a reason why, and quite honestly, you know, when Laura came on board, a lot of the focus was on brand, right? Like what is the brand message? What are we trying to do? How are we trying to evolve it?
Brian Rowley:And we've made a great name for ourselves and our business, but the important side to it was being consistent with how the brand looks, shows and feels and shows up in places is incredibly important. And I think it's starting to resonate, but it does not for lack of a lot of work to try to make sure that it's consistent.
Sarah Moss:It is very true. And I think that what I tried to do was treat people like adults and involve them early. And as you said a little while ago, that change can be quite threatening to certain individuals when they feel it's being imposed upon them, so we tried to make sure that we were really clear on the rationale, what the risks were and the trade offs were from the start, and we explained why we were changing what we were changing and why we weren't changing other things. So I think that, you know, teams push back on certain things, but it was all taken into account. And I think that that's what you have to do.
Sarah Moss:You have to make sure everyone feels that they're heard, but ultimately you have to be confident with the direction in which you're going, especially when you do have that buy in. And then I think it's basically just around that clarity of consistency with what you're rolling out, when you're rolling out, and why you're rolling out what you're doing. And we were lucky, You know, people always kind of want to push back and say that they're not comfortable with things, but the instant MO I suppose is to resist. But actually in this particular case with the Anywhere Now rollout, it was so welcomed because it was so different and I think when I looked at my briefing notes this morning, I had said we needed to appear like a phoenix out of the flames. Was shedding skin, it was growing up, it was moving forward, it was future ready, it was dynamic, it was edgy, it was all of those things.
Sarah Moss:And I think that's another really strong point that I'd like to make is that if you are having to go through a change and you are looking to do, take on a project, is really understand where the business needs to be. Listen to the key words that people and stakeholders are saying how they perceive they want the business to be, and then kind of put them into a big blender and see what comes out, because ultimately that is, those are the driving words that allowed me to create the brand and brief the agency. It was, where do you want to go, how do you want to be seen, how do you want to talk, how do you want to resonate with partners, how do you want to make the partners feel, and it was where does the business touch, who do you work with, and how do you feel that they perceive you right now in your current brand, and that was really helpful too. So, you know, if you have people that you can reach out to and just ask really honest questions without sort of overstepping a line, you can really help yourself moving forward as well.
Laura Smith:Yeah, I think it's so interesting because of the internal alignment piece. Think it does. Like, I think the legacy folks potentially are gonna have a harder time. And I know Brian and I went through this a bit just even with the evolution of just trying to say that there's a reason why we need to kind of grow up a bit and to be, you know, be looked as more sophisticated. And when customers or partners or people are seeing things and they're like, woah, this is this feels like a new bright sign.
Laura Smith:You know? It's a very rewarding moment because we haven't completely revamped the company or what we look like. You know, purple is our color, but we introduced secondary colors. And that was hard for some people to even absorb. You know, we're still kind of towing that line with how much to expand beyond purple, but we felt like it was necessary.
Laura Smith:And I think people are definitely starting to adopt, and so I think it does take it can take time. But I do feel like when you see or hear others in the outside making comments, that's when you can prove to say Absolutely.
Sarah Moss:Yeah. We're doing the right thing. By the way, I love your purple.
Brian Rowley:It's done well I for have to say, it's I done very
Sarah Moss:love it, but you've got the right purple, and that's what's important. You've kind of got that high energy, bright neon y purple, which looks amazing even on the signs in the background that I'm looking at right now. It's amazing and I think when we talked the other day, I said how I love on my iPhone that you know, when you're doing that sort of airdrop or touch with your phone to another phone and it does that funky neon kind of vroom around the outside, it's that purple, it's that energy, it's that, I don't know, it's like that forward thinking color that makes you go, Oh, I really like this. So now I love your purple. Anyway, that was not the question, was it not?
Laura Smith:No, I think it was more like an observation of the fact that we, like, we can understand, and I think for you to take that on whole like, you know, like, you're you're having to lean into a color, a new color, you know, and have a new logo. Like, it just all it sounds scary, but it sounds like you were able to you know, it sounds like a success because you're hearing about it from the outside as well as the inside that they're feeling like this just feels on brand or there's some kind of connection people are making with it.
Sarah Moss:And I think what we looked at was behavior, not applause, and it was how do we know it's working, how do we know it's resonating, you know, how quickly did people adopt the name, that was, know, because it wasn't a huge change, it was ultimately replacing three letters for three numbers, and I think that that was quite an important move for us because it was not an entirely new change, but it was, you know, what do analysts say? How have the media picked it up? What are the partners doing? Are they recognizing that as well? So internally, success showed up when the team stopped referring back to the old brand, and when the new narrative flowed, naturally across the sales department and the products and the marketing team, we didn't need to reinforce it because it was already happening, which was, I guess, going back to the sort of shedding skin piece, everybody wanted to embrace it, so that was fairly easy, and then in terms of sort of having this conversation, as I said I'd had at the town hall, it was when people put their hands up and just said we love it, which is just great.
Sarah Moss:So I think if you have to keep reminding people of the brand, it hasn't landed well.
Brian Rowley:Well, I think too, I think sometimes what ends up happening with brands is they actually overcomplicate it. And I think the simpler you are in terms of your brand positioning and those moments, I think the better off you are. And again, going back to our experiences, you know, we tried to tell this big story because we have a very powerful story, with what we do. But we tried to tell that story in its entirety to everybody. And quite honestly, not everybody cares about the entire story.
Brian Rowley:So you have to understand and know when to scale back. And I think that's an important piece when it comes to these rebranding and branding exercises is knowing what's really important and coming to that agreement and making sure that's the piece that pulls out every piece of history for a twenty, thirty, fifty five year old company isn't really the thing that needs to come out in the brand, right? It can come through organic conversations that follow after. But I think keeping it simple is probably I think one of the best things that brands can do in this process.
Sarah Moss:Yeah, absolutely. And I think the other thing you can do is do it in bite sized chunks. You can say, you know, this is the logo, this is the new website, and these are the things that we're gonna be rolling out next, and then you can move on to your partners and say okay, when you're looking at your website and you maybe have a find a partner section, it's making sure that all your partners know, I think actually that's another really important point, is communicating to those businesses that your business touches as well, and making sure that they have the new brand guidelines, that they have the new logos in every format that they could possibly wish to use them, that the door is open to the marketing department for any other things that they feel they may need. And I think that we're at that point now where we are pushing very heavily towards a far bigger focus on our partners, so we are making sure that we have all of that in a packaged up way. There's brand guidelines, there's the tone of voice, there's the, these are all the color palettes and the variations of the color palettes, and these are all of the logo formats that you have.
Sarah Moss:So I think the easier you can make it for everybody to adopt is also hugely important.
Laura Smith:So we've talked a lot about, you know, this is like the Anywhere Now at least rebrands seem to go swimmingly and things kind of worked in your favor and all of that. But whether it be the Anywhere Now or any of the other rebrands, what was the hardest part or what is the hardest part behind the scenes that others don't know or see and just that honesty and transparency?
Sarah Moss:Okay, so there is one company that I have worked with and it was founder led, and when I started working with them, the brand, again, was just tired, it was just tired, and we did this extensive rebrand which everyone really loved and when I left they changed it back to all the wishy washy colors that they'd had before So you're kind of like, but the really important piece there is, and that's maybe one thing that we haven't touched on, is how do you measure the impact, not just having people saying, I love it or I don't love it, it's how do you measure that quantifiably? So you can look at the hits on your website, you can look at the increases in your LinkedIn followers, you can look at, if you've done a press release, how far did that go, what was the reach, how many clicks did you get, and obviously that has a massive impact for us, it did with launching publicly, but I think if I had my time again, I'd love to have gone back and seen what impact that change to the wishy washy colors had had from the spike that it had initially had to where it went once they changed, because I just looked at it and went, oh, okay.
Sarah Moss:But it actually told a story of what was actually happening in that organization at the time. So I guess it's it's just interesting, isn't it?
Laura Smith:Well, I think, like, we started this in the beginning of the conversation. It's that's about that company is doing it for themselves versus for the you know? Because I think sometimes there's so much passion internally that we do it for we make our own decisions for our own brand, but sometimes you've gotta be able to see and and appreciate how it's being you know, how it's resonating or how people are responding to it and just being okay with that, even though if you're not necessarily 100% comfortable because it's change.
Sarah Moss:I think that for that particular organization, it summed everything up. It absolutely summed everything up. So for me, you just walk away and just go, you can't change everything, you can't change as you say. If it wasn't a decision based on who they wanted to be, it was who that person wanted to be, very different, very, very different.
Brian Rowley:Yeah. And it doesn't come without a pretty hefty price tag, right? I mean, we haven't even talked about that, but I mean, these exercises are not inexpensive from, you know, from the design elements to the execution elements to the potential, you know, either hopefully gain in business, right? But if you get it wrong, right? The potential loss of business, like we mentioned at the very onset, right?
Brian Rowley:Those are all really important pieces that I think, have to be part of the discussion when you're looking to undertake something of this because it is much more than just visually changing a logo. There's a lot more that's impactful and a lot more that's at risk that I don't think a lot of people think of. And to your point, you really need that buy in because if one person leaves and the rest of the organization thinks, oh, well, we'll just revert back to who we were. I would say that we probably weren't ready to make that change. We didn't, you know, those people were not there to start, you know, and you need that in order to make it successful because people within the company, the ambassadors of the brand, right?
Brian Rowley:Need to be a 100% behind it. That's what makes it successful.
Sarah Moss:Yeah, absolutely. Mean, that's, and the ambassador piece was very important for us, specifically around our partner ambassadors. So we got them on board. We took them through it. We took them through why we were doing it and where it touched them and gave them different backgrounds, made sure they were part of the story, you helped them push it out internally within their business.
Sarah Moss:So absolutely, but to go and create something that you think, and I use this, and I don't know if this will resonate with your entirely global audience, but certainly for Europe it might, you can't go and create Harrods on the outside, and then open the door and have pound land on the inside, you know, we're talking crash I
Brian Rowley:don't know pound land.
Sarah Moss:I don't know what I'm planning. Crash barrels and pound land here. It, I mean it does what it, okay call it a dollar shop, I don't know, yeah. And you pick something up and you go, oh how much is this? It's like, oh it's a pound.
Sarah Moss:Actually I think it's gone out of business, I wonder why. But you can't go and make something look beautiful with no substance, and you have to think about that, you have to make sure that what the brand touches, you've thought about deeply and that you have those departmental buy ins from everybody, and I think that's really important as well because obviously another piece that the brand touches is your UX, and how does that roll out? And that is a hugely all encompassing project that the UX team had to buy into. And for us anywhere now, it wasn't just about making sure we're using the color palette correctly, we have to make sure that we're a contact center solution where people are sitting in front of screens all day. And we were very conscious of making sure that people with visual impairments felt comfortable looking at the screen.
Sarah Moss:So it was all of those things had to sort of be taken into consideration as well, so I think it's properly understanding what your brand touches and how you have to sort of make a list, I mean that's what I did, I literally made the biggest list known to man, it's the biggest spreadsheet I think I've ever seen, and worked through it, but it's definitely, just do a brain dump.
Laura Smith:Yeah, okay Sarah are you ready for our new face?
Sarah Moss:You're going into the hot seat. I am. Oh my goodness. I'm quite excited about this. As long as I can, you know, touch out at any point, that would be great.
Laura Smith:Let's do it.
Sarah Moss:Seat, Moss. Now step into the seat and show us who's boss. Oh, my goodness.
Brian Rowley:That's a great producer, Joey.
Sarah Moss:My gosh. Please, can you tell me that afterwards? I love it, Joey. It's amazing. I could play it to my children and my husband every time they ask me a question.
Sarah Moss:Amazing. I can't wait.
Laura Smith:Okay. In the spirit of today's episode, we're going to play Overhyped or Worth the Hype, the Rebrand edition. So we're going to throw out a few common rebrand moves. So just give us your quick gut reaction. Is it overhyped or is it worth it?
Laura Smith:And that's just, you don't need to, you can say one word, you can expand a little bit upon that, but don't feel like you need to say much. We're just gonna throw a couple at you and see your gut reaction.
Brian Rowley:Okay. You're ready, Sarah? Big splashy launch campaigns.
Sarah Moss:Oh, wow. That was really tough one, wasn't it? Just for the first question.
Brian Rowley:First come to mind. What's your initial Overhyped.
Laura Smith:Okay. Using AI and branding.
Sarah Moss:Worth it. Actually, no. Not worth it. Definitely not worth it. I can't believe I said that.
Sarah Moss:Definitely not worth it. No.
Brian Rowley:Really?
Sarah Moss:Interesting. Well, it so I guess I will precursor that with the logo development. To help you write your brief, yes. To create the logo, no.
Brian Rowley:Okay, interesting. Rebrands driven by a CEO or leadership change?
Laura Smith:A new CEO.
Brian Rowley:A new CEO, yeah.
Sarah Moss:These are really tough questions.
Laura Smith:It's hot seat.
Sarah Moss:I know.
Brian Rowley:You don't get the logo for nothing. Your jingle.
Sarah Moss:Maybe worth it.
Brian Rowley:Interesting. Okay.
Laura Smith:Okay. Changing the company name entirely.
Sarah Moss:Worth it.
Laura Smith:Okay. You survived.
Brian Rowley:Yeah. You survived.
Laura Smith:There's no right or wrong. That was just good to get your gut reaction on that.
Brian Rowley:It's actually interesting because I think that some of them, like, you know, the changing of the company, you know, when we were prepping for this, Laura and I had a conversation and, here in The States I was working for the telephone company, which was Bell Atlantic at the time. And we went through a rebrand to Verizon and it was a complete shift in the name. And I can remember the amount of time like that we used to spend, just explaining to people that the name was Verizon and not Verizon. It took us forever just to get through that. And it was so simple to be honest.
Brian Rowley:And now it's, you know, the V, that's it. That's all there is to it. And it's very, very simple and it's evolved over time. But, it's, I think it was worth it, but it, there's no shortage of, you know, that need to be considered during all of that. And I think that it, to your point, that master spreadsheet is the key to making sure that it's a successful launch.
Brian Rowley:No, that was great. Yeah.
Sarah Moss:And I think that they were pretty tough questions if I'm quite honest because I think that you automatically go, well, I can apply that to here and it was okay, but if I was there, would it be the same? So I'm just going to precursor that and just say, okay.
Laura Smith:I still see why you're right there.
Sarah Moss:Yeah, there's a little, yeah, absolutely. Please excuse me, anybody that disagrees. Oh no,
Brian Rowley:you don't have to apologize for yourselves on this show. We don't apologize. That's why we're here.
Sarah Moss:We're listening right now going, what on earth does she know? Yeah.
Brian Rowley:We'll be sure to forward them your email address. Don't worry.
Sarah Moss:You can send them the jingle too. That's fine. You can send the jingle. That's good. Yeah.
Sarah Moss:Yeah. Perfect.
Laura Smith:All right. Well, thank you, Sarah, so much for joining us today. It's been a pleasure talking to you. We've learned a ton and we have a lot of similarities and some differences with our experiences, so it's been great to kind of talk through those and obviously introduce our audience to them.
Sarah Moss:No, I absolutely loved it. Thank you. Can we do this again next week?
Brian Rowley:Sure. Sure. Why not? Sarah, thanks so much for being here. Laura, I have to say one thing that actually really stood out for me.
Brian Rowley:And this was based on the conversation that we had around like, what does success look like? And I think, Sarah summed it up, look for behavior, not applause, I think is actually a really key moment here in terms of things that people should be looking at because none of us are doing this because we're looking for applause. We want to drive better behavior in the business and better results for the business as an overall. So that one really stuck out for me.
Laura Smith:Yeah, and I think that the key to that is the internal behavior and the external behavior.
Brian Rowley:Yes.
Laura Smith:Right? There has to be a shift in both places because if you don't start seeing, again, it's like, we're all, we always say we're all customer facing, right? We're all people that no matter what department we're in, so if there's some bit of behavior that's not changing internally, then it's not gonna change externally. So I think that's super important on both sides.
Brian Rowley:Yeah. 100% agree.
Laura Smith:Okay. Well, thanks everyone for listening. And most importantly, if you liked what you heard today, be sure to follow us. If you wanna hear more from Sarah Moss, you can find her on LinkedIn and listening to her new jingle.