Brand Refresh Strategy: How to Modernize Without Blending In

Companies refresh their brands for plenty of legitimate reasons: The business may have evolved, its audience may have changed or its identity may no longer reflect its products, positioning or ambitions. Changes in markets, business models, acquisitions or target audiences can create a gap between what a company has become and what its brand still communicates.

Still, even a well-founded refresh can go wrong. The most visible risk is backlash when customers feel a company has discarded or even disrespected something they valued about the old brand. But there’s another, quieter risk, too: In the push to look current, a company can strip away the visual cues, language, personality and positioning that made its brand recognizable, leaving behind something polished but generic and harder to distinguish from competitors. For example, the streamlined, sleeker logo briefly introduced by Cracker Barrel in 2025 got pushback from customers and commentators who described it as “soulless,” “bland,” and “generic.”

So how can CMOs modernize a brand without alienating the people who already value it or stripping away the qualities that set it apart? Below, members of the Senior Executive CMO Think Tank share what separates a strong brand refresh from a forgettable one—and what marketing leaders should protect most carefully as a brand evolves.

“If your branding could be swapped with a competitor’s after the redesign, you modernized the wrong thing.”

– Hastimal Jangid, Co-Founder of Coozmoo Digital Solutions

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Keep What Makes the Brand Recognizable

Hastimal Jangid, Co-Founder of Coozmoo Digital Solutions, cautions brands to be wary of refreshes built around a familiar design formula.

“A refresh should sharpen what made you recognizable, not sand it off to match everyone else’s minimalist template,” he says.

Jangid explains that too many rebrands chase the same safe playbook: the same sans-serif font, the same pastel palette and the same clean-but-forgettable feel. 

“The result looks current for about a year, then invisible, because nothing in it is actually yours,” he says. “If your branding could be swapped with a competitor’s after the redesign, you modernized the wrong thing.”

Jangid adds the one factor a brand refresh should never change.

“What CMOs should protect is the one specific, slightly odd detail people already associate with you: a color, a phrase, a shape or a sound. That’s not clutter to clean up; it’s equity you’ve spent years earning,” he says. “Modernize the delivery, the systems and the touchpoints. Leave the thing that makes you identifiable without a logo alone.”

Build for the Brand’s Next Stage

Paul L. Gunn Jr., Founder of Signal & Anomaly, views a brand as something larger than its visual identity—and a refresh as something more than a surface-level makeover.

“A strong brand refresh should resemble metamorphosis in nature: meaningful change that prepares an organism for its next environment without abandoning what made it viable,” he says. “Brands carry a human ecosystem of memory, trust and emotional attachment.”

Gunn says that not every brand needs a rebrand; some need stronger positioning, while others require both.

“Minimalism and digital compatibility are design choices, and they should not be confused with strategy,” he adds.

Gunn stresses that the human connection should carefully be protected by CMOs because of its significant value. 

“Understand what customers are actually attached to before removing familiar signals,” he says. “The goal is to strengthen the ecosystem while positioning the brand for the next stage, not simply seeking to look newer. The stronger rebrands tend to preserve what carries trust while allowing other parts to evolve.”

Look Beyond the Internal Impulse to Refresh

Kathleen Lucente, Founder and CEO of Red Fan Communications, focuses on brand identity—the identity that customers have constructed for a brand, that is.

“Protect whatever your customers repeat about you when you are not there. You did not write it, you cannot approve it, and it is the only thing in the exercise you cannot rebuild,” she says. “A logo can be redrawn. A palette can be swapped back. The sentence a customer uses to describe you to a peer took years to form, and no brief installs a new one.”

This, Lucente says, is why the trigger for a brand refresh matters so much.

“The refreshes that end up looking like everyone else were set off internally. A new CMO. A board deck. A round where somebody decided the site looked young,” she says. “The unstated brief is, ‘Make us look credible,’ and ‘credible’ gets defined by whoever leads the category, so you buy the category’s face.”

Lucente recommends looking outward instead of inward.

“The brand refreshes that hold start outside—a new buyer, a new problem, a room you did not have to win before.”

Preserve the Associations the Brand Has Earned

Jeff Chancellor, CMO of Oversight, Inc., stresses that effective branding must be more than skin deep.

“A brand today is far more than colors, typography and visual identity,” he says. “It is the memory system that connects your name to the problem you solve, the expertise you represent and the trust you have earned.” 

In the modern marketplace, that memory system has a wide-ranging influence.

“Over time, that association shapes category leadership, influences how AI systems represent you, and determines whether buyers think of you when a need becomes urgent,” Chancellor says. “A strong refresh should strengthen those associations, not erase them.”

An update can make sense, he says, but it should be handled with care.

“Modernize the expression, but protect the memory, authority and meaning the brand has accumulated.”

“Externally, the new identity presents a fresh public-facing system; internally, it creates a shared language that guides communication, design and everyday experiences.”

– Erin Lentz, Executive Director of Design at ArtVersion

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Create Clarity Inside and Outside the Organization

Erin Lentz, Executive Director of Design at ArtVersion, says a strong brand refresh sharpens positioning not only externally but also internally. The first outcome, she adds, is visible and widely understood; the second is something her team at ArtVersion watches closely.

“Working with brands of different sizes and across many industries, we have noticed that the best refreshes give people inside the organization greater clarity about what the brand represents and how they should express it,” Lentz says. “Externally, the new identity presents a fresh public-facing system; internally, it creates a shared language that guides communication, design and everyday experiences.”

She adds that she and her team take particular care to protect a brand’s accumulated meaning because that is where authenticity lives. 

“Familiar visual cues, design language and associations may need to evolve, but they should not be discarded simply to achieve a new look,” Lentz says. “The result should feel like evolution, not replacement.”

Make the Brand Easier to Express, Not Easier to Ignore

Oleksandr Osmichenko, CEO of IT Monks, stresses that a strong brand refresh creates a clearer system for expressing why the company matters, not merely a cleaner visual identity. 

“Minimalist typography, simplified logos and digital-friendly color palettes may make a brand easier to deploy, but they do not make it more distinctive,” he says. “The real test is whether the refreshed positioning remains recognizable and consistent across the website, campaigns, sales conversations and customer experience.”

A focus on customers can help a marketing team establish clear guardrails for a brand refresh.  

“CMOs should protect the connection between the brand’s promise and the proof customers already trust,” Osmichenko says. “That includes not only recognizable elements but also the company’s voice and reputation and the reasons people choose it over competitors.”

A refresh, he says, should be less about updating and more about enabling growth.

“Modernize anything that creates friction or limits growth, but do not remove meaning simply because it looks dated,” Osmichenko advises. “A successful refresh makes the brand easier to understand and use without making it interchangeable.”

Keep Simplicity From Undercutting Clarity

A cleaner, more contemporary look can serve a brand well, but Jessica Hawthorne, CEO of Hawthorne Advertising, cautions against sacrificing substance in the process.

“A strong brand refresh can streamline messaging and imagery to create a cleaner, more modern presence, but simplicity should never come at the expense of clarity,” she says. “Consumers still need to immediately understand what the product or service is, why it matters, and what differentiates it.”

Hawthorne stresses that, when modernizing a brand, CMOs should protect the core value proposition and essential brand identity.

“Ensure that a more minimalist approach strengthens the message rather than stripping away the information and differentiation that make the brand meaningful,” she concludes.

Bring Existing Customers Along

Dean Trevelino, Co-CEO and Co-Founder of Trevelino/Keller, emphasizes the importance of considering both established customers and the audiences a company hopes to reach next.

“Unless you have a new playbook for building a new set of audiences, it’s imperative to make sure a brand refresh does not lose the base,” he says. “Rather, a refresh should energize loyalty while also enabling you to scale beyond that demographic.”

Trevelino references the Cracker Barrel misstep as a cautionary tale—and not just one about a failed logo redesign.

“As we saw with a well-known restaurant, modernizing nearly cost the brand its base,” he says. “And obviously, it’s not just the visual brand that matters but also the messaging and positioning behind it.”

Trevelino recommends a two-pronged method for proceeding with a brand refresh.

“What is most logical is to gain ‘base’ customer buy-in to the new brand through research,” he says. “At the same time, test the waters with new audiences of importance to see whether the company is evolving and relevant to an expanded audience.”

Lean Into Your Brand’s USP

Kurt Allen, Vice President of Enrollment, Marketing and Communications at Notre Dame de Namur University, says strategy, not aesthetics, should guide a brand refresh.

“Too many brands adopt the same minimalist logos, simplified palettes and digitally optimized designs, only to emerge looking more like their competitors,” he says. “The best refreshes identify what is distinctive about the brand and make those qualities more relevant to today’s audiences.”

Allen details what should guide—and limit—any brand refresh.

“CMOs should protect the brand’s core equity most carefully: its purpose, personality, recognizable assets and emotional connection with customers,” he says. “Modernization should improve how a brand communicates and performs across channels without erasing the history, authenticity and differentiation that created trust.”

Allen concludes by sharing a North Star for marketing teams working on a refresh.

“The goal isn’t simply to look more modern; it’s to make what is uniquely yours more relevant, recognizable and powerful.”

“A strong refresh updates the execution and keeps the specific, slightly weird thing customers already associate with you.”

– Vinny La Barbera, Founder and CEO of imFORZA

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Don’t Erase What Customers Remember

For Vinny La Barbera, Founder and CEO of imFORZA, a failed refresh usually isn’t one that’s been too restrained but one that’s gone too far.

“A weak refresh sands off everything recognizable until you’re just another lowercase sans-serif logo,” he says. “A strong refresh updates the execution and keeps the specific, slightly weird thing customers already associate with you.”

La Barbera’s priority for CMOs is equally straightforward.

“Here’s the thing to protect: whatever a customer could describe to a friend from memory, whether that’s a color, a shape or a phrase,” he says. “You can redraw a logo anytime, but you can’t buy recognition back.”

Protect What Makes the Brand Worth Refreshing

• Identify what customers already recognize before deciding what to change. Preserve the distinctive cues people associate with the brand rather than replacing them with whatever design language happens to be current.
• Verify what the business really needs right now. Clarify whether the real need is stronger positioning, a broader brand evolution, or both before treating visual modernization as the strategy itself.
• Start with an external reason for change. A new customer, market or business challenge provides a stronger foundation for a refresh than an internal desire to appear more credible or contemporary.
• Preserve the associations customers and buyers have already formed. Consider how a refresh could affect the trust, expertise and meaning people connect with the brand—not just its appearance.
• Use the refresh to create internal clarity as well as external consistency. Give employees a shared understanding of what the brand represents and how that identity should show up across communications and experiences.
• Modernize what creates friction without removing what creates meaning. Changes should make the brand easier to understand and express while preserving the promise, reputation and proof customers trust.
• Don’t let simplicity weaken the value proposition. Customers should still be able to quickly understand what the company offers, why it matters and what distinguishes it from competitors.
• Test the refresh with both loyal customers and desired new audiences. Research can reveal whether an update strengthens existing relationships while helping the brand become relevant to the people it hopes to reach next.
• Protect the brand’s USP. Use strategy to determine which elements should evolve while protecting the purpose, personality and recognizable assets that give the brand its identity.
• Keep the distinctive quality customers readily remember. A strong refresh retains the colors, shapes, language or other recognizable characteristics people immediately associate with the brand.

Refresh With Purpose, Not Just Polish

A successful brand refresh isn’t measured simply by whether the finished product looks contemporary. It should make the brand clearer, more relevant and easier to use while preserving the recognition, trust and differentiation it has already earned. That requires CMOs to look beyond aesthetics and consider what customers remember, what employees need to understand, and what genuinely needs to change.

As markets, audiences and channels continue to evolve, more brands will inevitably face pressure to modernize. The challenge will be resisting the temptation to equate modernization with conformity. The strongest refreshes will give a brand room to move forward without leaving behind the characteristics that made people notice, understand and trust it in the first place.