Rebranding Initiative

[rrrutledge]

From Lori:

Here are some docs form to give you a high-level overview of what the process can look like. This is a collaborative effort between visual designers, brand strategists, and writers who specialize in branding strategy and content.

HubSpot's Brand Building Worksheet

HubSpot's Brand Building Style Guide

HubSpot's Ultimate Guide to Rebranding

HubSpot's How to Build a Consistent Brand Book

A complete rebranding process typically takes over a hundred hours to complete.

Key points to consider

Variable timeframe:
Depending on the project, a rebrand can take anywhere from a few weeks for a minor refresh to several months for a full brand overhaul.

Breakdown of phases:
Research and Audit: Analyzing current brand perception, market landscape, and target audience.
Strategy Development: Defining brand positioning, core values, and messaging.
Visual Identity Design: Creating a new logo, color palette, typography, and imagery.
Internal Alignment: Communicating the new brand to employees and stakeholders.
Implementation: Applying the new brand across all marketing materials and touchpoints.

Agencies usually charge $150-$500+/hour for strategy, visual identity, aligment, and more.
Low-end estimate for 200 hours: $30k.
High-end estimate for 200 hours: $100k

Independent designers, strategists, and writers charge $125-$500+/hour.

I'm talking to independent designers who would do the design elements only. This would include, but is not limited to:
3 logo/visual identity options
Final assets
Style guide (usage, color palette, font selection, motif, ...

I have one estimate from $15k-$30k for the visual identity.
I'm trying to find folks who can do it for between $3k-$5k.

The strategy and copy (messaging pillars, value proposition, playbook, etc.) could possibly be done by Olive and myself, but that would also take 60+ hours.

I've reached out to some independent strategists to get pricing from them.

[rrrutledge]

There must be something simple that can be done that will be better than what we have today but more cost and time effective than these full options?

[lori-ISCCM]

Let's hear from @yuhattor about what he has in mind and go from there.

[yuhattor]

I think it is more important to have a conversation beforehand about how we want to use the brand.
Often times we get hung up on a brand and after a few months of a new rebrand project, we end up not operating it properly.
I have experienced that twice in the past. One at a friend's company where I worked as CTO and the other at a my friends' personal project I collaborated on. In at least one of the two past cases I was one of the people who made that mistake.
Honestly, rebranding is a lot of fun. And it's quite strenuous. Because we have to have Board and member consensus, and everyone has a different opinion. So if it's not done well, it could be a one year project.

My honest opinion is that we are not Microsoft or Google, or well-funded startup, we operate lean. So this is unfortunately a very less than ideal estimate.

On the other hand, if we have a clear idea of what you want to do with the rebranding, and if there are things that can only be accomplished with the rebranding, then it is worth the investment.
@lori-ISCCM, what do you think should be done after a nice 30k or 100k rebrand? 👀

[yuhattor]

I've observed that casual, seemingly silly ideas like "InnerSource Man" tend to attract more people than well-thought-out, cool new branding. For instance, the topic of an InnerSource mascot has come up multiple times, including a vote at the 2023 summit. These fun narratives and historical elements are truly significant.

In my humble opinion, while we certainly need polished materials like golden decks, what we really need isn't necessarily a "rebrand" but rather a "narrative consolidation" - though perhaps that's what we should mean by rebranding.

I'm also somewhat concerned about whether our organization can properly oversee 100 hours of vendor work. We need to engage our stakeholders and members in conversations, or perhaps delegate this responsibility to someone. We'll need to provide vendors with accurate information and coordinate everyone's time. Moreover, we have living encyclopedias like Danese whom we deeply respect. That's why I believe we should focus on reconstructing our narrative before addressing our brand.

If we're going to invest in this initiative, I believe it should be something that emotionally resonates with each member. I discovered InnerSource in 2018, began evangelism activities at Microsoft in 2020, and launched the community about 2.5 years ago. I'm relatively new to this foundation.

However, members like Russ have been contributing far longer than I have, and others possess much deeper historical knowledge - they literally built InnerSource. To me, they're truly inspiring figures. My fear is that many of our contributions might become diluted and our narrative lost. At that point, even the coolest branding and phrasing won't matter. Organizations with history are strong, and people take more pride in a perhaps less polished but historically rich organization than in one with just sleek branding. We need to make legends out of not only Danese, but also others those who have been contributing to the InnerSource world. They are already legends among us, but they have the potential to become legends in the industry. Rather than the Innersource Foundation, how community members can brand themselves would be more useful in improving the community's brand.

If we can preserve these narratives through cases, videos or the like, and if the branding process can unite us, then $100k would be a bargain. However, if we're considering hiring vendors for just a few interviews and quick, but professional-like cool outputs, that's not the direction we should take, in my opinion

If we just need some icons and slide deck template, resources, then there is room for some great non-US youngsters to do it for much much less. I know that 3k will still come out with great 85% quality stuff.
But if we want to go 100%, we need money and, most importantly our members and board commitment. Rebranding is very difficult, and it really takes a lot of energy...

Now, I know above is a bit off topic,
Rebrand's story is indeed necessary, but if we start it, the above discussion will definetlly start at the same time.

In that way, I think I need to list the actions we will take during and after we do this rebrand. Without that we can't say 30k or 100k is cheap or way to go 🤔

[rrrutledge]

With the resources and time that we have now, I'm questioning spending time on this at the moment as opposed to supporting local gatherings, celebrating/badging/promoting volunteers, and getting an organized community onboarding program

[rrrutledge]

I really want to thank you for your input, Yuki. The thing that I am taking away is that a strength of the InnerSource Commons is it grassroots, community members and anything we do we would want to be in support of and amplifying that and not taking away from or replacing it.