I'm a brand guy. Whether it’s enjoying my favorite whisky — its name, logo, and personality are as important to me as the color, aroma, and taste — or creating a product interface based on how it feels — everything from color palette to typography to tone to simplicity of use — I obsess over brands and have spent my entire career creating them.
But what exactly is a brand? The short answer is that it isn’t just a logo, but rather a gut feeling people have about your company. It’s a gut feeling because your customers are human and they have emotions and will react to whatever you put in front of them.
We've all experienced sitting in a car and immediately sensing that it either feels right or it doesn't. Most customers can't explain why, but they just know it. Here’s part of the answer: The choices in materials for the steering wheel, the typeface for the speedometer, and whether it matches the climate controls all contribute to the brand's feel. And we haven’t even talked about the marketing of the car! All of these shape the overall brand experience.
When you’re starting a company and you design the brand, you get the luxury of deciding everything based on the initial objectives and the competitive landscape. But what if the company changes direction? With startups, change is not only inevitable but often essential for success. So when your startup pivots based on market dynamics, customer feedback, or a groundbreaking opportunity, you probably need to pivot your brand to match the opportunity.
Here are a few things I've learned from experience that are crucial for doing so successfully and that we’ve put into place at Alphy when we reimagined our core product offering. pivoted with Reflect AI.
Understanding What to Change
When we decided to pivot Reflect AI, we knew we had to reassess every element of our brand in light of our new direction. Originally, Reflect AI was a tool designed to encourage people to communicate more respectfully. Our new vision shifted to preventing lawsuits by intercepting harmful and unlawful communication before it could be sent. This significant change required us to identify what aspects of our brand aligned with our new mission and which did not.
Knowing What to Let Go Of
Letting go of elements you’ve built with care and passion is one of the hardest parts of pivoting. For Reflect AI, this meant saying goodbye to some playful branding elements that had defined our identity.
Playful Imagery: We retired the colorful and cartoon-like emojis that originally added a light-hearted touch to our platform. They gave a playful visual boost to written feedback about a user’s communication. Although they were effective in the context of respectful communication, they were incongruent with the seriousness of preventing unlawful communication. We replaced playful emojis with battlefield-like shields that indicate whether your communication is unlawful or harmful.
Logo and Visual Identity: The early product logo for our AI-powered risk-mitigation software transformed from a soft "three dot" design consisting of abstract thought bubbles to a stylized shield whose interior color pattern resembles the letter "r" (for “Reflect AI”). It’s a bold statement of our new direction. It visually represented our commitment to armoring you with protection and prevention.
Brand Voice: The shift in our brand voice posed a challenge. We loved our fun and approachable tone. However, adopting a more serious and trustworthy demeanor was necessary to resonate with our new mission and new customers.
Bottom line: Successfully pivoting your brand requires a clear understanding of what needs to change, the courage to let go of beloved elements (bye-bye emojis!), and the vision to embrace new opportunities. I’ve done it before and can tell you that a successful pivot isn’t just about change — it's about evolution. You have to be relevant to your customers and adapt to changing market conditions, so — as we did with Reflect AI by Alphy — go ahead and embrace your pivot with clarity, confidence, and commitment. Your brand will thrive in its new direction. Think of your pivot not as moving away from something, but as finding your way home.
Sheldon Popiel is the Director of Brand and UX at Alphy.
Reflect AI by Alphy is an AI communication compliance solution that detects and flags language that is harmful, unlawful, and unethical in digital communication. Alphy was founded to reduce the risk of litigation from harmful and discriminatory communication while helping employees communicate more effectively.