Business Mapping for Success: Ensuring Brand Consistency Through Redesign

There are a few reasons why companies go through this process. Refining the brand identity is the main one (57%), followed by repositioning the brand in the market (45%), adjusting to a change in target audience (41%), and fixing negative brand image (26%).

While working on your branding is worth the effort, it’s a complex process. To do it effectively, it’s best to start with business mapping.

Understanding business mapping and positioning

There are three terms that you’re likely to see frequently in the context of brand positioning. These are: business mapping, business positioning strategy, and unique selling point (USP). What are they, and what purposes do they serve?

Business process mapping is a breakdown of the steps you need to take to bring a product, service, or new offer to the market. It’s a detailed depiction of all the milestones you must complete, in a chronological order – from idea to launch.

Building a business positioning strategy is one of the ways that can help secure market success. This approach helps your brand stand out to customers as a unique and more valuable choice over competitors. By knowing which aspects to focus on in your online messaging and campaigns, you boost the chances of securing more clients.

When you start a business, one of the first things you’ll have to figure out is what makes you different from competitors. What’s the value you offer and the problem you solve i.e. your brand promise? Clearly defining the main benefit of your product or service will be your unique value proposition, which will guide your entire strategy and help you achieve brand recognition.

The market is fierce, if you don’t distinguish yourself clearly from your competition, you risk becoming just one of the many options available. For example, if you offer software development services, your USP could be after-sale support. Rather than delivering the project and leaving the client on their own, you could offer support for a few months to ensure the solution works properly.

Methodologies for mapping your business USP

There are a few methodologies you can turn to to get a crystal-clear understanding of your brand’s unique selling point. I’m going to share them below and use a scenario of a new coffee shop to make them more practical.

SWOT analysis

Short for Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats, it’s an approach where you evaluate your businesses across these four aspects. You start with an internal analysis, i.e., identify your strongest and weakest sides. Next, you move to two external factors – what opportunities the market presents, and what potential threats you need to be aware of.

As a coffee shop, some of your strengths could be a unique, locally-brewed product and a loyal customer base. Some weaknesses – lack of social media reach or operational costs. Meanwhile, you could see entering online sales and partnering with local businesses an opportunity, and high competition from large coffee chains and rising coffee bean prices as a threat.

Source: Canva

Value Proposition Canvas

This methodology lets you illustrate how what you offer overlaps with what your customers are looking for. Usually, on the left-hand side there's a box marked as “value proposition”. To the right, you place a box with the “customer”, where you break down their gains, pains, and jobs to be done. You make a canvas like this for each customer segment.

For example, as a coffee shop, one customer segment could be coffee enthusiasts seeking locally-brewed products and a cozy atmosphere. In the value proposition, you could include aspects like artisan blends, personalized customer service, and coffee tastings. This would address your customers’ pain points like lack of community events, unique coffee blends, and unfriendly staff at chain coffee shops.

Source: Canva

Brand Positioning Map

This business mapping method lets you see how specific customer groups perceive different aspects of your company, for example, price vs quality. There are two axes – the “x-axis” could represent price (from low to high), while the “y-axis” could stand for age.

It’s a great way to spot dependencies and, using them, identify your ideal customers. For example, by analyzing your target customers you could notice that the 25+ year-old group pays much more attention to quality vs cost, while those under 25 are more price-focused. As an independent coffee shop in the mid-to-high price segment, you could decide to focus on attracting clients from older groups.

Source: Canva

Customer Journey Mapping

This chart lets you track customer interactions and reactions across all key touchpoints – from becoming aware of your brand’s existence, to post-purchase aspects like building customer loyalty.

For the local coffee shop, the first (awareness) stage could be hearing about you from a friend. In the “consideration” phase, they’d visit your website and reading reviews, the “purchase” would take place at your store, while “post-purchase” could include adding a 5* score on Google. For each stage of this customer journey process map, you add information like the assets they interacted with, what emotions they felt, and what actions they took before moving on to the next phase.

Source: Canva

Persona Mapping

This methodology helps define who your ideal customer is. It might include criteria like demographics, personality traits, needs, and pain points. By knowing who your ideal persona is, you can build products and services that are perfectly tailored to your target audience and center your marketing communication around it.

Bear in mind that you can have multiple personas, not just one. Returning to the coffee shop example, one of the personas could be ‘Sarah’, a 30 year old, busy professional, who values high quality coffee and a quick convenient experience. Her goal is finding a quiet place where she can work remotely while enjoying an artisan coffee. Her pain points could include limited time and the need for reliable wi-fi.

Source: Purple Griffon

Business Model Canvas

It is a visual framework, which defines the business’ core strategies, value proposition, and customer needs to ensure coherent positioning. It usually comes in the form of a one-pager. Among others, it includes elements like key partners, revenue streams, channels, and customer relationships. The business model canvas for a coffee shop might include:

• Key partners – local coffee suppliers and bakery vendors
• Key activities – brewing high-quality coffee and hosting community events
• Value proposition – focusing on unique, locally-sourced products and a welcoming atmosphere
• Customer relationships – using loyalty programs to retain customers
• Revenue streams – primarily coming from coffee sales as well as merchandise, and events, ensuring a sustainable and appealing business model.

Source: Medium.com

Competitive Analysis Grid

This business mapping methodology is about identifying the main competitors, along with their strengths and weaknesses and comparing these against yours. The main aim is to spot competitive advantage, i.e., differentiation opportunities that you could use in your branding efforts.

In the case of a coffee shop, the key competitors could include large chains and local cafes. The competitive analysis grid could compare factors like price, quality, customer service, and unique offerings. For instance, while coffee chains could offer lower prices and a more varied menu, the local coffee shop could exceed in quality and offer a more personalized service. As a result, it would position itself as the perfect place for those looking for a unique coffee experience.

Source: Canva

The role of rebranding and redesign in business mapping

Once a business has mapped its USP and clarified its positioning, rebranding and redesign are essential to translating this strategy into tangible brand elements:

Redesign: It focuses primarily on the visual representation of your brand, which includes a change to logos, website, and packaging, making sure that the redesign further strengthens the brand's USP. The redesign has to offer a consistent customer experience. By enhancing key visual elements, redesign can improve brand’s aesthetics and image, making it both more memorable and attractive.

Rebranding: It’s when you translate your new strategic direction into a refreshed identity. In this process, your goal is to ensure brand consistency in aspects like brand’s voice, messaging, and brand values, as well as visual assets. Commonly, it involves making sure that the brand's mission and vision resonate more deeply with your target audiences (and evokes the right feelings). This approach encourages customer loyalty, as it demonstrates the brand’s commitment to evolving with its market.

Synergy between rebranding and redesign: The visual design is the reflection of the strategic ideas, making sure clear and consistent perception by the audience. Redesign must support your rebranding strategy. Aligning rebranding and redesign strengthens brand identity, creating a clear message that resonates across platforms. This drives customer engagement and supports business growth.

Rebranding examples from the market

Better

Better is a loan and insurance company from New Zealand, whom our team at Netguru helped undergo website redesign. Originally, we were asked to design just a simple landing page. After a few initial conversations, the scope grew to expanding the website, rethinking the insurance/loan application process, updating the UI, and adding illustrations.

The company wanted to balance a friendly experience while retaining a professional, trustworthy look – something crucial in an industry as serious as loans and insurance. The UX design phase started off with a discovery workshop and competitor analysis, after which we developed wireframes of the new website. This helped us visualize our ideas and gather feedback from the company. Meanwhile, the UI design phase involved creating mood boards, high-fidelity designs, and a cohesive style board over six weeks.

Source: Netguru

We created a set of vibrant illustrations to help give the brand a ‘humane’ feel, without sacrificing on the website’s informational value. Overall, the redesign helped the brand reflect its new identity, and better resonate among the target group of users seeking loans or insurance.

Mailchimp

Mailchimp has evolved significantly since its launch in 2001. Most of us can remember their first logo – Freddie, the monkey in a hat. After gaining traction in 2012, the company decided to go through a visual redesign, opting for a more simplified, flat logo. While the switch to a sans-serif logotype initially met with disappointment from customers, the introduction of a hand-drawn illustration library revived the brand’s image. The clever, playful imagery along with the return to the vibrant banana yellow, perfectly showed Mailchimp’s brand identity all the while connecting with a broader audience.

The goal of the redesign was to retain the quirky charm of the brand, while ensuring Mailchimp's growth and relevance in the market. The team at Mailchimp said: “we didn’t want to lose our heritage in the process, so we focused on capturing the essence of what Mailchimp has always been.”

Source: Branding Monitor

Tropicana

PepsiCo’s Tropicana, a brand known worldwide for its fruit juices, can act as a cautionary tale for what can happen when rebranding your business goes wrong. Back in 2009, they made the decision to remove the famous orange and straw image from their packaging. Instead, they bet on a glass of juice, repositioned the logo, and changed its font. The goal was to draw attention to the brand message on the package, i.e., “100% Orange Pure and Natural”. Reportedly, the new branding cost $35 million.

Source: The Branding Journal

Unfortunately for PepsiCo, consumers criticized the new design, describing it as "ugly". They also said the juice now looked like a low-quality product. In just 2 months, sales plummeted by 20%, leading to a $30 million loss. It appears that the company disregarded consumers’ emotional attachment to the original design. They also bet on a completely new look, making it unrecognizable on shelves to loyal clients. Tropicana announced a return to its original packaging that very same year, retaining only a new "orange" cap as a remnant of the failed rebranding effort.

Mastercard

Mastercard’s logo is pretty iconic – including red and yellow circles. In June 2006 they went through a rather unsuccessful rebranding attempt, which was meant to emphasize their global reach. A third, translucent circle was added to the logo, together with gradients, shadows and a name change to Mastercard Worldwide. The brand also decided to introduce a new slogan, "The Heart of Commerce," to show its three-level business model of franchising, processing, and consulting.

Source: Design chambers

Unfortunately, the rebranding which cost the company a staggering $10 million turned out to be a fiasco and met with a lot of criticism. The customers thought the logo was “messy and cluttered”. What did Mastercard do wrong? They unnecessarily complicated the previously minimalistic design, ignored customer feedback and failed to effectively communicate the changes.

The brand has decided to go back to their original logo for custom products and used the new design for corporate communication only. In 2016, the logo was modified again, and by 2018, the company totally removed the name and retained the two circles only.

How business mapping drives a successful rebrand

Business mapping is the backbone of a successful rebrand, allowing companies to clarify strengths and align their unique value with market needs. By mapping the entire process—through tools like process maps, flow charts, and data flow diagrams—teams can see how each function supports brand goals, helping build brand guidelines that stay true to core values and brand voice in a consistent way. This structured approach not only enhances brand consistency but also reduces confusion across departments, ensuring everyone involved in the rebrand communicates a clear, unified message. When companies understand their audience deeply, they’re better positioned to create a rebrand that aligns seamlessly with customer expectations, reinforcing brand identity and building loyalty.

Business mapping as the first step for rebranding and redesign efforts

Understanding what your company is best at and what it does differently for your target audience is key for market success. Rebranding isn’t something you can take lightly, without sufficient research, as shown by the Mastercard rebranding failure.

Your ideal customers should always be your North Star, and defining (or refining) who they are will be a lot easier if you turn to business mapping methods. They will also help you achieve consistent branding in product design. Finally, don’t forget to collect feedback as your new business positioning strategy is still in the works. Going through the process in iterations driven by feedback will save you a lot of time and money.