Our 10-month brand refresh for Buzzacott reveals what CMOs need to know.
The real problem isn’t your logo.
In professional services, standing still means falling behind. Technology accelerates. Regulations shift. M&A activity rewrites competitive maps. Client expectations evolve. All faster than most brands can keep up.
When Buzzacott, an accountancy firm with decades of heritage, completed its brand refresh in October 2025, the challenge wasn’t aesthetic. It was strategic: the firm had achieved significant organic growth, expanded its service offering, and deepened its market impact. But its brand still told yesterday’s story.
The gap between perception and reality had become a business liability.
This is the reality many CMOs in professional services are facing today. Your firm evolves. Your capabilities expand. Your client base diversifies. But if your brand hasn’t kept pace, you’re competing with unnecessary friction. And this can impact client acquisition, talent recruitment, and market positioning.
The question isn’t whether to refresh. It’s how to realign strategically without losing what makes you trusted in the first place.
Diagnosing the need: Three warning signs
Before we began Buzzacott’s 10-month refresh process, internal workshops and client feedback revealed a consistent pattern.
Your brand may need realignment if:
1. You have inconsistent messaging
If clients cannot articulate what makes you distinctive, your brand is not performing. Buzzacott’s teams reported that their brand “wasn’t helping them connect with their audiences.”
2. You have a cluttered digital experience
Growth is good. But expansion across services and sectors can lead to a website that confuses rather than converts.
3. Your brand no longer reflects your clients or talent
If prospective clients or candidates question their fit before engaging, the brand is working against you. In professional services, trust and cultural alignment matter as much as expertise.
The Strategic Framework: Four critical decisions
Based on our Buzzacott experience, a successful refresh requires four strategic decisions before you touch a single design element.
Decision 1: Governance Structure
The challenge: Partnership business models bring valuable diverse perspectives but can slow decision-making.
The solution: Establish a steering committee. Buzzacott structured theirs around growth-critical areas and teams heavily reliant on digital acquisition.
Decision 2: Client Voice Integration
The principle: Partner opinions matter, but client feedback carries equal weight.
The execution: We tested early UX prototypes and design concepts with representatives from business, individual and not-for-profit audiences. This strategic intelligence drove design decisions and, critically, secured stakeholder approval.
Decision 3: Multi-Audience Coherence
The tension: Diverse audiences have different needs, but brand fragmentation can destroy hard-won equity.
The resolution: We designed a flexible color palette that could be “dialed up or down” depending on context. This isn’t a compromise, it is nuanced positioning that solves the multi-audience challenge without sacrificing cohesion.
Decision 4: Behaviors Over Brand Purpose
The constraint: A holistic brand purpose statement rarely resonates across diverse stakeholder groups.
The alternative: Buzzacott abandoned traditional value statements in favor of practical behaviors employees could immediately act on.
Implementation: What actually matters
Strategy provides direction. Implementation creates impact:
Sustainability as strategy, not afterthought
Buzzacott sourced everything through sustainability-certified, UK-based suppliers, avoided single-use plastics and donated old branded materials to charities.
Launch as alignment, not announcement
A firmwide breakfast, new merchandise, and video diaries captured first reactions. It created ownership before the external campaign launched.
Momentum through training and touchpoints
A brand refresh is not an event but an adoption curve. Ongoing training, consistent PR and, every touchpoint, from social graphics to email templates, reinforced the new identity.
The Honest Truth About ROI
With Buzzacott’s launch occurring in late October, full metrics are still emerging. However, early indicators are positive (8,053 launch day website views). Internal feedback has been enthusiastic (330 people at internal launch).
CMOs need to set realistic metrics. A brand refresh is a strategic investment in positioning, not a tactical campaign with immediate conversion metrics.
The value will show up in:
Client conversations that close faster because positioning is clear
Talent recruitment where cultural fit is evident
Market perception that creates pricing power
Internal alignment that reduces friction
These outcomes compound over quarters, not weeks.
What this means for your brand
If your business has outgrown your brand, here’s our strategic checklist:
Before you start:
Conduct internal workshops across all teams
Gather structured client feedback on how they perceive your value
Assess whether your digital presence clarifies or confuses
As you plan:
Establish governance that balances strategic vision with practical implementation
Integrate client testing at prototype stages, not final validation
Choose behaviors over abstract values
During implementation:
Launch internally first to create advocates
Plan ongoing training, PR, and digital consistency from day one
Set realistic timelines for quantitative impact
After launch:
Measure leading indicators: employee confidence, client feedback…
Monitor digital engagement: time on site, conversion paths…
Track recruitment: quality of candidates, cultural fit, time to hire…
Assess market perception: media coverage, social sentiment…
The bottom line
Brand refreshes fail when they prioritise aesthetics over strategy or change over continuity. They succeed when they close the gap between perception and reality.
Buzzacott’s positioning wasn’t aspirational branding. It was honest positioning: a firm that had evolved significantly, clarifying its value for the next phase of growth.
That’s what a strategic brand refresh delivers. Not a new look. A clearer path forward.