What is New for Your Brand This Year?

Playful kittens. The golf courses of Scotland. National Parks. Wildlife on the Serengeti. Masters of Impressionism. The best of The Far Side. Or, one of my personal favorites, Firetrucks in Action. What kind of calendar did you buy for 2017?

We look forward to a new year with great anticipation. We celebrate the stroke of midnight like the crack of a starter’s pistol. We write resolutions and make promises to others and to ourselves. We leave our failures behind because we perceive the new year brings with it a blank slate. What we write on it is up to us. It is time to look beyond the mirror and see what we need inside. Time to build on our strengths and achieve our desires. It is time, thanks to the gift of a whole new year.

With time comes opportunity, for you and your brand.

Did your brand grow in 2016? Did it change for the better? Is it the polished star that it was at the start of the year, or has the sheen faded? Is it still outpacing the competition? Or has it run out of breath?

How many masterpiece paintings have you seen of a flowing stream? And how many of a stagnant pond? Brands are living entities that must move forward in order to flourish. Brands that don’t progress become stagnant. Unattractive. Lifeless. Dull.

A new year means 365 new opportunities. It is time to harness that enthusiasm you have for the new year and apply it to your brand. What can be improved? What are its strengths? What kind of goals can it achieve in 2017? Who can nurture your brand and help it grow?

You have less than 12 months to answer these questions, or the only thing that will change in 2018 is your calendar.