De-Frankenstein Your Brand

You’ve heard the phrase “too many cooks in the kitchen.” Now imagine if there were too many scientists in Dr. Frankenstein’s lab.

That’s what happens to your brand when everybody gets a say in how it comes to life—a work of art turns into a monster right before your eyes. And it scares everyone who sees it.

In this blog, we’re going to dig into what Frankensteined brands are, how they got that way, and what can be done to get them back on track now that they’ve gone haywire and theoretically murdered a bunch of your conversions.

What Is a “Frankensteined” Brand?

This is a little inside baseball, so don’t tell the boss we’re telling you (jokes, Chris already knows), but a Frankensteined brand is an industry term we coined to mean a brand or concept that has been cobbled together from mismatched parts so that it lacks cohesion and consistency.

It’s what happens when clients say, “I like the headline from Option A, but the visual from Option B. Can we combine them?”

And hey, presto! You’ve got a Frankensteined idea.

For brands, it typically shows up as inconsistent logo versions, clashing color palettes, and varying font applications. The messaging features wild tone shifts across channels, conflicting value propositions, and unclear market positioning.

Basically, it looks and feels like it was built by different people at different times, with no unifying concept or vision to create continuity.

How Brands Become Frankensteined

If all of this is sounding a little too familiar, don’t stress. It happens so often, to so many kinds of businesses, that we literally coined a phrase for it, so you can rest assured that you’re in some pretty good company.

Frankensteined brands are rarely the result of apathy. More often, they’re born from periods of rapid business growth that required a lick-it-and-stick-it approach to brand management. Different team members had to wear different hats, creating collateral on various platforms, with varying levels of proficiency.

They’re also a common occurrence after mergers or acquisitions, when new leadership steps in and tries to create integrations between two disparate brand identities. While this can be a quick fix during a hectic time, it’s not a long-term solution for a stable brand.

The Hidden Costs of a Frankensteined Brand

While investing in a formal brand discovery and development might seem a little daunting, especially for businesses that are just getting their footing, there are hidden costs associated with ignoring the issue.

For Your Customers:

• Confusion and lack of trust: Inconsistency signals unprofessionalism or instability
• Harder to recognize and remember your brand
• Unclear value proposition makes decision-making difficult
• Disconnect between brand promise and experience

For Your Employees:

• No clear guidelines lead to wasted time and frustration
• Lack of pride in representing a disjointed brand
• Difficulty explaining who you are and what you do
• Onboarding challenges when brand identity isn’t clear

For Your Business:

• Diluted brand equity and market position
• Marketing inefficiency: More spending for less impact
• Lost competitive advantage to more cohesive competitors
• Missed opportunities for premium pricing

How to De-Frankenstein Your Brand

Sick of living with a monster? We get it, and we got you. Together, we can make 2026 the year you get your brand back on track.

At Prolific, we have the strategic expertise to see the full picture, so we can perform a comprehensive brand audit and see where you stack up in the market. Then we’ll apply an efficient, proven process to craft a strong strategic foundation for your updated brand, clarifying your core values, defining your target audiences, and establishing your brand personality.

We also have the creative chops to bring a truly beautiful, ownable visual brand identity to market. We’ll create guidelines, palettes, typography hierarchies, templates, and everything else you need to start creating advertising assets in your new brand.

Our team can even keep an eye on your brand as consultants and help course-correct if we see things going off the rails again in the future, so you never have to worry that you’re creating another monster.

Conclusion

We’ve all seen it happen—your business takes off, your team gets bogged down, and before you know it, you’re approving assets you don’t even like just to keep the ball rolling. We’re not here to shame or blame, babe, but we are here to help you slay your monsters and get back on track.

Let’s make 2026 the year we transform confusion into clarity. Schedule a brand audit with Prolific and see what’s possible for the new you.