When Should You Rebrand?

In 30 years of marketing, and after working through several rebrands of varying levels of complexity, if I’ve learned anything at all, it’s that rebranding is not a decision to be taken lightly.?

It’s important to think very carefully before you rebrand.? The time and costs involved will almost always be more than you anticipated and mistakes can be costly.

And the very word rebranding often strikes terror into the hearts of marketing teams.? It will likely be a major project for them, distracting them from their core function of generating leads and therefore sales.?

Plus there is risk.? Rebranding is another one of those organizational change initiatives, of which as we all know 70% fail, or at least fail to move the dial.?

So why would you do it?

Why Rebrand?

A lot of the time, the push to rebrand comes from within an organization and often coincides with a change in management or strategy.? Often it’s part of some wider organizational change.?

With this in mind, there are times when rebranding makes complete sense:

After a merger, especially if it’s a merger of equals or near-equals.? Bringing two previously separate entities together under one common new brand can help smooth the future path and lets everyone start afresh with less historical baggage.

After an acquisition. Usually, but not always, it makes sense to rebrand an acquired brand and bring it inside the overall corporate brand identity.

A new direction.? You’re taking the business in a completely new direction where the existing brand is not well known and / or doesn’t reflect your new vision.

The existing brand needs a refresh. Or in the worst case, it's dated, tired and losing relevance.? When it comes to marketing, this loss of relevance is probably one of the most serious challenges a leadership team can face, when the brand starts to become a drag on company performance.?

What is Rebranding?

When people talk about rebranding, usually all the focus is on the logo.? And while this might be part of it, there's a lot more to it.

Rebranding comes in a multitude of flavors. For simplicity, we'll look at three.

Refresh the Brand

You can rebrand without changing the logo.? Vision, messaging, imagery, website / literature design and advertising all can be refreshed to varying degrees as part of a rebrand without reworking the logo.?

This kind of rebranding helps keep the brand fresh and relevant. It's what you might call a softer rebrand, the equivalent of redecorating your house. It's proactive, taking action before the brand becomes dated or loses relevance. And it's not that disruptive to the organization: much of the brand refresh can be absorbed within the normal day-to-day work of the marketing team.

Over my career I’ve been part of several of these softer relaunches.? Typically, they happened every five or so years and reflected tweaks in the direction of the organization in terms of customers, products and services.

Change the Logo

This has all the elements of the refresh with a change of logo thrown in. It's common where a company is taking a new direction, aiming for a new kind of customer with different products and services. Here the rebrand often becomes part of a much wider change initiative across the entire organization.

With a logo change, the level of complexity of the rebrand moves up a few notches. Even with a minor change, you'll need to register the new logo as a trademark wherever you sell. This isn't usually that expensive to do but can be time-consuming and will need legal advice and support.

Obviously the new logo will need to be reflected on products, literature, communications, documents, merchandise and signage. The work involved in this is often seriously underestimated. It can be jaw-dropping. You'll need a good project manager to see it through and a wide team drawn from almost every discipline. Fortunately, now that most marketing is digital, the days are long gone when companies had to pulp huge quantities of brochures after a logo change!

If you’re going to develop a new logo and if your existing logo is relatively well known, it’s usually best to consider an evolutionary approach to the new logo, not radical change.??

Change the Name

Completely changing the company name along with messaging and logo is the nuclear option, in terms of complexity, cost and effort. This is often seen after a merger, especially if it’s a merger of equals or near-equals, or when part of an existing company is spun off to become a separate entity on its own.

In marketing terms, it's starting completely afresh with a blank sheet of paper. Like knocking down a house and rebuilding it. As rebrands go, this is as complex as it gets. Unsurprisingly, it's not a very common occurrence.

A name change will bring in legal and contractual issues, together with a very steep marketing mountain to climb. It's not for the faint-hearted.

Doing the Homework

1 External Research

The foundations of any rebrand are always external research. You can hire a research company to carry out some quantitative research in the market, but the results you'll get will probably prompt as many questions as answers and you may end up second-guessing what the surveys are telling you. And this kind of research can be very expensive.

Very often the best approach is simply to have structured conversations with key customers and distributors, either doing it yourself or with the support of external consultants, if needed. You'll learn deep insights and your customers or distributors will usually be very happy to be brought into the process. They'll feel a sense of ownership and engagement that will serve you very well later.

Be wary of taking a shortcut and talking too much to your own sales and marketing people in this research stage. People at the heart of your organization can get very wrapped up in internal issues and have a completely different view of the brand than your customers. Customers will tell you exactly how it is from an external viewpoint.

2 Evolution, not Revolution

The best approach to branding is evolution, not revolution.?

Think of the world’s most successful and well-established brands.? They build incrementally on top of past successes. And a common denominator among them is gradual evolution, not radical reworking of the brand.?

3 Focus on Brand Values and Purpose First

When re-evaluating your brand, it's tempting to dive in headfirst and start looking at products and services. But this is putting the cart before the horse.

Brands are emotional things that live inside the heads of customers and the personality of your brand is driven by its values and purpose, why your brand exists.

As you're working your way through the rebrand, focus on these brand values and purpose first and foremost. These are what will resonate with your target audience and once you have them, they will inform and drive your marketing at product level.

When you come to share news of your rebrand externally, it will be the brand values and purpose that will lead your communications.

It's a Long Game

Always keep in mind that change is a long haul and few hauls are longer than a rebrand. Brands are built over generations with considerable time, effort and budget invested along the way. The more you change, the greater the time and cost involved in carrying it out and in explaining it to the market.

There is no quick fix.

If you're working through some of the issues in this article and could use a sounding board, message me.