If you’ve been considering a rebrand for your company, the first question to ask yourself is, “Why?” For these efforts to be successful and worthwhile, you must have a good reason to begin and a strategy that guides you throughout the process. There’s no need to change simply for the sake of changing.
Let's start by reviewing the specifics of a rebrand. This process is a complete overhaul of your brand's identity. It’s in-depth and often requires revisiting significant elements such as your brand positioning, values, guidelines, and mission and vision statements.
So, back to the question at hand. Why would you or anyone else want to embark on such a large and impactful project? There are a few good justifications for this, including the following.
You notice that you're not staying up to date with customer preferences.
The customer is always right after all! It is crucial to seek feedback frequently. If you discover that customer interests and needs have changed, you must adapt. This may be the most important reason to rebrand. Just be sure to update your products and services first. Promising change without delivering would be worse than not acting at all.
Your business model or offerings have changed.
Keeping your current branding after such a companywide change can confuse audiences. A great example of this is companies whose focus has moved away from products and towards services. Another is those whose products have evolved so dramatically over the years that their current offerings hardly resemble their original lineup. Take this opportunity to redefine your market position.
Your company is experiencing an acquisition, merger, or change in leadership.
Situations such as these require a company to reintroduce itself. This allows your target audience to meet your current team members and understand your modern mission. It also signals reinvigoration and growth, which is typically attractive and reassuring to customers. Similarly, if you are expanding into new markets, territories, or countries, you may want to consider a rebrand for the same reasons.
Customers have negative associations with your company.
If you’ve been through a scandal or made a bad business decision, you’ll want to correct the perception of your company as soon as possible. Rebranding can help with this – after any issues have been resolved and the public relations crisis has died down. Also, even if you haven’t made big mistakes, misinformation or circumstances beyond your control can stain your reputation. Making certain changes can help outwardly align your brand with your true values.
As mentioned, rebranding isn’t as simple as making a few visual updates. Doing that alone would be considered more of a small brand refresh, which is certainly a route you can take. A rebrand should be reserved for scenarios like those above as the process requires significant time, money, and hard work. If you’re not in that boat, here’s more information about how you can make some immediate and helpful changes.
Conducting a brand refresh is a great method for modernizing your image while maintaining your core identity. Although changes are typically made to these elements during a more extensive rebrand, you may consider updating your logo, color palette, fonts, slogan, or writing style. These decisions should still be made strategically and backed by market research and competitor analysis.
If your company’s look is outdated or lackluster, a brand refresh can give you the appeal and competitive edge you’ve been missing. However, it’s important not to take things too far. Even during a full rebrand, you want to remain recognizable and retain some of what customers know and love, so they don’t get confused and opt for another brand.
Once you’ve pinpointed why you want to conduct a rebrand, you can either be confident that your company would benefit from a complete makeover or opt for more appropriate cosmetic changes. Even a small brand refresh can put you back in the spotlight or draw attention from new audiences. Just be sure to implement brand changes slowly, thoughtfully, and consistently.
Also, if you start a full rebrand, you must commit to seeing it through. Doing time-consuming research or spending money having a designer create new content for you and then never implementing any of this would be a painful waste. Plus, if you start to roll out some of the changes but don’t follow through with the entire strategic campaign, your audiences may be more confused and frustrated than ever.
A successful rebrand is no easy feat and requires a company to shift its overall mentality. So, you must have a good “why” behind your actions. Then, if you seek the proper professional help and manage the process well, you will likely reap the benefits for years to come.
