Rebranding a company is a big deal. Too often, however, this decision is taken lightly because the idea of what a rebrand really is tends to be misinterpreted. News flash: this is not just an exercise of updating your logo and colors or updating to a newer website. It’s about deeply understanding and redefining the company’s brand identity, which encompasses more than visual elements—it’s about the essence of your brand, including logo, colors, typography, images, and voice, and ensuring consistency across all platforms. Any branding exercise should start from the roots of the business and work outward. That means delving deep into the core questions of your organization’s identity and its relevance. If this sounds philosophical, it is (at least in part). Think about it. If, as a leader of a business organization, you don’t clearly know what your organization’s purpose is, how can you expect your customers or employees to know?

But it’s not all philosophical. Good brand strategy requires a strong understanding of the underlying business dynamics, including its history, future growth goals, and the broader strategic plan. It also needs to understand its core customers and offerings deeply and to take into context the broader market and competitive set. The ‘think’ portion of a rebranding exercise is where audit, research, and analysis meet creative thinking and strategy. More on that later, but the main takeaway is to know that, when done correctly, rebranding a company is a chance to take stock and carefully explore your business potential from multiple perspectives.

A well-designed and executed brand strategy helps business leaders discover their brand’s essence by determining exactly what they do, why they do it, and who they do it for.

Rebranding is an incredibly healthy and energizing experience that will give any company a fresh new lease on life while unlocking exciting growth potential.

Key Takeaways

Rebranding is much more than designing a new logo. It’s a strategic exercise that can help propel a company’s evolution by clearly defining its purpose to align with business goals.

A successful rebrand is an exercise in perspective. It requires comprehensive research to cultivate important insights about markets, categories, customers, and competitors.

The insights gleaned from this process set the stage for developing a renewed brand strategy. In the simplest of terms, this means deciding what we are and are not. A key output of the strategy is a careful redefinition of the company’s new positioning, core values, mission, and vision.

Aligning the rebranding process with the company’s mission is crucial. It communicates the company’s values and can attract new audiences by showcasing a commitment to those values, especially if considering a total rebrand to reflect changes in the company’s mission, vision, and values.

The final step is to change the visual identity and messaging. The rigorous brand strategy work will illuminate new opportunities to design a brand identity that stands out and connects with the target audience in a way they will find meaningful.

Understanding the Need for Rebranding

So, who needs a rebrand, and how might one know if it’s time? If you’re unsure, ask yourself this: Is your brand today helping or hurting? Do customers know why you exist, love what you offer, and refuse to engage with your competitors? Your brand is how you communicate and connect. If it’s not optimized, it’s probably a missed opportunity. Here is a list of factors that can trigger the need for a rebrand.

Shifting Markets

A company’s target audience may change over time. If a brand’s image no longer resonates with its ideal customer, a rebrand will help get it back on track. It’s crucial to develop a strong marketing strategy that covers all channels during a rebrand to appeal to the new target audience.

Loss of Differentiation

If a company’s brand has become indistinguishable from its competitors, a rebranding can help it stand out in the marketplace. A strong brand identity will convey what makes that company unique.

Change in Company Direction

As a company grows and evolves, its mission and values may change. If the current branding no longer reflects the company’s new vision, a rebrand can help communicate this shift.

Outdated Brand Image

Over time, branding trends can change. If a company’s visual identity appears dated, a rebrand can help it appear more modern and relevant to current consumers.

Negative Perception

Sometimes companies need to address negative perceptions about their brand. A rebrand can be an opportunity to start fresh and rebuild trust with customers.

Lack of Focus

Branding is about human connection. Its nemesis is trying to appeal to everyone. If your market focus is scattered, a rebrand will help define your strategy and bring renewed focus. Your customers will love it.

Shifting Behaviors

Staying abreast of evolving customer expectations and ensuring alignment can provide a substantial competitive advantage. Consider the impact of digital innovation. Companies that fail to embrace digital transformation risk falling behind their competitors. Visual design – the look and feel of a brand – will signal its relevance to audiences who seek out companies that meet these needs.

New Offerings

Launching new products, priorities, or services can also trigger a rebrand. These changes can disrupt the existing brand identity, necessitating a rebrand to reflect the new direction. After all, your brand should reflect who you are as a business, and if that changes, so should your brand.

Business expansion

When entering new markets or launching new product categories, a rebrand can help leverage established brand equity to suit these new ventures. However, this is not a one-size-fits-all situation. Expansion to international markets calls for a brand refresh that is congruent with the varied preferences and identities of global audiences. Your brand needs to be as dynamic and adaptable as your business.

If you’re unsure or unable to assess your current brand status, we recommend a brand audit. An audit will provide you and your team with a clear point of view as to how your brand compares to your competitors across multiple criteria.

Who participates?

Rebranding is ultimately about change. Even if subtle, change requires careful planning, execution and communication to ensure success. When we organize a brand project, we work closely with our clients to craft a plan that identifies the who, what and when for how the project will unfold. This begins with determining the project team, which is responsible for the day-to-day advancement of the effort. We recommend a project team that includes the organization’s key personnel who will be hands-on. For larger organizations this is often the Marketing leaders, the creative director and sometime a manager from a different departments or division. Senior team member participation is vital to our process, so we tailor the programming of workshops around them. Depending on the individuals, this can mean workshops that are shorter in duration but more frequent or it can mean less but more intensive workshops or workshop retreats.

Regardless of how its scheduled, the objective of the workshops are to support incremental but steady progress while sharing knowledge, ideas and building alignment along the way.

Diving into Brand Strategy

If you’ve made it this far, odds are you’re considering a rebrand. Exciting! The goal of this guide is to prepare you by outlining the steps involved in shepherding this effort with success. This section summarizes the first step, developing a brand strategy. At Workshop Built, we organize the brand building into three components: Think, Design, and Develop. We consider brand strategy as the ‘Think’ phase of the project

Discovery

The discovery workshop is the session to gather the project team to discuss what’s ahead. This is often a less structured dialogue designed to get ideas out into the open and ask many questions. The objective is to align the agency team with the client’s core team members. The discovery sets the stage for the team to collectively identify what we know and pinpoint areas that necessitate further investigation. These discussions are essential for assessing the current brand position, identifying potential opportunities, and ensuring that the perspectives of all stakeholders are incorporated into the rebranding process.

The Role of Research

Market Research

Understanding the current market landscape is crucial for rebranding. Market research helps identify emerging trends, consumer behaviors, and competitor strategies. It also outlines what works well in the industry and where a rebrand could fill gaps. Companies can use surveys, focus groups, and market analysis to gather this data, which will inform decisions on positioning and differentiation.

Customer Insights

The heart of any brand is its customers. Researching customer preferences, pain points, and expectations can reveal what is and isn’t resonating with them. This step often involves collecting feedback from existing customers through interviews or questionnaires. It’s also beneficial to look at potential customers to understand the broader appeal of the brand.

Internal Brand Audit

An internal brand audit examines the brand’s current state from within. It assesses the logo’s effectiveness, messaging, and overall brand identity. The audit should also evaluate the brand’s digital presence, marketing materials, and the website’s analytics.

Competitive Analysis

Conducting an in-depth analysis of the company’s main competitors is essential to grasp their market presence fully. This facilitates strategic exercises such as perceptual mapping, which helps to identify areas of high competition and opportunities in market segments with less saturation.

Interviews and Surveys

Contributions from internal stakeholders such as key staff members and employees are invaluable in completing the research phase, shedding light on company culture and operations. Equally important are the perspectives of external stakeholders like customers and suppliers, who provide feedback on market demands and the brand’s outward perception. This comprehensive collection of viewpoints from various sources is indispensable for forming a complete picture of where the brand stands and the strategic direction it should pursue.

Creating a Rebranding Strategy

Formulating an effective brand strategy is essential, intertwining with a company’s goals and aspirations. The journey of strategy creation is one of imaginative exploration, delving into the heart of what the brand stands for and its fundamental values. Our method involves convening key stakeholders for dynamic strategy workshops, where ideas can be freely exchanged, concepts visualized, and theories put through their paces. To steer these collaborative sessions, we concentrate on five critical queries that aid in charting the brand’s trajectory:

What is our purpose?
Who do we serve?
Where do we play?
How will we win?
How will we grow?

Remember that the process of developing a strategy is inherently dynamic. It often requires multiple brainstorming sessions to refine, test, and select the most impactful ideas. We build our brand program around workshops for this very reason. Bringing the key team members together helps accelerate progress while building alignment along the way. This is critical to ensure rebranding success, especially in larger organizations.

The Verbal Brand

The verbal or written brand is a framework of statements used to define the brand so it is well understood by internal and external audiences. The deliverable is a comprehensive messaging matrix that should be preserved in a brand book and reviewed by everyone inside the organization. This is also where the hard work poured into the brand strategy can manifest into powerful language that informs and guides the brand’s raison d’etre.

One of the most important statements to craft is what we at Workshop Built consider to be the verbal brand’s crown jewel: the Positioning Statement. This statement describes the brand’s product or service offering, its target audience, and the market need it fills. Too often, these statements read like a stale offering of corporate jargon, existing only to check a box. But this is an opportunity for creative thinking to meet strategy head-on. Nailing the positioning statement usually entails communicating a lot without actually saying a lot. The best statements are evocative and inspiring and help people instantly understand the brand. This is what helps customers easily understand the brand and the reward is a brand that multiplies its effectiveness. If you want a quick dose of inspiration, check out Ten Positioning Statements We Love.

In addition to the positioning statement, the verbal brand will include the following:

• Who we are
• What we do
• Our mission
• Our vision
• Our values

These elements come together to form a narrative that communicates the company’s essence to its audience. ‘Who we are’ encapsulates the identity and culture of the company, ‘What we do’ outlines the services or products offered, ‘Our mission’ states the company’s purpose, ‘Our vision’ projects the future aspirations, and ‘Our values’ define the principles and ethics guiding the company’s actions. Together, these components of the verbal brand serve as the foundation for all messaging and communication strategies, ensuring that every word spoken or written on behalf of the company is aligned with its core identity.

Verbal brand language extends to defining the entire brand personality. At Workshop, we create a graphical view of the brand personality. As we work through the strategy, we start to develop a picture of how the brand is shaping itself. Is it more casual or formal? Fun or serious? We work through a series of scales to pinpoint where the brand lands on each. An exercise like this one, conducted in a workshop, often sparks additional discussions, which is a healthy way to calibrate a brand personality and also to remove a certain measure of subjectivity from the brand-building equation.

Following the personality scale, we can start defining how the brand will sound by assigning to it a voice and tone.

Brand Architecture

Organizing and possibly renaming sub-brands is crucial for companies with a range of products or services. This ensures a clear brand hierarchy and prevents customer confusion as the company grows. A strategic brand architecture simplifies marketing, reinforces brand equity, and offers a roadmap for future initiatives. It also provides legal clarity for trademarking sub-brands and facilitates targeted communication strategies while maintaining a consistent brand promise.

Renaming and Establishing a New Brand Identity

Its possible that the company name requires a rethink, too. Often, it’s due to a company’s expansion plans where the original name simply no longer makes sense. This was the case with financial institutions that outgrew their original purpose, like GMAC, which today is Ally. Other times it’s because the original name lacked the type of thought and foresight that you’re considering in your rebrand. Consider that Google was originally named Backrub (hey, it seemed like a good idea at the time). More recently, Google created a parent company named Alphabet while Facebook created one called Meta. While these examples are more drastic, there are times when just a subtle alteration is called for. Perhaps removing a product descriptor from the name, or simplifying a longer name down to its core idea. Whatever the underlying reason is, it should be uncovered during a rebrand, and a solution should be made part of the deliverables.

Designing the Brand’s Visual Identity

With the foundation in place, it’s time to delve into the intricacies of rebranding— the visual and messaging aspects. A rebranding initiative typically includes developing a new visual identity, which is key to telegraphing a brand’s updated image. But it’s not just about aesthetics; it’s about conveying the brand’s personality and values in a way that resonates with the target audience.

Logo redesign

People often associate your brand name with the logo first. It’s the visual representation of your company and plays a crucial role in creating a strong brand identity. A logo redesign, therefore, is a critical part of any rebranding strategy, as it can significantly impact your brand reputation.

The research and brand strategy play an important role in redesigning the logo. By this point, we have developed a very clear set of insights and have begun

It’s about striking a balance between the old and the new, preserving the essence of the brand while refreshing its look with a new visual identity.

The redesigned logo must be adaptable, learning from the old version’s limitations and ensuring suitability across various business channels. After all, your logo will appear everywhere—from your website and social media pages to your packaging and marketing collateral. It needs to look good everywhere.

Color palette and typography

Color and typography extend beyond aesthetics; they constitute vital elements of your brand identity. Evaluating colors during a rebrand ensures they align with the desired brand image. Think about the feelings and associations that certain colors evoke—do these align with your brand’s personality and values? This is another area that relies heavily upon the competitive research conducted earlier. A deep analysis of competing brand colorways is assessed to develop an understanding of how customers might perceive the range of options. Remember, standing apart from the field is an important facet of creating a brand with impact.

To maintain a coherent image, it is vital to ensure that brand colors appear consistent across all brand materials. Your color palette should be versatile enough to work across various mediums, from print to digital.

Typography, on the other hand, plays a crucial role in setting the tone of your brand. Remember, it’s about making a connection with the target audience, and that means showing off brand personality. The fonts chosen by the design team will reflect the brand’s character and exude its unique sense of being. If the brand fonts we adopt make the brand immediately recognizable and relatable, that’s a huge win in itself.

Brand voice and messaging

Visual elements constitute only a fraction of the rebranding process. The other critical component is your brand voice and messaging. Utilizing a brand’s vision, mission, and values is crucial for developing an authentic voice that resonates with the brand’s core identity and messaging. It’s about creating a narrative that connects with your audience on an emotional level.

Taglines play a critical role in distinguishing a brand from its competitors and focusing the brand’s messaging, exploiting marketing psychology to captivate the audience. A compelling tagline can encapsulate your brand’s essence and make a lasting impression on your audience.

Revising a brand’s slogan during rebranding is key to ensuring it encapsulates the company’s mission and vision, creating a memorable representation of the brand’s identity. After all, branding is about defining who a company is, what it does, and why it matters, serving as a foundation for building authentic and emotional human connections.

Implementing Your Rebrand: Best Practices and Tips

Having developed a rebranding strategy, designed a new logo, and identified your brand voice, Now it’s time to bring it all together and implement your rebrand. This is where the rubber meets the road. But how do you ensure a well-coordinated rebranding launch that effectively communicates the company’s new mission, values, and vision?

A robust rebrand implementation strategy should leverage organic media and paid advertising campaigns to promote the rebrand to existing customers and the broader public. It’s about creating a buzz and building anticipation for the big reveal.

Preparing for launch involves:

• Reviewing all brand touchpoints to ensure old branding is replaced with new
• Ensuring a seamless transition and presenting a unified brand image to your audience
• Remember that consistency is key in branding
• Internal communication and team involvement

Successful rebranding relies heavily on effective internal communication. A comprehensive brand-building plan helps ensure employees are well-informed and supportive of the new brand identity. After all, your employees are your brand ambassadors—they’re the ones who live and breathe your brand every day.

Strategic rebranding can also boost company culture and foster a sense of trust among current and prospective employees. It’s about creating an environment where employees feel proud to be part of the brand and are motivated to contribute to its success.

Maintaining brand consistency is crucial, and this is where brand guidelines come into play. They serve as a roadmap for employees, helping them understand how to represent the brand accurately and consistently across all touchpoints. It’s about ensuring everyone is on the same page and working towards the same goal.

Launch strategy and promotion

A successful rebrand launch isn’t a fluke—it necessitates meticulous planning and execution. A solid rebrand launch should be strategic, considering factors such as timing, platform selection, and target audience. It’s about making the most of your resources and ensuring that your rebrand makes a splash.

Securing management buy-in and aligning cross-functional teams for the rebrand launch ensures a unified presence across all channels. It’s about ensuring that everyone is working in tandem to make the launch successful. Pre-launch internal communication can help to ensure that employees become brand ambassadors and are in sync with the company’s new direction.

Promotion is also a key aspect of a successful launch. Here are some strategies to consider, including the use of marketing materials:

• Press releases
• Social media campaigns
• Email marketing
• Influencer collaborations
• Creating a comprehensive media kit
• These strategies can help create a buzz before the rebrand launch and reach the target demographic. They can also provide credibility and help secure press coverage.

Rebranding Success Stories and Lessons Learned

Despite the intimidating nature of rebranding, numerous brands have triumphed in this endeavor. Their success stories serve as inspiration and offer valuable lessons for any business considering a rebrand. Take Airbnb and Old Spice, for instance. Both brands undertook transformative rebrands, leading to increased brand awareness and sales. However, it’s also important to learn from those who stumbled along the way, such as Gap and Hershey’s. Their experiences underscore the importance of understanding and connecting with the target audience.

Far from being wasteful, rebranding demands strategic planning and execution for success and added brand value. It’s not just about changing a logo or color scheme—it’s about aligning your brand with your business objectives and resonating with your target audience.

Airbnb’s transformative rebrand

Airbnb’s rebrand in 2014 is a powerful testament to the transformative power of a well-planned and executed rebrand. The new Airbnb logo, known as ‘Bélo’, symbolizes:

• a person
• the letter A
• a geotag
• a house

All within a circle, to represent belonging and trust. It’s a visual representation of the brand’s commitment to creating a sense of belonging wherever you go.

In anticipation of the new brand’s reaction, Airbnb created a microsite allowing people to create their own versions of the Bélo. This clever move generated buzz and encouraged user engagement and ownership, making the rebrand a shared experience.

Airbnb’s rebranding initiative is a prime example of how a rebrand can freshen up a company’s image and deepen its connection with its audience. It shows that a rebrand is not just about a new look—it’s about a new identity, vision, and promise to customers.

Old Spice’s revitalized image

Old Spice, a brand once associated with an older demographic, successfully rebranded to appeal to a younger audience. The ‘Man Your Man Could Smell Like’ ad campaign, which went viral after its release on YouTube before the 2010 Super Bowl, played a pivotal role in this transformation.

The rebranding effort, spearheaded by Wieden+Kennedy, adopted a humorous and direct marketing approach that significantly increased the brand’s market share and revenue. Following the launch of its viral ad, Old Spice sales more than doubled, website traffic jumped by 300%, and the brand’s YouTube channel became the number one most-viewed sponsored YouTube Channel.

The revitalization of Old Spice’s image through its advertising campaign led to numerous awards, including the 2010 Cannes Lions Film Grand Prix award and a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Commercial. The campaign also significantly boosted the brand’s social media following. By the end of 2010, following its rebranding efforts, Old Spice had become the top-selling brand of body wash for men in the United States.

Common Rebranding Mistakes and How to Avoid Them

Alongside numerous success stories, there also exist cautionary tales of rebranding failures. Learning from past rebranding failures can help businesses avoid the same mistakes. For instance, Hershey’s 2009 rebranding was poorly received due to its resemblance to a less savory graphic.

Gap’s 2010 rebranding attempt is another example of a rebrand gone wrong. The fashion retailer faced public outrage when it unveiled a new logo, which led to a quick reversal of the old design. These cases underscore the importance of understanding and connecting with the target audience and the potential backlash from a poorly executed rebrand.

Far from being wasteful, rebranding demands strategic planning and execution for success and added brand value. However, without a clear understanding of the brand’s identity and the needs and expectations of its target audience, even the most well-intentioned rebranding efforts can fall flat.

Listen to your customers

Neglecting customer feedback is a common misstep in rebranding. Incorporating customer feedback into the rebranding strategy is critical for aligning the brand with customers’ needs and expectations. After all, your customers are the ones who interact with your brand the most—they have valuable insights that can help shape your rebranding strategy.

Take, for instance, Domino’s Pizza. The pizza chain effectively included customer feedback in its rebrand by openly admitting to past mistakes, addressing customer complaints, and implementing tangible improvements. This transparent approach not only improved the brand’s image but also helped build trust with customers.

Ignoring customer feedback can have severe implications, as seen with the hostile and mocking public reaction to Airbnb’s logo redesign. It’s a reminder that while a rebrand is ultimately a company’s decision, the customer’s voice should always be a crucial factor in the process.

Inconsistency in brand elements

Another frequent rebranding error is inconsistency in brand elements. A lack of uniformity across all branding channels can result in an incomplete or confusing brand representation for customers. It’s about ensuring a seamless brand experience, regardless of where or how customers interact with your brand.

This means that your logo, color palette, typography, and brand messaging should be consistent across all touchpoints—from your website and social media pages to your packaging and marketing collateral. It’s not just about aesthetics; it’s about creating a coherent and recognizable brand identity.

Avoiding inconsistency in brand elements requires careful planning and coordination. It’s about ensuring everyone involved in the rebrand—from the marketing team to the design team—is on the same page and working towards the same goal.

Summary

Rebranding is a strategic evolution that can redefine a company’s identity, reignite its purpose, and unlock potential growth. It’s a journey that requires careful planning, strategic execution, and a deep understanding of the brand’s purpose, core principles and target audience. From assessing the current brand identity and setting clear objectives to developing a new visual identity and messaging, every step of the rebranding process plays a crucial role in the success of the rebrand. While the journey is not without its challenges, the benefits of a successful rebrand—increased brand awareness, customer loyalty, and business growth—make it worthwhile.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the main purpose of rebranding?

The main purpose of rebranding is to refresh a company’s image, target new demographics, adjust to market shifts, move past controversies, or communicate an evolution in its mission or values. Rebranding can also help attract new audiences, help a brand stay relevant or stand out among competitors.

What is rebranding and why is it important?

Rebranding is the strategic evolution of a company’s brand identity, important for staying competitive, aligning with new goals, and adapting to market shifts. It can increase brand awareness, attract and retain customers, and lead to increased sales and customer loyalty.

What are some common mistakes in rebranding?

The most common mistake we encounter is a misunderstanding of what branding is. Many people believe it’s just a logo.

How can businesses avoid common rebranding mistakes?

Invest the time and commitment into each phase outlined in this guide. It’s crucial to approach rebranding with the understanding that it is a comprehensive process involving deep strategic planning, creative development, and meticulous implementation. Each step, from the initial research and discovery phase through to the final rollout of the new brand identity, demands careful attention and dedication. This commitment will ensure that the rebrand effectively communicates the new brand message, resonates with the target audience, and is consistently applied across all touchpoints of the company.