Rebranding is the process of making significant changes to a company’s brand in order to alter the way it is perceived by customers and the wider market. There are a variety of reasons why a company might choose to rebrand, including the desire to modernize their product or image, address customer confusion, move away from a negative legacy, or reflect a change in business strategy.

The process of rebranding typically involves updating a company’s logo, visual identity, messaging, and marketing efforts. This can be a major undertaking, and companies often need to carefully consider their target audience, competitive landscape, and overall business goals when developing a rebranding strategy.

Rebranding can have a number of benefits for companies. It can help to attract new customers, increase brand awareness and recognition, and improve customer perceptions of the brand. However, it’s important for companies to be mindful of the potential risks and challenges of rebranding, such as the potential for customer confusion or resistance to change.

Overall, rebranding can be a powerful tool for companies looking to refresh their image or reposition themselves in the market. By carefully planning and executing a rebranding strategy, companies can make significant changes to their brand and improve their chances of success. The following are common elements of rebranding.

Brand Name

Changing a brand name. For example, consolidating a series of brands in a brand family. Firms invest significant resources in achieving brand recognition such that changing your primary brand name is viewed as a drastic action that is only performed to repair a negative reputation.

Visual Branding

Changes to the visual symbols of a brand such as colors, shapes, typography, logos, packaging, promotional styling and environments.

Brand Identity

Brand identity is everything a firm wants to be in the eyes of customers. This starts with a brand concept that represents the basic idea behind a brand. Brand identity is difficult to communicate and can often change without customers noticing. For example, it might take a firm a decade before most customers recognize a major shift in a firm’s mission and vision.

Brand Legacy

Rebranding is often intended to escape the negative legacy of a brand such as poor sustainability practices or association with an out-of-date technology, fashion or product. However, in some cases a rebranding may be intended to highlight a firm’s legacy. For example, a candy company that rebrands with old fashioned logos to highlight that the brand has been part of a culture for decades.

Brand Promise

A brand promise is a short statement resembling a slogan that communicates what customers can expect of your brand. This is designed to be direct, short and memorable.

Authentic Branding

An attempt to actually change as a company as opposed to a change to brand image that doesn’t reflect underlying realities. For example, a power company that actually launches a serious program of environmental stewardship as opposed to adopting a green logo without any actual changes to strategy and operations.

Internal Branding

In cases of authentic branding, rebranding may begin internally to get employees on board with a new mission and vision.

Customer Experience

Changes to customer experience such as redesigned products and services. For example, a bicycle helmet company that rebrands after a series of safety incidents may redesign its helmets to be safer.

Pricing & Distribution

Elements of the marketing mix such as pricing and distribution may be changed along with a rebranding. For example, an ecommerce company that opens new physical shops may change its slogan and visual branding.

Promotion

It is common to promote a rebranding with extensive advertising campaigns and other promotional efforts.

Storytelling

Storytelling is the art of making information interesting. For example, a firm that wants to promote its brand legacy that captures and communicates interesting anecdotes about the firm’s past.

Experimentation

Rebranding an established brand is a high risk proposition that tends to have a high rate of failure. As such, it is common to experiment and measure results before scaling a brand change.