There are just about as many reasons to rebrand a business as
there are ways to do it. Some of those reasons are positive (two
organizations have merged or a company has significantly expanded
its offering), while others are less rosy (the current brand has
been tainted in some way or has become outdated).
Regardless of the reason for rebranding, there are right and
wrong ways to go about it. The first step is determining the extent
of the rebrand, which will typically be determined by the reason
for wanting to change market perception.
Partial Rebrand
In situations when a brand has been firmly established yet is
simply outdated or needs to be refreshed due to the addition of new
products or services, tweaking is required, rather than a
full-blown rebrand. In these cases, you don't want to eliminate
the brand value that's been developed over the years, but
merely make subtle changes to update it or make it representative
of an expanded offering.
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Aunt Jemima is a great example of tweaking a well-established
brand to update it. The image used for years on its products--an
African-American "blue collar" woman--was simply out of
step with today's mores. Rather than completely change the
brand, Aunt Jemima updated the woman to reflect a more professional
image.
Total Rebrand
Corporate mergers will often result in complete rebrands. When
organizations have failed to establish a brand, or have been
through any kind of scandal, total rebranding may also be in order.
In these cases, the intent is to erase any previous brand identity
and replace it with completely new imagery and messaging.
Sprint is an excellent example of a total rebrand, necessitated
when the company merged with Nextel. The company eliminated the
angular logo (and red corporate color) that seemed indicative of
inflexibility and replaced it with a more fluid logo--placed on a
cheerful gold background--that reflects the company's
friendliness and flexibility.
Rebranding Advice
Not all rebrands are successful. Do you remember New Coke, for
instance?
While it's impossible to know for certain what the outcome
of a rebrand will be, you certainly can put yourself in a position
to be successful by making solid decisions, beginning with building
a brand-planning team. Trusted employees should be included, and
perhaps even some valued customers, so you can receive external
input.
Next up is reviewing the way the company operates, to ensure
that internal processes and procedures are appropriate given the
new brand messaging, or determine that they need to be altered in
some way. Following that exercise, an exciting rollout needs to be
orchestrated; employees must be passionate about the new brand, so
they can generate passion in the marketplace. Every department
should be involved, since rebranding isn't merely a marketing
function, but a companywide endeavor.
Once the initial excitement dies down, it's important to
sustain the new brand by instituting an ongoing program for
measuring employees' consistent and complete use of it.
Maintaining brand integrity within a company puts you on a path to
market buy-in, which is the very reason for rebranding in the first
place.
John Williams is Entrepreneur.com's "Image
& Branding" columnist and the founder and president of
LogoYes.com,
the world's first do-it-yourself logo design website. During
John's 25 years in advertising, he's created brand
standards for Fortune 100 companies like Mitsubishi and won
numerous awards for his design work.