When is it Time to Do a Rebrand?
“Never stop testing, and your advertising will never stop improving.” - David Ogilvy
As an entrepreneur, your business is your baby. Like how you would treat a baby, you put a lot of time and effort into growing it. Branding it right is one of the ways you can show your love for it. After all, your brand is more than just the name of your business, it’s what sets it apart from competitors and communicates your message to potential customers and existing target audience.
What if your brand now struggles to connect to your market? What if it feels like your business is stuck in a rut? Based on statistics from Global Banking and Finance, 71% of consumers buy from a brand that is familiar to them. On Oberlo, customers make purchase decisions from brands that they trust (46%) and share common values with them (64%). If your business isn’t clicking with customers, you need to start making steps toward refreshing your brand image, attracting old and new customers, and establishing their trust. Situations like these often sound the alarm bells for a rebranding project.
WHY DO COMPANIES REBRAND?
There are a handful of reasons why businesses undertake a rebranding project, either for boring or extreme reasons:
YOUR BRAND NO LONGER RESONATES
It’s essential that your business always resonates with your target audience. If not many buy your product or use your service, it could be for two reasons: One, either your brand has become stale or outmoded or two, your target audience has changed, which means their wants and needs have changed too. When your online store isn’t getting any traffic, and your brick-and-mortar store isn’t getting a lot of visitors, it’s time to take a step back and evaluate if you indeed need a rebrand.
YOUR BRAND HAS CHANGED
A business undergoes changes too. There are mergers, acquisitions, and takeovers. Whichever entity has the upperhand in these changes often spills their brand identity over the smaller entities. Sometimes, your business changes in a way that you now offer a new set of products or services. The new brand identity must reflect these changes.
YOUR BRAND IS TOO SIMILAR WITH COMPETITORS
The challenge to stand out in a crowded market is always a relentless pursuit among businesses. If your brand is too similar with your competitors, your customers can be easily swayed to avail of another brand’s product or service, all because of the lack of differentiation. As much as possible, your messaging and visual identity should be unique so that your target audience can easily identify you.
YOUR BRAND HAS A NEGATIVE REPUTATION
This is the most extreme reason for why you should do a brand revamp.
When your brand has a negative reputation that resists any form of rehabilitation, you should go into full firefighting mode to fix it and hopefully save the business. Taking on a rebrand project can give your business a new fresh image. However, before starting your rebrand project, make sure that all the underlying issues that earned the business a bad reputation must be addressed and solved. Otherwise, the issues will recur shortly or long after the rebrand.
STEPS TO DO A SUCCESSFUL REBRAND
Now that you’re aware of several reasons for overhauling a brand, it’s time to strategize and create a plan for implementing a successful rebrand project:
- Begin the Discovery
Discovery encapsulates the audit and research part of your brand. Some companies set a discovery session to realign the goals of the business; pick and choose which parts of the brand to eliminate, modify, or completely replace; analyse competition; map the current landscape of the industry; and review the customer’s needs.
The discovery session can also identify the strengths and weaknesses of the brand, gaps and solutions to fill them.
- Determine your Brand Values
After the discovery session, it’s time to list the attributes you want your target audience to associate your brand with. What do you stand for? What do you offer? What makes your brand unique? What keywords shall your customers describe you? Your brand values will guide the business on future branding decisions, including the visual identity and messaging.
- Create a New Visual Identity and Messaging
Your visual identity is how your customers identify you. It includes your logo, colour palette, typography, and other visual elements. For messaging, you have to set guidelines about what words to use and concepts to harp whenever one writes a copy or ad about your brand. It answers questions like: What’s the slogan? What is your value proposition? What’s the tone of the brand, etc.
- Launch your New Brand
Once you all have the previous steps figured out, it’s time to launch the new look and feel of the brand. It’s important to give yourself ample time to prepare all the collaterals in time for the day and time of the launch. If you have a team in tow, ask them to cover all the brand touchpoints that need to follow as soon as you unveil the new brand. This comprises social media, website, press kits, etc. Set the calendar and communicate to the audience where or when the launch will happen!
Remember, a rebrand can be a powerful move for businesses that need to update their image or connect with a new audience. However, it's important to approach a rebrand with careful planning and strategy to ensure its success. By following the steps above, you’re on your way to reconnecting with and re-establishing trust to new and old customers alike!
