If you’re a creative professional, knowing about when it’s the right time to rebrand is important because when you’re working with clients and they are thinking about doing something with the brand, knowing what the triggers are for when is the right time to rebrand is something you can pass on to your clients. If you’re a business owner, knowing when to rebrand and when not to rebrand is also important to know.
The number one rule about rebranding that you have to remember is that consistency is everything in branding so you want to rebrand as little as possible. You want to have a lot of restraint when it comes to changing your brand. You don’t want to change your brand all the time. You don’t want to take making any changes to your brand lightly because when you change your brand, you are starting down the road of offering up some sort of customer confusion. If you were in packaging or if you were doing a physical product that you were selling in retail, any kind of change to your brand affects the recognition of your package on the shelf as the customers coming down the shelf looking for what they want to buy. If you can’t be recognized or if you’re changing things up in your brand all the time, it’s very difficult for people to remember exactly what it is you like and find you very easily when they come across your brand in the Brando sphere. You want to make sure that you’re maintaining that level of capital of brand equity that’s built up over time in your brand as much as possible. But there are times when it is time to do a little rebranding. There are rebrands like wholesale rebrands there’s also brand refreshes and I’m going to emphasize mostly on rebranding.
A refresh could be just a tweak to your logo or a tweak to your color palette and everything else stays the same just because you have to address something to make it better or to make it clearer or to address a change in your business.
What Are the Triggers and When It’s Time to Rebrand?
When Your Business Objective Has Changed
Do you have a brand new customer target? Is your product focus change? For example, you know Under Armour started as just an underwear company but they have expanded to be much more like Nike and they’re doing all sorts of athletic apparel. They probably should undergo some sort of major rebrand to address this larger product scope that their brand is undertaking. Their name is somewhat confining when they started. I don’t think they thought about how massive they would get. Under Armour refers to underwear or undergarments and that’s not what they do anymore. I’m not saying they should rename themselves but when you are naming a business, you have to be very cognizant of whether or not you’re painting yourself into a corner.
Another example of this is Airbnb, what we once known as an alternative stay for vacations and experiences away from home, started as an app to help budget travelers find a spare couch to sleep on. As people started to list more upscale places, Airbnb had to adapt from couches to the beachfront homes, the company had to rebrand to fit their new business objective. Using their core principles, they created a new logo and they even gave it a name below “for belonging anywhere” their slogan.
When Your Brand Doesn’t Reflect Your Business
For example, Apple computers started off doing just desktop computers and then they became all about the iPod and then they became all about the iPhone and now they’re doing air pods, tablets, all sorts of products and services. They have undergone major brand refreshes over time and that kind of a relook at their business was triggered by the fact that their brand identity didn’t reflect their business that much anymore. If you have changed or that brand identity doesn’t reflect you or your business anymore, it’s time for a rebrand.
When Styles Have Changed and You Look Dated
If you look at Coca-Cola or Pepsi, those brands have been around for more than a hundred years and styles have changed incredibly dramatically over that period. Therefore those brands have gone through major redesigns over time to address the style of the times. In fashion, it’s very much like fashion and the fact that styles change very frequently design changes. Fonts go out of style, illustration style if you have an illustration in your logo, those sorts of things change dramatically. If you’re looking at your brand and you’re finding that it’s looking incredibly dated, you might want to consider a rebrand.
When Your Brand Has Acquired the Wrong Image
It’s important to maintain control of your company’s image. However, if you’ve had bad marketing or inconsistent messaging, sometimes the public can take it in a direction that it was never intended. If this is the case, it’s probably time for a complete rebranding overhaul. One of the biggest cases is Burberry. After lowering their prices in the 90s, well it’s supposed to be a luxury brand that was being worn by low-class obnoxious individuals. The behavior associated with the brand got so bad that wearing Burberry was banned from pubs in the UK. Burberry accepted the challenge and implemented one of the most noted rebrands in history. They were confident, creative, embraced innovation, and added some of the most attractive faces to their brand. Once again they became known as high-fashioned and through it all, they maintained their same logo. Well, that is until 2018 when the logo saw a modern makeover despite its 90s infused fashion.
When You Don’t Feel Good About It Anymore
You have to feel good about your brand because it is where you will draw your energy and where you’ll draw your motivation. For any reason you don’t feel that the brand gives you the energy that you need to drive your business forward then you should think about a rebrand. You don’t want to change just because you are bored or for change's sake but you do want to be true to yourself, your emotions, that inner energy you have in your brand, and you don’t feel that connection anymore, it’s time for a rebrand.
If your company falls into one of the categories listed above, I strongly recommend a rebranding strategy. It could be an entirely new name or just a simple change in your logo. However, it’s not as simple as just getting on Photoshop.
Great article