06/07/2016
First off, what is a rebranding? Simply put, a rebrand is when a company, business or organisation changes a significant element of their identity – be that their logo, name, colour scheme or even a reposition of company goals and promises.
There will come a day for every company when they’ll question their identity and its relevance. Recognising when a rebrand is needed is often the hardest part of the process, namely as it forces the unsavoury necessity to leave behind a logo and brand that has served the company well. That being said, a successful rebrand should unite a company’s heritage with its growth and thus capitalise on both.
Here’s five reasons why a rebrand could be a good marketing strategy for your company:
Out with the old and in with the new..
One of the hardest challenges for any company is to stay modern, and it is this challenge which facilitates the most common motivation for a rebrand. As society grows, shifts and moves forward so should your brand, even the biggest companies in the world have evolved their brand identities to stay relevant and ahead of competition; Coca Cola competitor Pepsi has rebranded a staggering 11 times!
Mergers, acquisitions and demergers
When a business changes ownership through a merger, acquisition or demerger it often results in an immediate rebrand – again for a variety of reasons.
Firstly, the aim here is to make the change visible to consumers, secondly it could be to comply with legal requirements. In the case of 50:50 mergers, such as T-Mobile and Orange that became dominating mobile network EE, an entirely new brand is necessary to encompass both party’s audiences and remove any bias to either established brand. Not only this, but these marketing efforts act as a marital style alliance, a united force and a new beginning.
Bigger, bigger, biggest!
As a company grows, so will the audience and hence your brand must also. A rebrand in this instance is a public declaration of your expansion and success, a fresh new look will reflect the more respected company it has become.
Customer evolution
Every business will find that consumer behaviour changes, remember how we loved high-waisted jeans, then they were dorky and now we think they’re great again? Yeah, exactly. Even if your audience doesn’t change, what they want eventually will and a rebrand can introduce new marketing efforts to accommodate for the shift in behavioural patterns.
Shake it off, shake it off!
Sometimes, and often for reasons out of their control, companies can acquire a negative reputation. The best way to distance a brand from this is to take a leaf out of Taylor Swift’s book and ‘shake it off’… with a stellar rebrand.
The best example of this is Burberry’s phenomenal revival after the company became synonymous with ‘chav’ culture and hooliganism in the early 2000’s, which saw sales plummet. After a strategic rebrand, refocus and carefully executed marketing endeavours the company now has ambassadors such as Emma Watson, UN Women Good
will Ambassador; Kate Moss, world-renowned supermodel; and Romeo Beckham, second eldest child of Britain’s beloved Beckham family. Between the years of 2006 and 2013 the company’s net worth rose from £2 billion to over £7 billion – the best success story yet.
Whether it’s a strategic marketing campaign or macro-environmental factors that are necessitating the need for a rebrand, acknowledging the essentiality is key. A rebrand can have a rejuvenating effect on internal culture, revitalise sales and reposition your business above your competitors.
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