How to develop your rebranding strategy
Rebrand today! Understand why rebranding is essential and master the launch of a new visual identity that aligns perfectly with your company’s needs. After doing some initial research and planning your rebranding strategy, it’s time to start the rebranding process. This is a step-by-step guide to rebranding a company.
The internet is packed with content, and new brands are launching every day. It’s essential to create an unforgettable brand identity and maintain a fresh brand image. This shows your audience that you care about how people see your brand and the creative style you use. A strong brand must be updated regularly. This could include minor changes, such as updating the logo, colors, and icons, or major changes, like completely overhauling the brand’s identity.
To manage your brand well, do a brand audit every six months. This will show you how your audience feels about your messages, look, and overall experience. After that, you have to make a plan to improve your brand. The best rebranding efforts include listening to the target audience, having an organized brand kit, and creating a plan to reach more people and raise awareness over time.
Here’s what you need to know to keep rebranding costs low and make sure your rebranding campaign is successful.
What do you need to do to make a rebranding strategy successful? What do you expect from the process? What do you want to achieve?
If you want to improve your professional services firm’s brand, this article can help you find success. Every company is different, but some rebranding strategies work for any company, no matter its size or industry.
In this article, we look at the most common reasons why companies change their brand. Next, we will show you a proven seven-step plan for rebranding that will make your company stand out, give it a clear purpose, and create a new look. Finally, we look at two examples of companies that have changed their brand.
Your brand is the most important tool your company has for marketing.
A strong company brand can influence behaviors, drive action, and create loyalty among your customers and stakeholders. However, branding is one of the most challenging marketing strategies for a company in the 21st century because of the growing number of marketing channels.
After creating a brand that will make your stakeholders act and feel the way you want, it’s time to launch and implement your new branding. Any mistakes made during the launch of your brand, from old email footers to changing social media handles, will create a bad first impression for stakeholders. You’ve worked hard to avoid these mistakes.
Many places are rebranding at the same time. It’s important to get it right the first time because you only have one chance to do so. By the time you finish this guide, you will know everything you need to know to start a rebrand for your company on multiple channels.
Many people think a brand is just the company’s logo, color scheme, and tagline, but that’s not true.
A brand is what your stakeholders think about your company.
You can’t change how others see your brand, but you can change the story they tell about it. You can give your stakeholders a different set of messages, values, and feelings.
If you want people to see your brand differently, you need to send the right messages to the right people at the right time. This means talking with your customers, employees, and investors to change what your brand means and how it works in society.
Rebrands take a lot of time and money, and they’re not always easy. Before you decide to rebrand your company, make sure that you’re not choosing the most complicated solution and that you’ve tried everything else.
If you want to update your brand or make it clearer and consistent, a rebrand is a smart move that can improve your company’s marketing.
No matter what the reasons are for your rebrand, it’s essential to do it right the first time. You’ll need to invest a lot of resources into creating your new brand identity and consistently ask your leadership for their input and approval throughout the process. It’s very important to make sure that your brand’s image is timeless and effective.
When you rebrand a business, you’re making big changes to the way the brand looks and feels. This includes updating logos, taglines, fonts, colors, icons, images, and other visual elements. It can also mean a brand refresh, which is a less extensive update to the brand’s logo, fonts, voice, tone, and overall style.
The goal of a rebrand can be to do any of the following: appeal to a new audience, merge products or brands, improve services, address a problem and improve brand sentiment, modernize the brand, or boost brand awareness.
A company can change its image, identity, and how the market sees it by rebranding. This process might include changing the brand’s name, logo, slogan, packaging, marketing materials, and messages to better match its goals and the people it wants to reach.
A full rebrand is when a company changes its brand identity completely. This includes a new name, logo, mission statement, and overall brand strategy.
A partial rebrand is a refresh or a light update. It updates and improves the existing brand identity without changing its essence.
A full rebrand is often done to make a company more appealing to new customers or to change its reputation. A partial rebrand is usually done to show changes in the business and make sure the brand still fits with the company’s evolving image.
A successful rebranding project tries to do three things: make customers and stakeholders happy, make the brand more well-known and trusted, and help the business grow.
Every brand changes over time. At some point, your brand will need a new look and feel. The people you talk to will change the way they act. Your purpose will become clearer. At some point, you’ll need to change the look and feel of your brand.
It can be overwhelming to relaunch all your brand assets after redesigning them. How will you deal with all the changes and updates? Don’t worry — if you have the right tools and a smart plan, you can roll out new assets around the world.
A brand relaunch usually affects many of the elements in your brand identity kit, such as the visual style, logos, and color profiles. A relaunch can include a full redesign, updates based on strategy, or a simple refresh.
If you’re thinking about completely changing a brand or just making a few small changes, the first thing you should do is decide how to relaunch the brand. When you relaunch your brand, you need to do it in a thoughtful and planned way. It includes a lot of planning before you even get to the exciting visual elements.
This is the new look we’re talking about, and changing it isn’t as easy as running to the store. So, have a good plan to help you reach your goals and long-term goals.
Understand the main reason for relaunching the brand before making any changes that will be seen by the public. Mergers, acquisitions, outdated branding, and company expansion are the most common reasons for this.
Your “why” is about what you want to achieve. Decide what you want to achieve.
If you know your “why,” measuring and celebrating your achievements will be easier because you’ll know what success looks like.
Your internal brand perception may not align with how external audiences see it. When gathering the full picture, tap your entire audience, including current employees, potential employees, customers, future customers, and anyone who comes in contact with your brand.
Take the time to understand multiple perspectives.
Determining how your brand is currently perceived is key to defining the goals of your brand relaunch. This provides clear evidence to use during the planning process, making it easier to compare your current situation with your goals.
Company leaders must be on board. The scope of a brand relaunch can creep quickly, and you’ll need internal teams in your corner when it does. It is essential to effectively communicate the reasons for a brand relaunch and the desired outcomes to ensure unanimous support.
This approach ensures you secure the time, resources, and talent necessary for a successful relaunch. It is essential to keep everyone informed throughout the process. This approach will ensure that everyone is excited and expectations are managed.
Your brand has many intangible elements. The key to success is for your audience to connect with your brand.
A brand relaunch must consider this during the planning phases. Test different versions and iterations of your brand prototypes before making a final decision. A relaunch is the perfect opportunity to deepen your brand’s connection with customers by fostering stronger emotional bonds.
A brand rollout plan is essential for your relaunch, regardless of its size. A phased rollout enables the swift release of new creations as each element is developed. You will be operating with two brands for the duration of the project.
Releasing a new brand all at once means duplicating work. Maintain the old brand while developing the new. This must remain dynamic as the new one is built; otherwise, resources will be strained. Assess the merits and drawbacks of each rollout strategy and select the optimal approach for your needs. It is essential to communicate the plan clearly so that people know exactly what to expect.
A rebranding signifies a change in your organization—change takes time. Dedicating sufficient time and resources to rebrand effectively is essential. Your audience will notice the difference. A full brand relaunch is a significant undertaking. It encompasses visual expression, value messaging, and more. It can take a year or longer.
Don’t underestimate the lead time for a project this size. Otherwise, you’ll face frustration, missed opportunities, and poor-quality results. Being upfront and realistic with your stakeholders and mapping your project out in phases is the only way to keep things running smoothly and ensure a successful result.
Effective marketing is about building relationships with customers and telling meaningful, memorable stories. The marketing landscape is constantly evolving. There are numerous reasons for this change. CMO-focused events provide a platform for leaders to articulate their motivations for a brand relaunch. They will mention a content or technology refresh or a merger with another company.
CMOs typically remain in their roles for approximately 14 months. Leaders need to take decisive action to make their brand stand out and define its purpose. Digital leaders must regularly refresh their brand to keep up with the pace of innovation.
A website refresh is the best way to showcase this new vision and carve out a space for a brand as the leader of a new category or a trailblazer in its industry.
There’s no question: rebranding successfully boosts a business. A solid rebrand will reinvigorate your business and deliver immediate and lasting advantages.
A rebrand will cause a short-term spike in brand awareness, which you will see as an increase in branded search or direct visits to your company website. A thorough external communication plan is key to keeping customers and the network informed about the new brand during the rebranding process. This applies to both large global brands and smaller ones.
However, if a rebrand is not managed effectively—for instance, if it is implemented haphazardly or if it no longer aligns with the brand’s core identity—the increased awareness it creates can feel like hostile scrutiny.
A modernized, cohesive, and updated brand identity is key to helping companies stand out in a crowded market and strengthen their positioning against competitors. This strategy will strengthen your brand’s market position and ensure it can withstand tough economic times. Investing in brand-building is the only way to build a resilient brand during economic uncertainty. This is what 88% of CMOs say.
A poorly received rebrand will severely damage your competitive position and cause customers to research alternatives. It’s clear that searches for “[brand name] alternatives” will surge, while social media followers will plummet.
Successful rebranding strengthens—or reignites—companies’ relationships with their customers. A refreshed brand is essential to make the company seem more relatable, authentic, or simply better aligned with consumers’ values.
A poorly executed rebrand can irreparably damage those customer relationships. Some may feel the brand no longer reflects their values, resulting in lost customers and lower brand engagement.
A well-timed rebrand positions your company as innovative and forward-thinking. This strategy will future-proof the business, paving the way for expanding into new markets, launching new products, and ultimately driving revenue growth.
Mess up the rebrand, and your business will suffer. If a rebrand is carried out for the wrong reasons, such as on a whim or to deflect negative attention, it generates a significant amount of internal work, diverting team members away from their core tasks.
Before rebranding your business, assess whether your brand tells a story that will resonate with your audience and whether that story is meaningful.
Wide Wings Media is a mission-driven brand. Our commitment to driving business and helping our clients improve their online presence drives everything we do.
Our brand story is integral to every post, media campaign, and business decision we make. The Wide Wings Media team always considers how each new initiative will fit into their brand story.
Brand equity refers to the value that comes with having a well-known brand name and reputation. Companies with higher brand equity tend to be more successful because people recognize and trust them.
When rebranding your business, it is essential to consider whether the new design will confuse customers or reduce the value of your brand.
When rebranding, it’s essential to give your brand a fresh, new look that customers can relate to and support. Avoid going in a completely different direction.
As the saying goes, if it isn’t broken, don’t fix it!
Ask yourself:
It’s time to modernize your look and feel. When building or refreshing your brand as a team, use a collaborative approach to ensure a consistent image and messaging.
Incorporate your audience’s feedback before updating your brand. Cultivate an engaged group of followers or customers and work with them to determine what’s effective and what needs improvement.
A quarterly or biannual marketing review must include an analysis of brand sentiment and awareness. Use active social listening, PR input, and customer feedback to identify areas for improvement. Rebranding is a critical component of your ongoing marketing strategy.
Rebranding is essential for brands with a poor image, as it can boost business growth.
Rebranding is a significant investment. It requires a significant allocation of both employee resources and budget. Before beginning, companies must consider whether a rebrand is worth the investment.
Rebranding poses significant risks to businesses for several key reasons.
Understand your audience to ensure your rebrand receives a positive reception. Your customers love your brand. You must understand their expectations.
Use surveys and focus groups to gather information on how your customers perceive your brand. Understand exactly what your customers like and dislike about your product, and why they choose it over competitors’. This will help you identify what is missing from your current brand and what needs to change to guide your rebranding efforts.
Secure internal buy-in to ensure the success of your rebrand. Employees are the face of a company, embodying and communicating the brand to customers.
Assess their understanding and alignment with your current brand. Examine how employees in different departments describe your brand, values, and mission. Identify the teams’ commonalities and differences.
Customers must feel connected to the new identity and understand and embrace the new brand values and messaging. Otherwise, the entire rebranding effort is undermined, causing confusion and weakening the company’s market position.
A rebrand demands significant time and budget commitments. Developing a new brand identity is a significant undertaking. This means a complete update to all internal and external materials.
Handling your rebrand in-house is a clear road to limited capacity for your marketing or brand team to support other key projects. Outsourcing to an agency or partner will be costly. Your internal team must provide substantial support and oversight.
Calculate the expected costs of a rebrand against its anticipated ROI. You must consider how it will affect the company’s broader strategic objectives, including both positive outcomes, such as a smoother launch into a new market, and negative outcomes, such as reduced internal capacity to work on key marketing projects.
Choosing the best partner agency is essential to any rebranding initiative. In a digital marketing agency like Wide Wings Media, strategists and creatives are natural allies. Their expertise, fresh perspectives, and specialized skills are essential to the effort’s success.
They provide insights and a fresh perspective that isn’t immediately apparent, enhancing and elevating a brand’s rebranding vision. Their extensive experience is essential for avoiding common pitfalls and capitalizing on valuable opportunities.
Their expertise will streamline the rebranding process, giving the new brand identity a home and a seamless rollout experience for stakeholders and external partners.
Maintaining consistency during a rebrand is the ultimate challenge companies must overcome. When launching a new brand, it is essential to ensure all documents accurately reflect the new logo, tagline, and messaging.
Outdated systems and asset management solutions are a major roadblock to achieving business-wide consistency. Some team members may still have old logo files or collateral with your old brand saved on their local machines and continue using them after the launch.
Invest in the right tools to streamline the rebranding process and ensure your teams can use the new brand effectively. A modern digital asset management system (DAM) is a central repository for all brand files. A brand management platform like Frontify is essential for organizing all brand-related materials, including online guidelines and collaborative templates.
Understand the strategy driving your rebrand before jumping straight into the creative work. A brand must start the rebranding process with research, analysis, and goal-setting to ensure a successful, smooth roll-out. Your rebranding strategy must include the following:
The internet is packed with content, and new brands are launching every day. It’s essential to create an unforgettable brand identity and maintain a fresh brand image. This shows your audience that you care about how people see your brand and the creative style you use. A strong brand must be updated regularly. This could include minor changes, such as updating the logo, colors, and icons, or major changes, like completely overhauling the brand’s identity.
To manage your brand well, do a brand audit every six months. This will show you how your audience feels about your messages, look, and overall experience. After that, you have to make a plan to improve your brand. The best rebranding efforts include listening to the target audience, having an organized brand kit, and creating a plan to reach more people and raise awareness over time.
Here’s what you need to know to keep rebranding costs low and make sure your rebranding campaign is successful.
Why does rebranding matter?
What do you need to do to make a rebranding strategy successful? What do you expect from the process? What do you want to achieve?
If you want to improve your professional services firm’s brand, this article can help you find success. Every company is different, but some rebranding strategies work for any company, no matter its size or industry.
In this article, we look at the most common reasons why companies change their brand. Next, we will show you a proven seven-step plan for rebranding that will make your company stand out, give it a clear purpose, and create a new look. Finally, we look at two examples of companies that have changed their brand.
Want to successfully rebrand your company? Learn how!
Your brand is the most important tool your company has for marketing.
A strong company brand can influence behaviors, drive action, and create loyalty among your customers and stakeholders. However, branding is one of the most challenging marketing strategies for a company in the 21st century because of the growing number of marketing channels.
After creating a brand that will make your stakeholders act and feel the way you want, it’s time to launch and implement your new branding. Any mistakes made during the launch of your brand, from old email footers to changing social media handles, will create a bad first impression for stakeholders. You’ve worked hard to avoid these mistakes.
Many places are rebranding at the same time. It’s important to get it right the first time because you only have one chance to do so. By the time you finish this guide, you will know everything you need to know to start a rebrand for your company on multiple channels.
What is a brand?
Many people think a brand is just the company’s logo, color scheme, and tagline, but that’s not true.
A brand is what your stakeholders think about your company.
You can’t change how others see your brand, but you can change the story they tell about it. You can give your stakeholders a different set of messages, values, and feelings.
If you want people to see your brand differently, you need to send the right messages to the right people at the right time. This means talking with your customers, employees, and investors to change what your brand means and how it works in society.
Why do companies change the look of their brand?
Rebrands take a lot of time and money, and they’re not always easy. Before you decide to rebrand your company, make sure that you’re not choosing the most complicated solution and that you’ve tried everything else.
If you want to update your brand or make it clearer and consistent, a rebrand is a smart move that can improve your company’s marketing.
Here are six main reasons why companies change their brand:
- Outdated: A brand’s identity is sometimes established so long ago that it becomes outdated. If your brand is outdated, that’s okay. This just shows that your brand has a good reputation. Many companies don’t last very long. They become outdated before they have a chance to improve.
- More options: If you have expanded your ideal customer profile (ICP) or diversified your offerings, or if you are pivoting entirely away from your current offerings or ICP, you may want to consider rebranding to establish a clear identity for your new market and customers.
- New company structure: Many companies change their brand name after a merger or acquisition. For example, in 2018, INC Research purchased inVentiv Health. These two companies joined forces to create a new brand: Syneos Health.
- Market shifts: Changes in the market, like shifts in what consumers want or market trends, often cause brands to update or completely change their branding.
- Naming conflicts: If your company shares its name with another brand or business, it may be simpler and less confusing to change its name or brand identity.
- It has a bad reputation. Some companies try to improve their image when they have been in the news for bad reasons. If a brand has done everything it can to fix its reputation, a new brand design can temporarily distract people from the bad news.
No matter what the reasons are for your rebrand, it’s essential to do it right the first time. You’ll need to invest a lot of resources into creating your new brand identity and consistently ask your leadership for their input and approval throughout the process. It’s very important to make sure that your brand’s image is timeless and effective.
What does rebranding mean?
When you rebrand a business, you’re making big changes to the way the brand looks and feels. This includes updating logos, taglines, fonts, colors, icons, images, and other visual elements. It can also mean a brand refresh, which is a less extensive update to the brand’s logo, fonts, voice, tone, and overall style.
The goal of a rebrand can be to do any of the following: appeal to a new audience, merge products or brands, improve services, address a problem and improve brand sentiment, modernize the brand, or boost brand awareness.
A company can change its image, identity, and how the market sees it by rebranding. This process might include changing the brand’s name, logo, slogan, packaging, marketing materials, and messages to better match its goals and the people it wants to reach.
There are two different types of rebranding:
A full rebrand is when a company changes its brand identity completely. This includes a new name, logo, mission statement, and overall brand strategy.
A partial rebrand is a refresh or a light update. It updates and improves the existing brand identity without changing its essence.
A full rebrand is often done to make a company more appealing to new customers or to change its reputation. A partial rebrand is usually done to show changes in the business and make sure the brand still fits with the company’s evolving image.
A successful rebranding project tries to do three things: make customers and stakeholders happy, make the brand more well-known and trusted, and help the business grow.
Here’s how to introduce your brand:
Every brand changes over time. At some point, your brand will need a new look and feel. The people you talk to will change the way they act. Your purpose will become clearer. At some point, you’ll need to change the look and feel of your brand.
It can be overwhelming to relaunch all your brand assets after redesigning them. How will you deal with all the changes and updates? Don’t worry — if you have the right tools and a smart plan, you can roll out new assets around the world.
What is a brand relaunch?
A brand relaunch usually affects many of the elements in your brand identity kit, such as the visual style, logos, and color profiles. A relaunch can include a full redesign, updates based on strategy, or a simple refresh.
Here are some tips for a successful brand relaunch.
If you’re thinking about completely changing a brand or just making a few small changes, the first thing you should do is decide how to relaunch the brand. When you relaunch your brand, you need to do it in a thoughtful and planned way. It includes a lot of planning before you even get to the exciting visual elements.
This is the new look we’re talking about, and changing it isn’t as easy as running to the store. So, have a good plan to help you reach your goals and long-term goals.
1. Define your “why”
Understand the main reason for relaunching the brand before making any changes that will be seen by the public. Mergers, acquisitions, outdated branding, and company expansion are the most common reasons for this.
Your “why” is about what you want to achieve. Decide what you want to achieve.
- Increase the market share.
- Distinguish your brand from the competition.
- A successfully launched the new product.
If you know your “why,” measuring and celebrating your achievements will be easier because you’ll know what success looks like.
2. It is essential to understand the full picture.
Your internal brand perception may not align with how external audiences see it. When gathering the full picture, tap your entire audience, including current employees, potential employees, customers, future customers, and anyone who comes in contact with your brand.
Take the time to understand multiple perspectives.
- Conduct internal and external interviews.
- Do competitive research.
- Use surveys.
- Understand the potential future of your market space.
Determining how your brand is currently perceived is key to defining the goals of your brand relaunch. This provides clear evidence to use during the planning process, making it easier to compare your current situation with your goals.
3. Obtain buy-in from internal stakeholders.
Company leaders must be on board. The scope of a brand relaunch can creep quickly, and you’ll need internal teams in your corner when it does. It is essential to effectively communicate the reasons for a brand relaunch and the desired outcomes to ensure unanimous support.
This approach ensures you secure the time, resources, and talent necessary for a successful relaunch. It is essential to keep everyone informed throughout the process. This approach will ensure that everyone is excited and expectations are managed.
4. Get emotional.
Your brand has many intangible elements. The key to success is for your audience to connect with your brand.
- Emotions undeniably influence purchasing decisions.
- They nurture relationships.
- Emotional investment cultivates brand loyalty.
A brand relaunch must consider this during the planning phases. Test different versions and iterations of your brand prototypes before making a final decision. A relaunch is the perfect opportunity to deepen your brand’s connection with customers by fostering stronger emotional bonds.
5. Phased rollout or flip of the switch?
A brand rollout plan is essential for your relaunch, regardless of its size. A phased rollout enables the swift release of new creations as each element is developed. You will be operating with two brands for the duration of the project.
Releasing a new brand all at once means duplicating work. Maintain the old brand while developing the new. This must remain dynamic as the new one is built; otherwise, resources will be strained. Assess the merits and drawbacks of each rollout strategy and select the optimal approach for your needs. It is essential to communicate the plan clearly so that people know exactly what to expect.
6. It’s essential to be realistic about timing.
A rebranding signifies a change in your organization—change takes time. Dedicating sufficient time and resources to rebrand effectively is essential. Your audience will notice the difference. A full brand relaunch is a significant undertaking. It encompasses visual expression, value messaging, and more. It can take a year or longer.
Don’t underestimate the lead time for a project this size. Otherwise, you’ll face frustration, missed opportunities, and poor-quality results. Being upfront and realistic with your stakeholders and mapping your project out in phases is the only way to keep things running smoothly and ensure a successful result.
Follow these essential website relaunch strategies.
Effective marketing is about building relationships with customers and telling meaningful, memorable stories. The marketing landscape is constantly evolving. There are numerous reasons for this change. CMO-focused events provide a platform for leaders to articulate their motivations for a brand relaunch. They will mention a content or technology refresh or a merger with another company.
CMOs typically remain in their roles for approximately 14 months. Leaders need to take decisive action to make their brand stand out and define its purpose. Digital leaders must regularly refresh their brand to keep up with the pace of innovation.
A website refresh is the best way to showcase this new vision and carve out a space for a brand as the leader of a new category or a trailblazer in its industry.
A successful rebrand undeniably boosts a business.
There’s no question: rebranding successfully boosts a business. A solid rebrand will reinvigorate your business and deliver immediate and lasting advantages.
Significant boost in brand awareness.
A rebrand will cause a short-term spike in brand awareness, which you will see as an increase in branded search or direct visits to your company website. A thorough external communication plan is key to keeping customers and the network informed about the new brand during the rebranding process. This applies to both large global brands and smaller ones.
However, if a rebrand is not managed effectively—for instance, if it is implemented haphazardly or if it no longer aligns with the brand’s core identity—the increased awareness it creates can feel like hostile scrutiny.
Enhanced competitive positioning
A modernized, cohesive, and updated brand identity is key to helping companies stand out in a crowded market and strengthen their positioning against competitors. This strategy will strengthen your brand’s market position and ensure it can withstand tough economic times. Investing in brand-building is the only way to build a resilient brand during economic uncertainty. This is what 88% of CMOs say.
A poorly received rebrand will severely damage your competitive position and cause customers to research alternatives. It’s clear that searches for “[brand name] alternatives” will surge, while social media followers will plummet.
Strengthen customer loyalty and trust.
Successful rebranding strengthens—or reignites—companies’ relationships with their customers. A refreshed brand is essential to make the company seem more relatable, authentic, or simply better aligned with consumers’ values.
A poorly executed rebrand can irreparably damage those customer relationships. Some may feel the brand no longer reflects their values, resulting in lost customers and lower brand engagement.
Drive growth and innovation.
A well-timed rebrand positions your company as innovative and forward-thinking. This strategy will future-proof the business, paving the way for expanding into new markets, launching new products, and ultimately driving revenue growth.
Mess up the rebrand, and your business will suffer. If a rebrand is carried out for the wrong reasons, such as on a whim or to deflect negative attention, it generates a significant amount of internal work, diverting team members away from their core tasks.
What to consider before rebranding:
What is your brand’s story? Is it still relevant?
Before rebranding your business, assess whether your brand tells a story that will resonate with your audience and whether that story is meaningful.
Wide Wings Media is a mission-driven brand. Our commitment to driving business and helping our clients improve their online presence drives everything we do.
Our brand story is integral to every post, media campaign, and business decision we make. The Wide Wings Media team always considers how each new initiative will fit into their brand story.
How will rebranding affect your brand’s equity?
Brand equity refers to the value that comes with having a well-known brand name and reputation. Companies with higher brand equity tend to be more successful because people recognize and trust them.
When rebranding your business, it is essential to consider whether the new design will confuse customers or reduce the value of your brand.
When rebranding, it’s essential to give your brand a fresh, new look that customers can relate to and support. Avoid going in a completely different direction.
Which is better: a partial or a complete rebrand?
As the saying goes, if it isn’t broken, don’t fix it!
Ask yourself:
- What problems are my logo and brand identity causing?
- Define your goals for the rebrand.
- Attract a new audience.
- Re-engage your existing customer base.
It’s time to modernize your look and feel. When building or refreshing your brand as a team, use a collaborative approach to ensure a consistent image and messaging.
Who should be included in the rebranding process?
Incorporate your audience’s feedback before updating your brand. Cultivate an engaged group of followers or customers and work with them to determine what’s effective and what needs improvement.
Know the right time to rebrand.
A quarterly or biannual marketing review must include an analysis of brand sentiment and awareness. Use active social listening, PR input, and customer feedback to identify areas for improvement. Rebranding is a critical component of your ongoing marketing strategy.
Rebranding is essential for brands with a poor image, as it can boost business growth.
Consider the following before you rebrand:
Rebranding is a significant investment. It requires a significant allocation of both employee resources and budget. Before beginning, companies must consider whether a rebrand is worth the investment.
The risks involved with rebranding.
Rebranding poses significant risks to businesses for several key reasons.
- The brand will lose recognition. If your new design looks very different from your old one, your audience won’t be able to recognize it. They will start using your competitors’ products and services instead. This will lead to a decrease in brand value and market share.
- Loyal customers will be alienated. A drastic rebranding is often seen as a betrayal by customers. This is especially true when accompanied by a change in market positioning.
- Website traffic setbacks are inevitable. Changes to company, product, or domain names significantly impact website traffic. Managing a rebrand is essential. Don’t make the mistake of overlooking this critical step. Otherwise, your SEO work will be wasted. This will lead to a decline in online visibility, along with a drop in web traffic and leads.
- Implementation is inconsistent. Implementation is the key to a successful rebrand. Inconsistencies among touchpoints confuse customers and reduce the impact of the new brand. A rebranding project is doomed to failure if its scope is underestimated or if it lacks clear guidance and oversight.
Understand your audience.
Understand your audience to ensure your rebrand receives a positive reception. Your customers love your brand. You must understand their expectations.
Use surveys and focus groups to gather information on how your customers perceive your brand. Understand exactly what your customers like and dislike about your product, and why they choose it over competitors’. This will help you identify what is missing from your current brand and what needs to change to guide your rebranding efforts.
Assess employee alignment.
Secure internal buy-in to ensure the success of your rebrand. Employees are the face of a company, embodying and communicating the brand to customers.
Assess their understanding and alignment with your current brand. Examine how employees in different departments describe your brand, values, and mission. Identify the teams’ commonalities and differences.
Customers must feel connected to the new identity and understand and embrace the new brand values and messaging. Otherwise, the entire rebranding effort is undermined, causing confusion and weakening the company’s market position.
Review resource allocation.
A rebrand demands significant time and budget commitments. Developing a new brand identity is a significant undertaking. This means a complete update to all internal and external materials.
Handling your rebrand in-house is a clear road to limited capacity for your marketing or brand team to support other key projects. Outsourcing to an agency or partner will be costly. Your internal team must provide substantial support and oversight.
Calculate the expected costs of a rebrand against its anticipated ROI. You must consider how it will affect the company’s broader strategic objectives, including both positive outcomes, such as a smoother launch into a new market, and negative outcomes, such as reduced internal capacity to work on key marketing projects.
Find the right agency partner.
Choosing the best partner agency is essential to any rebranding initiative. In a digital marketing agency like Wide Wings Media, strategists and creatives are natural allies. Their expertise, fresh perspectives, and specialized skills are essential to the effort’s success.
They provide insights and a fresh perspective that isn’t immediately apparent, enhancing and elevating a brand’s rebranding vision. Their extensive experience is essential for avoiding common pitfalls and capitalizing on valuable opportunities.
Their expertise will streamline the rebranding process, giving the new brand identity a home and a seamless rollout experience for stakeholders and external partners.
Equip teams with the right tools.
Maintaining consistency during a rebrand is the ultimate challenge companies must overcome. When launching a new brand, it is essential to ensure all documents accurately reflect the new logo, tagline, and messaging.
Outdated systems and asset management solutions are a major roadblock to achieving business-wide consistency. Some team members may still have old logo files or collateral with your old brand saved on their local machines and continue using them after the launch.
Invest in the right tools to streamline the rebranding process and ensure your teams can use the new brand effectively. A modern digital asset management system (DAM) is a central repository for all brand files. A brand management platform like Frontify is essential for organizing all brand-related materials, including online guidelines and collaborative templates.
Develop a rebranding strategy.
Understand the strategy driving your rebrand before jumping straight into the creative work. A brand must start the rebranding process with research, analysis, and goal-setting to ensure a successful, smooth roll-out. Your rebranding strategy must include the following:
- Understand the business’s needs. What need led to this rebrand? Understand the expected benefits and return on investment, as well as the potential risks involved in your rebrand.
- Set clear goals that you can achieve. Clear goals are essential for a rebrand. The rebrand must guarantee that it presents real business opportunities. This project must not be done for its own sake.
- Check the brand. A brand audit is the only way to assess a brand’s performance. It proactively identifies opportunities to enhance the brand. A thorough audit scrutinizes three critical elements: consistency, visibility, and reputation.
- Learn who the audience is. The target market of a brand dictates the strategy behind the new identity and the creative direction it will take.
- Examine competitors’ positions. Examine your competitors closely. You will learn their strengths and weaknesses. This is true both before and after a rebranding. A rebranding is the key to making a brand stand out or follow market trends. The effectiveness of the rebranding depends entirely on the goal.