Rebranding your company is not just about changing your logo or tagline. It is about implementing a marketing strategy that will help your company create a new identity.
The new identity should demonstrate to your customers and employees how your company aligns with the culture, goals and messages it presents.
Rebranding should never be taken lightly. It can be expensive, difficult and very risky. Your customers and employees may not accept it.
However, sometimes, rebranding is absolutely necessary for the success of a business. If done right, it can differentiate you from your competitors, inspire your customers to see your company in a new light and skyrocket your sales.
Table of Contents
Why You Should Think About Rebranding
Your brand is a vital part of your company. It is what defines your business and determines how you present it to your customers.
Your brand is what makes you different and unique in your niche. It is what makes your customers choose you over your competitors.
At some point, you might find your corporate identity no longer serves its purpose. Doing things the same way constantly, without any visible progress will likely cause you to lose customers and prevent you from acquiring new leads.
This is where rebranding comes in. Rebranding can help your company presents itself in a fresh new way to your audience.
It is a great marketing strategy that helps you develop a new identity and change the way your company is perceived by your customers, investors and competitors.
There are numerous reasons why a company would want to rebrand, here are some of them.
Mergers and Acquisitions
When two companies merge, they often rebrand their new company. This can result in either a completely new brand or just a simple and subtle change to the company’s visual identity.
Rebranding also happens when companies demerge. In this case, each company needs to establish a completely new brand.
Repositioning
As your company grows, its goals and strategies change. As a result, your brand changes as well.
Whether you are trying to launch a new product or service, reach a new audience or target a completely different market, you need to stay relevant and make sure you are noticed.
Rebranding will make this change visible and help your customers and stakeholders notice it.
Competition
One of the catalysts for your company’s rebranding may be your competitors’ activities. If your competition is up-to-date with the latest trends and you aren’t, your brand will become obsolete and useless.
Rebranding will help you establish a strong position for your company in the market and enable you to make further progress from there.
The market is constantly changing, so staying fresh and innovative is challenging. Without rebranding, you risk losing your share of the market to your competitors.
Rebranding Done Right
Before you start rebranding your company, you need to recognize the flaws and weaknesses in your operations or brand identity.
Take a look at customer service and find out whether your customers are satisfied. Ask for feedback so you know what your company is good at and what needs changing.
Then create a plan and find the right strategy to implement adjustments and fix problems.
Taking the time to improve your brand identity and overall company framework will reward you in many ways. Most importantly, your customers will be more satisfied and your company will profit.
If you have doubts about venturing into rebranding, take a look at these five companies that were a successful rebranding story.
They might inspire and encourage you to take action.
Burberry
Burberry is a British clothing brand famous for their iconic black, red, and tan check pattern. Their well-known waterproof trench coats were popular among celebrities, royalty, and A-listers. The iconic design has over 150 years of history.
Unfortunately, in the 2000s, the brand became very popular among British hooligans and gangs.
Soon, many pubs in the UK banned anyone with the check pattern from entering. As a result, Burberry’s sales plummeted.
To rebuild their damaged reputation, Burberry approached their product design in a creative and savvy way.
They kept their memorable design but significantly reduced the visibility of the check pattern. They started adapting their brand to the current trends while still honoring their heritage.
Burberry also got very engaged in the digital space, embracing social media and engaging with their customers online.
At the time, this was very innovative, as not many companies were doing the same thing. They also got endorsements from well-known and well-loved young British actors, musicians and models.
With the help of great leadership and creative vision, Burberry’s campaign was extremely successful and allowed them to reinvent themselves.
They transformed the brand into a luxury fashion label it once was.
Unfortunately, you cannot prevent your brand being adopted by an unwanted audience.
However, you can adapt the brand to become more modern and relevant to the today’s audience.
By regaining focus and establishing a clear vision of your brand you can successfully transform your corporation and ward off any uncomfortable perceptions of your brand.
Apple
Apple wasn’t always as successful as it is today. Back in the 90s, the company (named Apple Computers at the time), was on the brink of bankruptcy.
It had a lot of competitors such as IBM and Microsoft and was struggling to keep the company from declining. Luckily, Steve Jobs had a vision that transformed Apple into one of the leading companies in the world.
Jobs made many changes to the company as soon as he was rehired as CEO and started the “Think Differently” campaign.
The company changed its visual identity by removing the rainbow colors from their logo. The new simple monochrome logo gave Apple a fresh modern look.
It appeared more sophisticated and was used as a branding tool on all their products.
Changing the company’s name from Apple Computers to Apple allowed them to focus on producing products in other areas as well.
Soon enough they became a leading technological giant. They turned their focus towards producing reliable and well-made products with an elegant and sophisticated design.
Another central point of their campaign was aimed towards providing optimal user experience to their customers.
They managed to establish deep and lasting relationships with their customers. As a result, they now have an extremely loyal audience that supports their products and their brand.
Apple’s successful rebranding is an excellent example of how reinventing a brand by focusing on high-quality products and enhancing user experience can propel a brand forward.
Embracing change, expanding your market and focusing on innovation can certainly do wonders for your brand.
Old Spice
In the past, Old Spice was seen as a brand for elderly gentlemen. People associated it with something old and traditional.
With thousands of competitors in the market, standing out from the crowd wasn’t an easy task. And on top of that, they had to compete with trendy products targeted at a younger audience.
So how did Old Spice become one of the greatest rebranding examples? If you’ve seen the commercials, you probably already have an idea.
They came up with a creative video campaign which featured former NFL player Isaiah Mustafa.
The campaign introduced a series of commercials which portrayed the brand as something young, fresh and innovative.
The campaign was extremely successful and the videos went viral and generated millions of online views. T
he video campaign was aimed towards a younger audience and was followed by an equally successful social media campaign.
By using a young and attractive person in their commercials, Old Spice was able to change their audience’s perception and vision of the brand.
No longer was the brand associated with being boring and old. They were able to turn something everyday into something interesting and out of the ordinary.
With the help of clever commercials and a well-thought-out social media campaign, they improved their brand awareness and enhanced the user experience.
UPS
In the late 90s, UPS had to compete against its biggest rival, FedEx. FedEx was bringing innovation into the shipping world in view of overnight deliveries and package tracking. UPS had to catch up.
By focusing their marketing efforts on customer service, they decided to show their customers that they can meet all their needs.
They changed their logo and introduced a new slogan “What can brown do for you?”
But what really resonated with their customers was a series of commercial featuring various characters, from the CEO to the mailroom guy.
This showed their audience that UPS could help anyone regardless of what position they held.
Using a straightforward slogan and relatable commercials helped UPS compete with their biggest rival.
They showed their customers that they stand behind their message and continuously adapt to meet all of their needs. By focusing on improving the customer experience, UPS was able to double FedEx’s profit margin in 2001.
Pabst Blue Ribbon
In the US, Pabst Blue Ribbon was an inexpensive brand of beer especially popular among college kids. It was not considered a premium beer, and its sales were very low.
The beer became popular among hipsters, skaters, and bikers. To appeal to their new audience, that wasn’t particularly fond of marketing, Pabst did something unconventional.
They didn’t rebrand and they didn’t have a marketing strategy. This is exactly what their newly found audience liked about the brand and they respected it.
This so-called anti-marketing campaign might seem counterintuitive, but it helped Pabst keep their customers and attract many more.
However, Pabst did rebrand to break through to the world’s largest beer market – China.
They slightly changed the formulation of the beer, rebottled it, named it Blue Ribbon 1844 and priced it at $44. Pabst launched a luxury ad campaign and the beer became extremely popular among the Chinese upper middle class.
Pabst’s rebranding story is an excellent example of how no matter what a majority associates with a brand, it is never too late to alter that connotation.
Also, the way in which a brand is perceived in one market may be completely different in another. The power of rebranding is in the fact that you can reposition your brand to represent anything you’d like.
Conclusion
Rebranding is certainly not an easy task. Identifying your company’s weak points and fixing any existing issues takes continued hard work and engagement.
But don’t be discouraged to revive your brand. Carefully considering marketing techniques which align with the problems you identify can help you make your brand stronger and your customers happier.
If you are interested in the process of ranking on top of search engines and want to learn more about SEO & content marketing read our Ultimate Guide to SEO for SaaS.
You must be logged in to post a comment.