Are you missing the boat when it comes to connecting with your customers? Is it time for a change? Changing a brand can be exciting and overwhelming, especially if you have been around for a while. The risks associated with rebranding can be very real and intimidating.

 

This article will examine the key points to remember when rebranding. The goal is to build on the brand’s historical value while maximising success from the new opportunities created.

 

1. Take a good, hard look at your brand first.

 

Be honest with yourself and get others to be as well. The best rebrands we have worked on have started from insights gained from staff and customer research. It can all start with what you should be doing but aren’t, or vice versa, what you are doing but shouldn’t.

 

2. Build on the past where possible. Be thoughtful in what you change and how you change it.

 

If a brand has irreversible damage from past activities or its assets are exceptionally poor and don’t have a long history, a clean slate may be required: a new name, logo, colours, etc.

 

Often, there is some real value from a brand’s past activities, so think carefully about working with some core brand assets. Rebranding around them or reinventing what is already can be the smart thing to do. It can signify continuity, sticking with the core that has made the brand successful.

 

Here is a brilliant example of successful rebranding. Guinness looked at its brand and realised that craftsmanship was at its core. Bucking the trend of rampant modernisation for the sake of it, this rebrand speaks of a brand that knows what makes it special.

 

 

3. Use all the communication tools at your disposal.

 

It’s not just about changing your logo and colours, though that can have quite an impact. Who can forget Vodacom’s change from blue to red? Some of the best turnarounds can happen without these dramatic and obvious changes.

 

In 2017, we worked on repositioning our client Curves to appeal to a younger and broader racial and cultural demographic. Due to restrictions placed by international license agreements, they couldn’t change assets like their logo or brand colours.

 

However, these restrictions didn’t mean they couldn’t change their brand messaging to help with repositioning. Here are some things we did to help with their repositioning:

 

• Developed campaign themes that spoke directly to their target market.
• Reviewed how their brand colours are used, introducing secondary colours.
• Looked at image choice regarding the subject matter and mood.
• Reviewed how the message and offer are worded and presented. 

 

 

4. Lead with the need, not the offer.

 

To reconnect with your market, your new brand message needs to speak of and to your customer(s). It’s easy to lead with the ‘what we can do for you’ message. But if you go deeper and speak to the why of the need(s) you fulfil, you can show real understanding and, where possible, empathy with your customers.

 

5. Rebranding can’t just be an external change.

 

As mentioned in the first point, the best rebrands often start with customer feedback. Let’s qualify that further—the best rebrands happen as a genuine response to customer feedback. This means that for external branding and marketing to be effective, it needs to happen after or in conjunction with real operational changes to improve the customer experience.

 

In the fast-paced brand landscape of the 21st century, brands should be ever-evolving and improving. Yet change for the sake of it can be precarious, especially for brands with history. Recently, the backlash over poorly executed and thought-through rebrands has risen as consumers embrace their power and influence as rightful stakeholders in the brands they consume.

 

Yet you don’t need to worry about doing this on your own. We are well-equipped and experienced to guide you through this change. So, if you would like help with the principles above, please get in touch.