How to carry out a rebrand
If your business has recently undergone a transformation or is simply in need of a refreshment, a rebrand can be a wonderful way to breathe new life into your brand and identity, improve your appeal, and continue to grow.
When is it time to rebrand?
Despite its benefits, a rebranding can be a large undertaking and doing so should not be a decision that is taken lightly. Rebranding requires thought and consideration to get it right. After all, rebranding too frequently could actually be counterproductive to your growth and make it harder for you to build a memorable brand in the long run.
Some great reasons to rebrand include:
- Desire to update visual branding: Many brands update their visual branding every few years to keep up with design trends and continue to feel modern. This can mean an update for brand colors, typography, and visual assets.
- A change in brand identity: All your branding needs to be aligned to reflect who you are, what you stand for, and what your mission is as a business. If any of this has shifted, it’s time to rebrand to best reflect your new identity.
- Your target market has changed: If you’re marketing to a new type of customer (such as a new location, new price, or new product), you may need to reconsider if your branding is able to connect with this new audience or if some changes are needed.
- Following a merger or acquisition: If your offering has changed, it might be time to rebrand to re-introduce yourself and your new identity as a business.
What to consider before rebranding
- The effect on brand equity: Brand equity is a measurement of how recognizable and memorable your brand is. Brand equity is an important part of becoming a successful business, as those with higher brand equity will feel familiar and more trustworthy to potential customers. By changing things up and rebranding, it’s possible that you could damage any brand equity you may have built up over time by forcing your audience to become reacquainted with your new identity and visual branding. However, if your current rebranding is misaligned with who you are, or needs updating, the loss of brand equity could be worth the sacrifice.
- How extensive the rebranding will be: Take the time to really consider what the purpose of your brand is to determine whether a full or partial rebrand is necessary. If some of your current branding can be maintained, then some of your existing brand equity may also be preserved.
- Your brand story: Before you launch into a rebrand, it’s important to clearly define your brand story and how your entire branding will align with this. Brands that have taken the time to understand who they are at their core and what their story is will be able to produce more impactful branding that strengthens the identity they’re presenting.
- Get feedback: Nobody can tell you exactly how your brand is being perceived like a group of your current audience members and customers. Gather a control group and ask them for feedback on your brand to establish what is working and what needs to change.
- How you will communicate the change: Don’t forget to communicate clearly with all relevant parties about the changes you are making. Check in with key stakeholders, clients, customers, and internal staff.
Further reading: The ultimate guide to strategic branding
Steps to a successful rebrand
Re-establish audience and market
Before beginning rebranding it’s important to take a minute to reassess your audience and market. You may discover that your key demographic might not have been who you had expected when you first set up your business, and now is the time to find out who exactly is using your products or services so you can rebrand with this audience in mind.
Re-establish vision, mission, and values
When embarking on a rebrand, it’s crucial that you reassess your vision, mission, and values before taking any further steps. These three elements are the core pillars that your brand is built upon, so it’s necessary to take the time to confirm what you’re doing, why you’re doing it, and how you’re doing it.
Vision (what): Now that you’re working with an established business, your vision may be different or more ambitious from where you first began. Perhaps your vision is broader now than what you originally set out to do.
Mission (how): As time has passed, you may need to make alterations to your original roadmap to include better ideas and adapt to new findings thus far.
Values (why): Your values will summarize what your business cares about as it grows, whether it relates to internal staff or how it operates with its customers. Reflect on your current values and see if anything needs changing or expanding.
Tone of voice
If anything has changed so far in terms of audience, market, vision, mission, or values, then it’s time to take another look at your tone of voice and ensure that it’s still appropriate for the direction you’re going. Make sure that your tone of voice accurately conveys your brand identity and has the power to appeal to your target audience.
Brand name and slogan
Re-naming your brand can be a huge undertaking, as well as a risky move when it comes to sacrificing brand equity, search traffic, and brand recognition. However, if your brand name no longer feels like a good fit, the sooner you change it, the sooner you can launch into re-building the equity that you may have lost. Remember, any brand name should feel memorable, unique, and tie in well with the products or services you are offering
While your slogan is an easier change, it's not something to be taken lightly either. If your slogan is fitting, catchy, and still appropriate for your brand, then it might be worth keeping it as is. But if you feel like it’s time for an upgrade, ensure that you’re picking something distinct that will appeal to your target market. There are lots of ways to go about crafting a new brand slogan; some simply summarize what your business does, while others encourage the audience to take action.
Visual rebranding
Visual rebranding can help you remain fresh and modern in the eyes of your audience, even if you’re not making any other significant changes to your brand. A visual rebranding could mean an updated logo, or a change in color palette or typography. Consider where the strengths and weaknesses of your visual branding are currently and pivot in a way that allows you to appear fresh and new without losing your character.
Redesigning your logo? Check out our range of logo templates in Adobe Express:
Further reading: Logo redesign: how to update your most important symbol
Establish new brand guidelines
Whenever your branding goes through an update, it’s important to recreate your brand guidelines to ensure consistency across all surfaces for internal and external uses. After all, if your branding has gone through some changes recently, your audience will need to see some consistency from you to reconnect with your brand and re-establish memorability. Your brand guidelines should include all information around your branding, particularly regarding your visual branding and how to use various elements of visual branding in different contexts.
Get feedback
It’s important to track brand sentiment before, during, and after this rebranding has been carried out to ensure that you’ve met the intentions of your brand campaign. Putting together a focus group of your current audience or customers can help you to understand what needs to change, to affirm if you’re making good decisions throughout the process, as well as confirm the effectiveness of the result.
Communicate
A rebrand can fall flat without the messaging to explain why you’ve rebranded, who you are now, and to introduce your audience to your newly branded business. Internal communication is also important to ensure that your team is aligned with your brand and the shift. Announce the rebrand using all available marketing channels such as email, your website, and social media.
Further reading: What is branding design – tips and principles
While rebranding can be a heavy task, if the conditions are right, it can have a hugely beneficial impact on your business and help you to continue growing over time. Rebranding not only allows your business to look and feel more modern but gives you the chance to reflect on your identity as a brand, who your audience is, and where you’re planning to go. Rebranding every few years (to various degrees of intensity) is a natural part of growth, so embrace the chance to get introspective and ensure that your branding continues to work in your favor.