What is rebranding?
Rebranding is a change to your company’s core brand. This marketing strategy can involve processes such as changing the name, concept, or design with the intention of establishing a new identity.
Where major brands like Starbucks, Coca Cola and Apple have managed to achieve great success by building strong emotional connections with their customers, more and more companies are choosing to rebrand in the hope of achieving better results.
Why rebrand?
Your brand is the very identity of your company and what builds loyalty with your customers – so why risk it all by rebranding?
Here are the most common reasons why companies choose to rebrand:
1. Change values Some companies want to distance themselves from a past where things may not have gone as intended, or where changes in society mean that their current values fall into a so-called grey area. In such cases, changing values can be the solution, for example by moving from something that can be perceived as problematic in today’s society to something more relevant.
2. The company has taken a new direction This point is quite similar to the previous one, but avoiding bad PR does not have to be the only reason a company chooses to leave its past behind. It may be that the business has gone through a restructuring process. VY is a good example of this, where they saw the need to increase their level of competitiveness in relation to foreign railway companies.
3. New target audience Some players simply want to reach a new target audience and need to rebrand to appeal to this new group.
Summary
There is no definitive answer to whether it pays off to rebrand or not. In many cases, it has proven to be for the better, while other times it has gone in the opposite direction. The key to rebranding is patience; it is a time-consuming process that can deliver strong results several years after the actual rebrand took place. It is worth weighing the pros and cons, and asking yourself: how important is it for your brand, and is the timing right?
