5 Steps to Take for a Successful Rebranding Campaign.

No idea is more American than the promise that it’s never too late to reinvent oneself. In our outlooks, we’re “free to be you and me” and taught to “never give up.” These optimistic tropes can sometimes feel a bit hokey, but it’s important to remember these essential myths (truths?) when girding your loins for an upcoming rebranding campaign. Changing your brand image requires equal parts gusto, intestinal fortitude, and a bright and capable rebranding agency to help you lead the process and roll out the brand strategy.

It’s important to remember that a brand is not just a logo or a packaging design but the essential idea that comes to mind when they think of your line of products or services. Rebranding is more than bringing in a packaging design company to create a new way to box your whozits or whatzits; changing your brand image starts at the top of your company and filters through all its components.

When you know your reasons for rebranding but fear disastrous missteps like the infamous Tropicana packaging redesign #fail of 2009, here are a few steps to take when successfully changing your image is the goal of your rebranding strategy, and failure is not an option.

Don’t Alienate Existing Customer Base

Whatever you do, don’t desert the customer base that fits within your target audience. Changing horses midstream may spook a few of your loyal customers, but preventing a mass exodus in brand loyalty means being contemplative about your rebranding mission. Don’t make these decisions lightly and include customer feedback, key members of your in-house team that interact with your customer base, your chosen brand development company, and other key players.

How Not To Alienate Customers

Be Contemplative About Your Rebranding Mission: Before initiating any changes, consider the possible reactions from your existing customer base by asking a series of rebranding questions. You can accomplish this through surveys, focus groups, and more profound consumer research. Smaller companies can use social media and email polls, while larger companies should use an agency specializing in consumer testing. 

Include Feedback From Key Players: While we should lean on consumer feedback as they are the purchasers, ideas on how to keep existing customers in mind may come from founders, brand managers, and the marketing team. There may also be value in communicating with those closest to the customers for their feedback. When creating the rebranding strategy, a branding agency will also bring its experience and expertise into the discussion.

Ensure New Design Corresponds With Brand Understanding: When creating the new brand identity, carry over specific elements (i.e., brand colors, logo design) to ensure the loyal customer can immediately recognize the brand. For instance, when you start a cafe business

Keep New Design Familiar But Not Identical

Changing your brand image doesn’t mean scrapping everything that defines your brand from the beginning. A new packaging design should be part of your overall brand redesign rollout, but consult carefully with your chosen packaging design company to be sure the two key players are on the same page.

The new design should be similar to the old one because it feels like it came from the same bloodline; don’t make your new packaging design look like the bastard stepchild of its market-share-establishing forefathers. A good packaging design company will invest time and energy into knowing what you believe defines your brand and help you roll out a new and improved design that shares some of its predecessors’ DNA.

How To Maintain Familiarity 

Consult With Experts: Almost every successful rebrand has resulted from an effort that includes intelligent people inside and outside the company. Working closely with experts with a unique perspective helps solve problems the internal team is blind to. Their expertise will help you understand the nuances of maintaining the outcome you hope to achieve.

Retain Elements of the Original Design: The new design should share some “DNA” with the original one. As mentioned, this could mean retaining specific color schemes but also shapes and styles that define your brand so it remains recognizable to your existing customer base.

Invest Time in Understanding the Brand: The article mentions that a good packaging design company will spend time understanding what you believe defines your brand. This mutual understanding can guide the redesign process to create something new and resonant with what your brand represents.

Commit, Commit & Commit

As with many business and life decisions, commitment is the key to a successful rebrand. Be sure your whole team is on the same page and commit to staying the course through stormy weather that may envelop your intrepid new branding ship as it begins its journey away from the port. Don’t be quick on the trigger with plans to abandon your rebrand if you see initial disturbances; these things take time. Changing your brand image is a process, not a one-step flick-of-the-switch reboot. For example, if you start a cafe business and grow it to a successful brand, you can’t directly expand it to new offerings without a proper plan. You should make a practical plan, involve your team, and stay motivated even if you experience an initial drop in the customers.

How To Stay Committed

Get The Team On The Same Page: Your team must align with the rebranding vision. A successful rebrand requires everyone’s commitment, from top management to the frontline employees. Only push forward once you have as many conversations as necessary to create agreement in pursuing the rebrand.

Stay the Course: Like a virus, subjective opinions will undoubtedly find their way into the rebranding strategy. Prevent this from happening by letting the data do the talking. Even if you encounter challenges or setbacks, you must stay committed to the rebranding effort.

Be Patient: Rebranding campaigns don’t happen in days or weeks. Even a partial rebrand can take several months to complete. Remember, you seek a long-term impact, not a short-term solution. 

Prepare For Challenges: Even with a data-driven approach, unexpected challenges emerge throughout rebranding. Here is where the experience and expertise of the packaging design agency come into play. Having overseen various projects, they will understand when to pivot or how to push through challenges. 

Omnichannel Uniformity

Speaking of commitment, ensure your company’s other elements mirror the changes you develop with your selected packaging design company. If you roll out a new packaging design but run a website with the old logo and font, you confuse your consumer base and convey a sense of uncertainty about the redesign. Get everyone on the same page – including all your customer interaction points.

How To Uniform The Brand 

Ensure Consistency Across Platforms: Before the rebrand launch phase, review every piece of brand and marketing collateral to prevent brand confusion. Review the website, social media, marketing materials, and in-store promotions to match the new brand guidelines.  

Get Everyone On The Same Page: You must communicate the change to everyone who touches the marketing campaign to create uniformity in the design and messaging. All external project and account managers must confirm their understanding of each change you’ve made.

Align Customer Interaction Points: From customer service interactions to media mentions, keep a close eye on each place where customer interactions and conversations occur. By taking a proactive approach to branding alignment, you maintain equity with the target market. 

Avoid Mixed Signals: Do what you can to retroactively change inconsistent branding across various platforms where there is still visibility. An example could be older website articles that still receive website traffic. While this may sound like a minor issue, There will still be a negative impact as it confuses customers and conveys uncertainty about the rebranding.

Redefine Brand

Finally, remember that changing your brand image takes more than redesigning packaging or rolling out a new logo. These visual elements are merely artistic representations of the more significant idea behind your brand. When undertaking a major rebranding project, remember that putting a new coat of paint on rotten boards is only a temporary solution. Your packaging design company will help you create a unique visual representation of your company with a utilitarian purpose – delivering your product to the consumer – but it can’t fix a broken institution with a blurry self-image.

How To Redefine The Brand

Clarify The Problem: Before bringing in professionals like a packaging design company, you must clearly understand why you’re undertaking this rebrand and what you hope to achieve. This internal work is critical for a successful rebranding campaign. Don’t look for symptoms; identify the root cause for why the brand is not optimally performing in the market.

Address Core Issues: Unlike a brand refresh, a complete rebrand is a change in brand positioning. Be sure to address the problems with the current market position before concerning yourself with superficial elements.

Look Beyond Visual Elements: A rebranding strategy encompasses much more than graphic design. Since visual elements support the brand voice and values, messaging is even more important than the visual makeover.

Work with Professionals: Going it alone often has a net negative effect. The investment in consumer research, expert design, and brand testing is the only way to compete at a high level.  

Ready For A Rebrand?

Before calling it the pros at a brand strategy agency, be sure you’ve done the internal work necessary to know why you’re undertaking the rebrand and what you want to accomplish as a complete institution. Preparing will not guarantee your rebranding success but ensures a smoother process and a more likely outcome.

While the process does take time, rebranding doesn’t have to be a nightmare experience. Going about the process correctly by following a rebranding checklist lays the foundation for successfully reinventing your brand in consumers’ eyes and instilling new life into a dusty concept to capture more significant market share. Be sure to approach the process with seriousness, purpose, patience, and commitment to guarantee maximum success.

Data-Driven Brand Development That Can Guarantee Shelf Performance.

Whether it’s a partial or complete rebrand, we can provide performance predictability for your transformation. SmashBrand is a brand development agency that researches, designs, and tests all products to ensure peak shelf performance. Book a time to discuss your project with our team.