The Ultimate Guide For Rebranding A Business.

Did you know that 74% of the S&P 100 companies have rebranded within the first seven years of their establishment? According to a recent survey, 82% of marketers have previously worked on a rebranding project. These statistics indicate rebranding a business can help companies achieve their goals.

Changing your brand identity can help shed off negative associations, enhance brand positioning, and increase market share. But rebranding a business is no easy feat. The margin for error is so small that even companies like Tropicana have faced catastrophic losses. Therefore, you must have a solid strategy before embarking on this journey. 

This article provides a step-by-step guide to rebranding a business most strategically. You will learn to develop an effective brand transformation strategy and a precise rebranding timeline to bring your plan to life. You will also learn the common pitfalls most companies face and how to avoid them. 

Knowing When to Rebrand

Developing a brand is like a snowball effect, gaining attachment and loyalty over time. Changing a brand’s identity can significantly impact consumers who are emotionally attached to it. Therefore, companies must carefully plan when and why rebranding might be best. The following are some of the main reasons for rebranding a business:

• Mergers and acquisitions—When two companies merge, they must decide whether to operate under an existing brand identity or create a combined new brand image to build trust and prevent confusion
• Market repositioning—If a company repositions its business to target a different market segment by changing pricing, product quality, offerings, or target audience, it must rebrand to align with the new positioning.
• Expanding to new markets or locations—When a company grows to new geographic or international markets, it may need to create a new business name and logo better suited to those new markets.
• Changes to company mission, vision, or values—If a company’s core mission, vision, or values have significantly changed, it must reevaluate and modify its branding to reflect the new direction.
• Overcoming a public relations crisis—Rebranding can sometimes help a company overcome a tarnished brand identity and diminished market share due to a PR crisis. 
• Outdated branding—If a company’s branding no longer feels fresh, relevant, or appealing to contemporary customers, a rebrand can help refresh its image.
• Gaining a competitive advantage—Rebranding can help a company differentiate itself and communicate what makes it first, different, or better than competitors.
• Company restructuring—Mergers, acquisitions, or demergers often necessitate rebranding to signify a new chapter for the company.

Planning the Rebranding Process 

Proper planning is a crucial step for a successful rebranding process. Without a well-defined strategy, companies risk wasting resources and damaging brand equity. Recent rebranding failures, like Gap’s logo misstep and Tropicana’s package design, underscore the importance of planning before implementing rebranding ideas or rolling out rebranded package designs.

The following are the key steps involved when building an effective rebranding strategy:

Defining Your Brand Goals

Defining clear brand goals is the foundation of a successful rebranding process. Companies should evaluate their current brand positioning and identify opportunities to enhance brand value and equity. Ask rebranding questions to clarify the company’s goals and bring everyone on the same page. When SmashBrand planned to boost the performance of Aspire Energy on shelves, the company redesigned its packaging instead of completely revamping it. As a result, Aspire Energy experienced an uplift in purchase intent by +13 PT at major retailers like Costco and Target. 

Key steps include conducting market research, reviewing brand performance metrics, and aligning with the overall business strategy. After acquiring several premium wineries, Vintage Wine Estates underwent logo rebranding to communicate their refined brand positioning.

Setting specific, measurable goals like increasing brand awareness by 20% or achieving the industry’s best rebranding for brand revitalization ensures efforts stay focused. Clearly defined brand goals pave the way for an impactful rebrand that resonates with the target audience.

Researching Your Target Audience

After defining practical goals, the next step is to research your target audience. Knowing the right audience increases the chances of successful rebranding. Companies must divide their target customers into various segments and then analyze each segment carefully. It helps them effectively understand existing and potential new audience segments. 

Leverage rebranding survey questions to know what your audience thinks about the company’s current situation and what they want to change. Extract data from focus groups and social media. Analyze consumer discussions on forums to uncover audience preferences, pain points, and demographics. Use insights from market research to appeal to the target audience. 

As mentioned a few times in the article, Tropicana, a beverage giant, learned the cost of rebranding the hard way when its package rebranding didn’t go as planned. Detailed market research helps avoid such missteps. 

Conducting a Brand Audit

A comprehensive brand audit is vital for the rebranding process to objectively assess the current brand position. It consists of evaluating the brand assets, analyzing the brand perception, and benchmarking against competitors. Carefully study successful rebranding examples like Dunkin’ Donuts’ transition to just Dunkin’. 

Brand audits provide insights into industry rebranding trends, best practices, and areas for improvement. This data-driven approach ensures the new brand identity resonates well with the target audience while upholding brand equity. A thorough audit lays the groundwork for impactful logo rebranding and positions the company for one of the industry’s best rebranding outcomes.

Developing Your New Brand Identity

Developing a cohesive new brand identity is vital for a successful rebranding launch. Companies must have a well-planned rebranding checklist to avoid missing key brand identity elements, which could result in an inconsistent brand experience. It includes logos, messaging, and other aspects before unveiling the benefits of rebranding to consumers. Companies must follow these steps to develop their new brand identity when rebranding a business:

Developing a Unique Brand Voice

Developing a unique brand voice is the first step in crafting a compelling new brand identity during a rebranding. It involves defining the personality, tone, and language shaping all brand communications and content marketing efforts.

For example, when Snickers launched its “You’re Not You When You’re Hungry” campaign, it established a witty, irreverent brand voice that resonated with its target audience. Brands must document brand guidelines like preferred vocabulary, phrases, and level of formality in a rebranding template.

Consistent messaging is crucial for any brand across all customer touchpoints. A distinctive brand voice builds brand recognition and emotional connections with consumers.

Designing Visual Brand Elements

After defining your brand voice, you must create visual elements that align and reinforce that voice. These include designing a new logo, selecting brand colors, defining typography, and developing other graphic assets. Brand visuals should evoke the established personality—for example, Innocent Drinks’ playful, hand-written logo perfectly matches its cheeky brand voice. 

Ensure visuals are responsive and optimized across devices for website and digital rebranding. When Mailchimp rebranded in 2018, its bold new logo, bright yellow color palette, and whimsical illustrations cohesively expressed its fresh, modern brand voice. Aligning visual elements with brand voice creates an immersive, recognizable brand experience that resonates emotionally with your audience.

Establishing Brand Guidelines

The final step in developing a cohesive new brand identity is establishing comprehensive brand guidelines. These guidelines serve as the rulebook for consistently representing the brand across all channels and customer touchpoints. They typically include details on the brand’s mission, values, voice, logo usage, colors, typography, imagery, and approved marketing templates. 

Consistent guidelines ensure brand visuals, messaging, and experiences seamlessly reinforce the brand personality and positioning defined in the rebranding strategy. Without these, brands risk an inconsistent brand identity that confuses customers. Well-documented guidelines empower teams to apply the new branding while maintaining quality control correctly. This consistent brand experience maximizes the impact of the rebranding investment.

Implementing the Rebrand 

Implementing a rebrand requires a carefully orchestrated campaign and marketing strategy to mitigate the risks. Companies like Mrs. Butterworth’s, Ben’s Original (formerly Uncle Ben’s), and Aunt Jemima leveraged rebranding to shed racist brand imagery and negative associations. 

Their digital marketing efforts educated consumers on the need for change while unveiling rebranded products and packaging. A phased rollout allows brands to test campaigns, update branded assets systematically, and avoid launching one of the industry’s worst rebranding failures. 

Each implementation step is crucial for a smooth transition that preserves brand equity.

Rolling Out Branded Marketing Materials

The first step is rolling out new branded marketing materials that reflect the updated brand identity. It includes developing a rebranding rollout plan for unveiling the new logo, visuals, messaging, and brand voice across all customer touchpoints.

Update marketing materials like websites, print collateral, email marketing campaigns, digital ads, and social media assets to the new branding standards. A well-executed rebranding press release can generate buzz and media coverage around the rebrand launch.

Consistency is vital – branded content must align with brand guidelines to create a cohesive brand experience. Branded marketing materials are the first consumer touchpoint with the new identity, so they must accurately convey the refreshed brand personality and positioning.

Leveraging Social Media Platforms

After rolling out the rebrand, the next thing is to communicate it properly to the target audience. One of the effective ways to announce the rebrand is through social media. A well-executed social media strategy builds anticipation, educates followers on the rebrand rationale, and unveils the new branding impactfully. 

Tease the rebrand through engaging posts and deploy new branded marketing materials, such as updated cover images and profiles. Coordinate a comprehensive launch day blitz across channels. Brands may leverage influencers and ambassadors as authentic voices to amplify the rebranding marketing strategy. 

When rebranding multiple products or entities across different locations, use social media as a single platform to simultaneously launch various types of rebranding. Platforms such as Instagram and TikTok offer the opportunity to use creative storytelling to showcase the new visual identity. An integrated social media strategy ensures a seamless and buzz-worthy transition to the new brand.

Engaging Existing Customers

Engaging existing customers is a critical step in implementing the rebranding strategy. Loyal customers are brand assets, so it is crucial to transition them to the new branding carefully. The process involves proactively communicating the rebranding rationale and releasing the new logo design, visuals, and brand voice through personalized marketing materials and channels. 

Personalized channels may include direct emails, special offers or promotions tied to the rebrand launch, sneak peeks at new products or packaging, and opportunities to provide feedback. Businesses must leverage customer data to tailor messaging and create VIP experiences that make existing buyers feel valued during the transition. Learn from famous rebranding examples and how they successfully maintained customer loyalty by prioritizing their engagement. 

Measuring Rebranding Success

Implementing the rebrand is a continuous process that requires regular measurements to evaluate if the new brand identity resonates with the target market. This process involves monitoring critical metrics before and after the rebrand to gauge changes in brand awareness, brand loyalty, customer acquisition, and other benchmarks. 

Continuous research activities such as surveys, focus groups, and social listening can provide valuable insights into how audiences perceive a rebranding effort. Strategic adjustments can be made to amplify the campaign’s success by identifying areas of strength and opportunities for improvement. 

Tracking Brand Awareness Metrics

The following are some of the prominent brand awareness metrics companies must track after implementing the rebrand:

Monitoring Sales Performance

Monitoring sales performance after a brand refresh is essential to gauge the rebrand’s impact. Compare the data to pre-rebrand benchmarks to identify upward or downward trends.

For example, a successful rebrand aligned with new on-brand marketing materials may drive increased website visitors and time. But, if bounce rates spike, it could indicate a branding disconnect, compelling users to exit quickly.

Evaluating ecommerce sales performance illuminates whether the new branding resonates with customers and influences purchase decisions. Sales uplift or declines provide quantifiable rebrand ROI.

This continuous monitoring enables data-driven optimizations. If website or sales KPIs underperform, brands can A/B test new messaging, creative, or brand asset adjustments until metrics improve, underscoring the critical role of measurement in rebranding efficacy.

Seeking Customer Feedback

Brands must gather input through surveys, focus groups, social listening, and other channels to assess how the new branding resonates with the target target and new customer groups.

This invaluable feedback reveals whether customers perceive the refreshed brand positioning, visuals, marketing materials, and assets as authentic and appealing. It illuminates potential disconnects between the intended branding strategy and how it manifests in the real world.

Customer sentiments inform areas of strength to double down on versus aspects that may require recalibration to better align with audience expectations. Continuous feedback loops enable data-driven optimizations to refine branding elements until they convey the brand’s unique value proposition credibly.

Ignoring customer voices risks misdirected efforts and investment in an ineffective rebrand. Feedback is instrumental in manifesting a cohesive, customer-centric brand experience.

Maintaining Your Refreshed Brand 

Maintaining your refreshed brand is crucial to sustaining the positive impact of your rebranding effort and protecting the brand equity you’ve built. Follow these considerations to keep your new brand strategy:

Brand Perception: Continuously monitor how customers perceive your brand through surveys, social listening, and other feedback channels. Promptly address any disconnects between intended brand perception and reality.

Consistent Branding: Ensure all customer touchpoints, from each marketing material to product packaging, consistently reflect your new branding standards. Inconsistency can undo rebranding progress by confusing audiences.

Employee Adoption: Engage employees as brand ambassadors and provide training to reinforce the refreshed brand voice, visuals, and values across all customer interactions.

Brand Guidelines: Rigorously follow your documented brand guidelines to maintain quality control over how the brand is represented internally and externally.

Strategic Roadmap: Plan a long-term rebranding timeline, anticipating periodic brand asset updates aligned with your company’s evolution.

Maintaining brand integrity is especially critical for small businesses when resources are limited. Prioritize low-cost, high-impact efforts focused on employees and owned channels first. Rebranding is an investment – diligent brand stewardship ensures that investment continuously delivers value by preserving hard-earned brand equity.