Rebranding Your Business
(complete guide to company rebranding with Rebranding Checklist)
Time to talk about rebranding, but first, a BIG congratulations are in order for any business that has been around for five, seven, ten years, or more. However, as time passes that shiny new business luster has likely begun to fade.
Over time, your brand identity can become outdated and stop capturing the same attention of customers that it used to.
Luckily, there is something you can do to reignite that diminishing branding flame. Rebranding your business is an effective way to give new life to the look and feel of your brand identity. In fact, some might argue that it is vital for continuing your business’s growth.
Our rebranding guide will help you determine whether it’s time to revitalize your brand and how to get started. Let’s dive in.
What Does Rebranding Mean?
Rebranding definition: Rebranding is a marketing strategy in which an already-established company creates and implements a new logo, concept, name, slogan, branding colors, voice, or a combination of these elements. These changes are meant to develop a new, modernized identity in the eyes of customers, competitors, and others.
There are three major types of rebrands:
Full Rebranding
A full rebrand consists of starting fresh with a new name, logo, and tone of voice. Full rebranding is useful when a company wants to completely reinvent itself and has no real connection to the company name.
While changing your company name can affect brand recognition and recall for customers, it is a great way to start over while abandoning a name that no longer fits your business or stands out in a competitive industry.
Full rebranding is generally completed in the first few years of a business. You won’t see brands such as Nike or Toyota changing their name and doing a full rebrand these days.
Visual Rebranding
Similar to a full rebrand, a visual rebrand takes a lot of work and implements quite a few changes. Although you won’t be changing your company name, you would be changing your logo, colors, and visual identity with a visual rebrand. This type of rebranding may also include a change to your company’s vision and mission statement.
Brand Refresh
A brand refresh is more of a gradual update than a complete overhaul of your company. This refresh can consist of adjusting colors, fonts, and aspects of your logo. This type of rebranding doesn’t require a large announcement or a heads-up for your customers.
Why Is Rebranding Important?
Rebranding is crucial because it breathes new life into your brand and ensures that you rise above the competition. Several factors contribute to the importance of rebranding.
Your customers are evolving. Modern businesses are extremely fast-paced due to technological advancements. Keeping up with this evolution shows customers your brand’s dedication to evolving and changing with the industry even though certain technologies weren’t around when your brand was first established.
You need to stay contemporary and fresh. It is important to stay current and modern simply for aesthetic reasons. Clean, professional graphics will keep your company top of mind and increase brand recognition and recall.
You need to tastefully transition during a merger, acquisition, or leadership change. If there has been a drastic shift in leadership or ownership of your company, you may need to update your branding to match the changes. Doing so shows that although your brand is working through a major shift, you are still dedicated to maintaining your brand identity and staying true to your company’s values. You are preparing to sell your company. A good brand update is a great way to polish up the brand and prepare it for sale. You wouldn’t sell your car without giving it a full detailing job. Refreshing your brand can make it “feel” valuable to potential purchasers.
Is it Time to Rebrand?
Rebranding your business unnecessarily or without a plan can have an extremely detrimental outcome. To avoid an epic rebranding fail, you need to make sure now is the perfect time to make this monumental change.
So, how do you know when it’s time to spruce up your brand and give it a facelift? Here are five questions to ask yourself when considering rebranding your business.
- Is your old image obsolete? For starters, you may need to rebrand purely because your current image is outdated or no longer relevant to your company. Fonts, styles, and design trends are ever-evolving. This type of rebrand is simple because you can keep it surface-level. Cleaning up your logo, introducing new branding colors, and reshaping your website design is an easy way to introduce a new image while maintaining your brand’s voice.
- Is a new competitor threatening you? If a new competitor pops up in your industry and their brand identity is awfully close to yours, this may confuse customers and they will not know which company to purchase from. Rise above the competition by incorporating more appealing elements and differentiating your brand. On the other hand, if a new brand enters your market and has extremely different, attractive brand elements, you can learn a thing or two from their branding.
- Is your current branding unprofessional or botched? If you’re still holding on to your original logo, it may be time to put a new spin on it. Whether you were working with an extremely tight start-up budget or had an inexperienced employee create your logo, it is time to let go of your messy (or boring) branding and try something new.
- Have you introduced new products or services that completely change your demographic? Odds are, your business has evolved tremendously since you first started. If your branding and logos feature images of specific products or services that you no longer offer, it is time to rework your branding to incorporate your current offerings.
- Have you changed your mission and company values? As businesses grow they begin to understand more about their target audience and sometimes shift their missions and values to align more with them. For example, maybe over the last several years your company’s mission has shifted to incorporate more eco-friendly options. If so, you could update your branding to reflect a sleeker, cleaner logo and a down-to-earth brand voice.
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Rebranding Checklist
A company rebrand is not something that should be taken lightly. It requires a great deal of thought, creativity, and skillful execution. To have the smoothest, most successful rebrand, you need to have all of your ducks in a row ahead of time. This rebranding checklist will ensure you’ve covered all of the bases before publishing your rebrand.
Legal and Logistics
- Attain trademarks for new logos, product names, and taglines.
- Create a plan of how to implement the change internally (email signatures, voicemail messages, business cards, etc.).
- Obtain new URLs and domain names.
- Consider outsourcing to a marketing agency that specializes in rebranding and can help with the transition.
- Consider working with a lawyer to tie up any loose ends regarding permits, trademarks, etc.
Visual
- Have a thorough internal review process for approving graphics.
- Receive outside opinions. If you are creating your rebranding materials internally, seek second or third opinions from people outside of your organization.
- Create a new branding style guide and asset kit for future use. Then send these guides to those who need them.
- Create a checklist of every item that needs a redesign.
- Make a list of all the websites you need to update with your new branding (social media sites, directory sites like Yelp or the BBB, etc.)
Behind the Scenes
- Change names on bills, checks, and internal signage.
- Update server names, phone systems, computer log-ins, etc.
- Replace any labeling with the company’s previous name and/or logo.
- Review your past KPI’s so you have a benchmark to compare how your new brand affects your metrics vs. your original brand.
The Rebranding Process
Once you decide that rebranding is the right choice for your company and you’ve reviewed the checklist, it is time to start the process.
First, identify your goals and choose the type of rebrand that best fits your company’s needs. Do you need a full overhaul? Or just a refresh? Refer to the first portion of this post to learn more about the different types of rebranding and choose the one that best fits your needs.
If you are putting the time and effort into rebranding your company, you must do it right. Work with professionals to curate your new logo, website graphics, announcement content, email banners, and more.
A simple brand refresh doesn’t require a full announcement. You could tease on your social posts asking your followers if they notice anything new. This is a fun way to increase engagement during a brand refresh. If you are going with a full rebrand or visual rebrand, you must announce your rebrand to customers in advance via social media, email, or in-store materials.
Now, launch your rebrand! Show the world the changes that you’ve made and collect data to see how your rebranding strategy has affected your sales and other metrics such as website traffic, add to cart (ATC) rates, browse abandonment, and more.
Rebranding Examples
Full Rebrand Example
An unfortunate natural disaster caused the then named “Sound of Music” to have a 4-day flash sale in their parking lot. By promising “best buys” the results of that sale brought in more revenue than the company made in an average month. Shortly after the company rebranded to what we know now today as “Best Buy” and expanded its product offerings drastically. Read more about their history here.
Visual Rebrand Example
Although the MailChimp brand looks very different today than it did originally they’ve kept their name making this a visual rebrand.
Brand Refresh Example
You can instantly recognize the similarities between the older Starbucks logo compared to its new “refreshed” logo. Unlike the MailChimp example above, the two logos here share a lot of the same qualities making this a good example of a brand refresh.
Unsuccesful Rebrand Example
Gap tried to rebrand for a brief period of time to then later return to its original logo due to public criticism of the new design. In only 6 days Gap buckled under the pressure of the internet and reverted to its original branding. No one knows if the rebrand could have paid off if they gave it more time and launched it with a better game plan. Read more about failed rebrands here.
Reignite the Flame by Rebranding
If your brand identity isn’t checking all of the boxes anymore, it is time to implement some changes. Even after a decade, you need to ensure your branding is still appealing to your key demographics and accurately representing your company’s vision.
At No Limit Creatives, we take on the creative side of your rebrand by curating one-of-a-kind logos, graphics, and branding assets. We also offer unlimited revisions. We will adjust and rework your graphics until they are exactly what you’re looking for. Our tried and true rebranding work speaks for itself! You can check out some of the branding work that we’ve done for our clients here. Have questions about how we can help with your rebranding? Contact us today.