What is rebranding?

Rebranding is part of a marketing strategy and is aimed at changing the public’s perception of a brand or company. Designs such as logos, visual imagery and colours, websites or even the entire corporate identity can be changed to create a new brand image. 

Rebranding is about giving a brand a new look in order to adjust or completely change the perception of that brand. Sometimes only a few changes are necessary, sometimes the entire corporate identity is overhauled. When a company’s image is tarnished, rebranding can help revive its fortunes.

Why should you rebrand?

Usually, companies just want to give their dusty image a new shine or they want to tap into new markets and target groups. However, there are a variety of reasons that can lead to rebranding:

Possible reasons for rebranding

• Your image is no longer up to date
• The market is changing
• Your image has room for improvement
• You are realigning as a company
• Changes within the company
• Your corporate goals are not being achieved
• Your brand’s potential is not being fully exploited
• Your employees are unable to identify with your positioning
• Your company orientation or structure is changing
• You are entering new markets that require a different image
• You do not have a consistent brand image
• Your brand does not meet the demands of your target group
• Your company’s image is damaged
• Your corporate design is no longer up to date

It is just a matter of time until your company will need to rebrand, because tastes and styles in society are constantly changing.

Rebranding successfully

How do you ensure the new image sticks? Our guide takes you through all the relevant steps:

Take stock of your situation

Since consistency is important for a brand and you don’t want to lose your recognition value, “as much as necessary and as little as possible” usually applies to rebranding. Think about which elements of your brand work well and which are unpopular with your target audience. On this basis, identify issues and elements that you wish to address through rebranding. Not every rebranding is the same. In some cases, a small change like adjusting the colour palette or typography is all it takes. Other cases require more radical steps that completely redefine a brand. The following is an overview of features that you can consider for your rebranding.

Define your goals

It’s important to be specific about what you want to achieve with the rebranding so you can measure your success later. For example, a goal could be:

I want my company to address a new target group that is willing to pay more for my product (20 percent price increase).

Analyse your target group

After your initial assessment, you should have an idea of where you want to start rebranding. To define exactly how the rebranding will be implemented, the next step is to gather data on your target audience. To do this, you can conduct a new target group analysis, identify behavioural characteristics or get in touch with your customers directly by means of a survey.

Keep an eye on the competition

Inspiration not imitation: It pays to take a look at how your competitors are doing. Comparison helps you to gain further insight into target groups, set benchmarks and get inspiration for your image. You might also use your competition’s branding as a starting point to ensure the distinctiveness of your own redesigned image.

Getting to work

Once you’re clear on which elements need to be adjusted and how to achieve your goals, it’s time for implementation. If you don’t have in-house designers and marketing specialists, it is strongly recommended that you bring in a branding agency. You will need a decent budget to cover the agency costs. But the advice, implementation and smooth rebranding process are worth the money.

Communicate the new brand

When you have determined what needs to change about your brand and have the elements ready to go (e.g. new logo design, new website, or new communication guidelines), you need a good strategy to communicate your new image. The rebranding must be communicated both internally and externally. This means you must prepare a presentation for your employees as well as documents for the outside world. This could be a new website, a specific landing page, a social media post, or a press release.

Effectiveness monitoring after the launch of your new website

Predefine the key figures that you will assess after the rebranding has been rolled out. There are different KPIs for this, and it pays to define a framework that you will use to measure the success of your rebranding. Some of the key figures could be, for example, sales development, brand impressions on Google, or direct customer feedback.

Rebranding is an opportunity and a risk

When you undertake a drastic rebranding, it is important to be aware that change can be received both positively or negatively. Even some major corporations have learned that rebranding has its risks. In 1985, for example, Coca-Cola wanted to boost sales for its New Coke product. But the beverage manufacturer’s target group were not interested in a New Coke. They wanted Coke just the way it had always been. This was followed by a Coca-Cola rebranding campaign.

So when you rebrand, you should always do it in extremely close consultation with your target audience.