Alexis Kestler
Rebranding is becoming increasingly critical for businesses in 2023 as consumer preferences and market dynamics continue to evolve rapidly. With rebranding, companies can reposition themselves to stay relevant, boost growth, and increase brand awareness.
What is Rebranding?
Rebranding refers to the process of giving an established business a new identity. It goes beyond surface-level changes like logos and color schemes to overhaul messaging, personality, values, and more.
The goal is to create an identity that resonates better with target audiences and sets the brand apart from competitors. Well-executed rebrands allow companies to reposition themselves in the market, convey leadership changes, adapt to new trends and consumer demands, or signal a new strategic direction.
Why Rebrand in 2023?
Several factors make 2023 a pivotal year for brands to consider refreshing their identities:
1. Rapidly Changing Consumer Preferences
Younger demographics like Gen Z are gaining more spending power and have different priorities than previous generations when it comes to brand preferences and purchasing drivers. Brands need to evolve messaging to align with these emerging consumer behaviors.
2. Increase in Purpose-Driven Brands
Consumers, especially younger ones, increasingly support brands that take stands on social issues and have a clear purpose beyond profits. Rebranding allows companies to re-evaluate their core values and better communicate the causes they support.
3. Dynamic Technological Landscape
Emerging technologies continue to disrupt industries and redefine consumer experiences. Brands may need repositioning to stay competitive in tech-driven sectors.
4. Ongoing Pandemic Impacts
Though the worst days of the pandemic seem to be behind us, lingering impacts on supply chains, retail, and consumer behavior necessitate flexibility and adaptation.
5. Rise of Digital-First Experiences
Digital continues to dominate, accelerated by the pandemic‘s e-commerce boom. Brand identities need to be optimized for digital-first, mobile-centric experiences.
Rebranding provides the opportunity to evolve, regain momentum, and proactively shape brand identities for emerging consumer needs rather than reactively responding to market changes.
Key Aspects of Rebranding
Successfully rebranding an established company requires re-evaluating and overhauling various touchpoints:
1. Objective
Define the reasons and desired outcomes. Is the goal to reach new demographics, convey purpose and values, simplify a confusing brand identity, or associate with innovation? Establishing objectives informs strategies.
2. Market Research
Thorough market research uncovers who your brand currently resonates with and where there are gaps or growth opportunities with target consumers. Ongoing research then tracks the impacts of brand changes.
3. Visual Brand Identity
Logo redesigns grabs attention, but visual identity consists of fonts, color palettes, imagery, and more. These visuals should cohesively communicate your brand personality.
4. Messaging and Positioning
Core brand messages and market positioning require refining to speak to modern consumers. Determine what makes your brand unique via messaging themes focused on values, purpose, or industry leadership.
5. Internal Alignment
A rebrand impacts internal culture and operations. Transition strategies must foster buy-in across the organization so employees are aligned with external-facing branding.
6. Customer Experiences
Look for opportunities to modernize or personalize customer experiences to better embody new branding. Experiences build perceptions, so they should reflect updated identity.
7. Marketing Collateral
With visuals, taglines, imagery, and more transforming during a rebrand, related marketing and advertising materials need updating to create cohesion across touchpoints.
Rebranding Process Steps
Orchestrating an extensive rebrand requires coordinated sequencing of various efforts for a smooth transition:
1. Research Audiences and Market
Identifying growth opportunities requires analysis of market trends and consumer behavior using surveys, interviews, focus groups, and more.
Key questions:
- Who is our brand resonating with currently and why? Who are we failing to connect with?
- How do perceptions align with our brand‘s actual identity and offerings?
- Where are market gaps our brand could seize? Which competitors demonstrate success we could emulate?
2. Set Goals and Strategy
Leverage insights uncovered during research to define tangible rebranding goals and strategies centered on growth, purpose communication, audience targeting, or conveyance of innovation.
3. Audit Existing Brand Identity
Analyze what works well and what‘s dated about current branding, including logo, visuals, messaging, customer experience touchpoints, and marketing materials.
4. Design New Visual Identity
Ideate logo options, typography, color schemes, imagery, and graphic design principles that embody updated identity goals and resonate with target consumers.
5. Refine Messaging and Tone
Craft messaging, taglines, mission statements, and talking points across media that articulate the refocused brand identity in an authentic, consistent voice.
6. Update Marketing Assets and Channels
Overhaul owned media like website pages, blog posts, email templates, presentations, ads, and signage to reflect rebranding. Align paid, earned, shared, and owned channels.
7. Roll Out to Staff
Get internal teams enthusiastic about and bought into identity changes through presentations conveying rebranding rationale and meaning.
8. Launch Externally
Officially unveil the new brand identity to consumers and the public, highlighting the reasons for and meaning behind the refresh.
9. Measure Success
Continuously gather data and feedback on important metrics like brand awareness, consideration, favorability, recall, engagement, conversions, and sales to quantify rebranding impact. Adjust strategies based on insights.
10. Iterate Improvements Over Time
Revisit visuals, messaging, experiences, and positioning post-launch and make refinements based on learnings, as initial launches rarely perfect. Commit to continuous evolution.
Global Brand Rebranding Case Studies
Looking at real-world examples of successful major company rebranding efforts provides helpful lessons for structuring your own rebrand:
1. McDonald‘s
The iconic fast food giant needed branding alignment with modern diners seeking healthier, higher quality options. McDonald‘s warmed up its industrial aesthetic with natural wood tones and transparent messaging conveying food quality commitments.
Key Takeaways:
- Research uncovered healthy menu innovation opportunities
- Visual identity reimagined for the modern era
- Boosted brand purpose and transparency
2. Spotify
The music platform introduced lively new visuals better conveying the energy and passion music inspires. Magical gradients and engaging artist imagery achieved standout signaling innovation leadership in the audio market.
Key Takeaways:
- Eye-catching new visual identity
- Vivid colors capturing music joy and energy
- Illustrative textures signifying innovation
3. Mastercard
By stripping out its name from the iconic overlapping red and yellow circles logo, Mastercard refined instant memorability down to the brand‘s distinctive visual assets. The "card" wording was then removed from communications for flexibility across products.
Key Takeaways:
- Distilled visual identity to most recognizable assets
- Flexibility to extend branding beyond credit cards
- Instantly identifiable without reading
Rebrand Launch Strategies
When planning an external launch event to mark the official completed transition to an overhauled brand identity, consider these strategic launch approaches:
Spotlight the "Why"
Centering communications around the research, motivations, goals and strategy behind the rebrand builds understanding. Convey how changes address emerging consumer needs.
Humanize With Founders
Let leaders personally introduce the new identity to build trust and enthusiasm both internally and externally.
Rally Employees
Having staff proudly unveil the rebrand first signals conviction company-wide. Their excitement generates authentic buzz.
Tease With Hints
Intriguing glimpses of the new look generating speculation and curiosity before the full reveal event amplifies the launch.
Stage Interactive Experiences
Pop-up launch parties allow influencers, media and consumers to immerse themselves in the reimagined identity for deeper connections.
Seed Influencers
Providing previews to key influencers, bloggers and media builds advocacy and secures initial positive reception.
Regardless of specific launch events, communicating "why" brand changes were made is essential for conveying strategic foresight and purpose beyond change for change‘s sake.
Measuring Rebrand Success
Continuous quantitative measurement and qualitative feedback provide crucial insights on progress towards rebranding goals. Track:
- Brand awareness and attributes via surveys
- Consideration and favorability lifts
- Web traffic and engagement
- Sales and customer acquisition metrics
- Media and influencer sentiment
- Employee morale and retention
Compare metrics pre-rebrand and post-launch to quantify impact. Listen to social media and review sites to gauge reactions through a mix of quantitative and qualitative assessment.
For example, improved brand attribute associations, increased website sessions, higher revenue, more new customers acquired, greater follower growth, and more positive reviews all signal rebranding steps in the right direction.
Conclusion
Rebranding requires thorough planning, strategic pivots across key identity elements, organizational alignment, and consistent measurement. The significant effort pays dividends through revived consumer perceptions, refocused positioning, and revenue growth.
Given rapidly evolving consumer behaviors and priorities, rebranding is an imperative rather than an option for enduring brands in 2023 seeking to reinvent themselves. Companies who proactively reimagine identities will gain an edge this year.
