A rebranding strategy can help you rethink, refresh, and reposition your brand as efficiently and effectively as possible. Approaching the decision that a rebrand is the right move for your business is no simple task. If you and your enterprise are at the start of that journey, and are still considering whether a rebrand or a brand refresh is the right thing to do, then understanding what to consider when rebranding your business is a natural first step. 

Should you have already been through that soul-searching process – and decided a rebrand is the right way to go – carefully considering your next move is crucial. The potential ramifications for your organisation and your relationships with your customers, employees, and the wider world can be significant. This means you need to consider three key areas; conducting research before creating your new brand identity, building the toolkit that will empower your people at launch, and choosing tools will provide strength and stability for this new era for your brand.
In this article, you’ll learn how to successfully rebrand to help you accomplish your specific business goals that are driving the change – efficiently landing your rebrand by rolling out your new identity to every location of your entire enterprise.

1. Conducting research in the rebranding process

Before making any changes, you need to do the research and find out how your brand can improve. What elements of your brand do people like? How can it connect more with your customers? There are endless questions to ask when building a new identity. The more knowledge you have, the more effective your rebranding strategy will be.

Carry out a brand identity assessment

It’s vital to identify the strengths and weaknesses of your branding to maximise your chances of success. It’s best to get a wide range of views by speaking to the company’s employees, stakeholders, customers, and prospective customers.

How do they perceive your brand? Do they think your company would benefit from rebranding? This insight is one final moment before crossing the threshold with certainty that a rebrand is the right choice for you.

There are various ways to canvass the opinion of key audiences, including one-to-one interviews, focus groups and consumer surveys. Some relevant questions to ask may include:

• How would you describe our brand to a friend?
• Who do you think is our target audience?
• On a scale of 1-10 how much do you like our branding?
• What words would you use to describe our branding and tone of voice?
• How much does our branding reflect your experience you have with our brand?
• How positive does our branding make you feel, and what could be improved?

The insights you gain from this research will shine a light on current blindspots, and highlight what is currently resonating with audiences – giving you what you need to help you shape a new brand identity, and a framework for an effective rebranding strategy.

Define what your business stands for

Once you know what your customers, employees and other stakeholders actually think about your brand identity, you can focus on what you want them to think about it. This requires a lot of self-reflection and discussion internally with your team.

Here are some questions to pose to yourself:

• What’s our value proposition?
• What makes us different from competitors?
• What’s our mission, our core values and our beliefs?
• Who are our target audiences and what are the ideal customer profiles?
• Is the story of our brand’s history and where we are heading clear?

This exercise is useful in helping to clarify the reasons behind your rebrand and how your new or refined mission, vision, and values differ from when your current branding was developed.

How to write a brief for a rebrand

You should write a brief that sets out what you want to achieve from your rebrand, and what the work involved will be. Whether you are working with an external agency or carrying out the rebranding internally, a good brief will focus everyone on the purpose and expected outcome of the rebranding process.

A written brief is also vital in ensuring the ‘buy-in’ of other key people in your organisation, with all key decision-makers having approved it. Getting everybody on board is essential to avoid wasting time and resources when senior executives – often outside the marketing department – challenge key assumptions in the brief and changes in direction at critical moments can waste time and money.

The brief should include:

• An overview of your company, including history, products and services
• An overview of the current issues with the branding
• Your newly defined brand positioning
• A customer profile
• Competitor analysis
• Rebranding strategies
• Key product messages
• The scope of the rebrand and the activities it will entail

By including as much information as possible, you’ll be able to shape your brand proposal to apply the brand changes across all marketing channels, digital or print. And then its time to get the designers to work and bring your new identity to life.

Your new brand identity is almost there

Once you have some mock-up designs for potential new logos, web pages, packaging, or store designs, it’s wise to seek feedback before making final decisions. As well as allowing people within your company to have their say, you can see what your customers think by carrying out some creative testing.

Surveys can be an effective method for testing how a rebrand might impact an audience prior to its launch. You can reach out to existing customers or other people in your demographic to ask what they think of specific elements of a rebrand, testing how well it resonates and whether or not it creates the desired effect. Use online surveys to gather data from anywhere in the world – no matter how remote or widespread your target audiences might be, you can get useful data fast. Use open-ended questions to produce deeper insights amongst predefined questions that feel quicker and more simple to answer, such as multiple-choice, rating scales, and ranking questions.

Tweak. Amend. Test again if necessary. By doing this research, you’ll know when the next phase of your brand’s identity is ready to unleash upon the world. Now it’s time to empower your people to launch it.

2. Empower your people as you launch your rebrand

Once your visual identity and brand assets have been agreed upon, it’s time to compile everything into one handy toolkit. This will become a brand bible for anyone involved in marketing and communications for your company.

Creating a brand toolkit

Consider everything your teams will need to become fully educated on your brand guidelines. As well as elements that are specific to your enterprise and industry, make sure your toolkit contains:

• An overview of your brand identity
• Your logo and variations of it
• Your colour palette
• Your typography
• Rules for layout and alignment
• Brand illustrations and iconography
• Art direction principles
• Examples of your branding used across different applications e.g. landing pages, social media, product packaging, etc.

Your brand toolkit will be invaluable for communicating your rebranding strategy to business stakeholders and helping to make sure everyone is singing from the same hymn sheet. It’s also very useful when you work with outside contractors, helping to quickly on-board them in your updated house style.

Ensuring your rebranded visual identity is an indisputable truth

Your next step requires some intensive team action, as implementing your rebrand will touch every part of your business – and your internal launch must be a success to give your external launch the best chance of success and making the time and financial investment worth it.

You’ll need to set out all the rebranding activities to be undertaken, assigning each one to an individual or department, and agreeing a time frame to work to. You should plan weekly meetings where each person can update the team on what they’ve been doing. It’s likely that some things will take longer than expected, and you’ll run into a few obstacles along the way, so be realistic with your schedule and leave time for ironing out any issues.

To support this process, consider these corporate marketing activities required for your rebrand to be launched internally as effectively as possible:

• Create a need-to-know sequence, so your rebrand is rolled out to your various audiences (executives, employees, customers, suppliers,media, etc.) in the appropriate order – some will be of a higher priority than others
• As part of this priority order, make sure that your rebrand has been announced and accepted internally several months before you intend to launch publicly
• Establish a narrative behind your rebranding, so it becomes clearer to those inside your company why you have taken this step, and can translate to your customers and how it will specifically benefit them
• Spend several weeks building hype towards the rebrand, and communicate these actions internally – as well as helping to cement understanding within your enterprise, this will prepare your audiences for the upcoming change, and make it something worth anticipating rather than hitting them as a complete surprise
• Create communication plans for the initial weeks and months after launch to make sure your employees, customers and the wider world are reminded about what your brand identity now is, so they can quickly familiarise themselves with your new look and feel – you new brand identity should feel normal after a few months

Keeping these steps in mind will ensure your launch is conducted as seamlessly as possible. You and your branding teams will be in the best position to receive an encouraging response, and with a solid rebranding launch strategy in place, be able to adapt to any needed changes along the way.

And when the rebranding is complete, make sure you have an internal launch party. Get your employees excited about the change, and they will be more likely to become brand ambassadors. If you have started to offer new products and services as part of your rebrand or you want employees to take a new approach to customer service, ensure they have been appropriately trained.

Preparing your organisation for your rebrand is a big challenge and a huge accomplishment. Yet a key element to achieving the growth – a factor that would have been at least part of your reasons for rebranding in the first place – is thinking beyond the launch, and truly preparing your people to unleash your brand for years to come.

3. Beyond the rebrand – the right tools for a new era

Having done the necessary research, and putting together a complete brand toolkit that equips everyone for launching your brand, maintaining momentum on consistency is key – not least, to ensure customer loyalty is maintained to help sustain and increase revenue. 

Considering your current ecosystem is essential, as the user experience for your teams needs to be as seamless as possible to ensure mistakes are kept to a minimum if not eliminated completely. So ask yourself. “What do our people need to truly land our rebrand?”

While the importance of establishing all approved brand assets in your toolkit is undeniable, without Digital Asset Management (DAM) – one single source of truth for all assets – then old logos, out-of-date images and poor file storage could see your efforts diluted.

Having a powerful DAM is essential to centralising all documents, images and videos that you will need to activate your brand identity. When access is granted and integrated with one online home for your brand, guidelines are confirmed and available in real time, and concerns regarding ‘where to find what is okay to use’ can be eliminated.

When it comes to creating 100% on-brand assets – essential for any newly rebranded company – then the most useful way for everyone to feel reassured they are approving assets is to create a master design template from which many specific asset templates can be produced.

Keeping track of all rebranding activities and campaigns and simplifying execution of all global efforts is also an important factor to consider. When teams are spread out around the world, being able to see that you are aligned globally when you need to be is just as vital as ensuring every region and location has the autonomy to speak directly to their audience whilst keeping the core brand safe and consistent.

Supporting this is a continuous analysis of asset performance and brand adoption within your enterprise – essential in improving brand performance over time. Assessing the impact of rebranding on your bottom line goes in line with remaining aware of feedback from your target audience. Be constantly aware of social media channels, speaking to Customer Success teams, and committing to becoming more agile.

Download our guide to further understand how to map out the strategy and tools you will need to successfully rebrand your business.

Rebranding can be a huge undertaking but also marks a fresh, exciting phase in the life of your business. Done right, it will excite and re-engage your customers while also leaving you in a strong position to attract a new audience.

Good luck with your rebrand, and reach out to us at Papirfly to discover the power of our smart templates and the wider possibilities of our platform by booking your free personalised demo today. Papirfly’s brand management platform gives marketing teams everything they need to land their rebrand, in one single place.

“To improve is to change; to be perfect is to change often.”

Churchill said this in response to criticisms that he changed political parties. Great leaders are both courageous and vulnerable. They reflect on their strengths and weaknesses, and course correct – sometimes in very public ways – to ensure their behaviours match their values and goals, even when it’s not easy.

We all grow and change over time… and so do brands. Whether in response to a new line of products and services, an evolution in visual identity, or to reflect a shift in a company’s mission and values, a rebrand can keep an organisation aligned with an ever-changing landscape.

However, this is not a step that should be taken lightly. The cost of rebranding a business can be a steep one if the purpose of this change and the approach to this problem is not carefully considered. Not only can it cost you a serious amount of time and money, but your company’s reputation could be at stake if you miss the mark.

What is rebranding?

Rebranding is an exercise in changing or improving any major branding elements e.g. logo, colour palette, typography, etc. The idea behind it is that a brand is evolving, and the company wants people to know about it.

A business can rebrand as much or as little as it wants, from simply changing its slogan or logo, to changing everything, including the company name. It’s helpful to consider three different types of rebranding:

• Brand refresh – You change minor details only, such as modernising individual aspects of your logo or slightly changing the hues of your colour palette.
• Partial rebrand – You change certain elements but not others, such as using a new logo that uses elements, themes and colours from your old logo.
• Full rebrand – You change everything as if you were a completely different company.

Whichever approach most appeals to your current circumstances, it is important that the purpose of your rebrand is carefully considered. History is littered with rebranding examples that had far from ideal outcomes:

• Tropicana’s simplification of its logo and packaging ended up costing the company a 20% loss in sales
• Pepsi paid $1 million to update a logo that alienated many of their loyal customers
• Gap’s rebranding attempt that was so roundly rejected by their customers it was reversed just days afterwards

These examples are not to say that rebranding a company isn’t a wise decision – given the right circumstances, a new look and feel can be a significant asset to a brand. Perhaps your existing image is lagging behind the times visually, meaning you are coming across as old-fashioned or limiting your chances of capturing a new audience. Or you reimagined your company’s objectives and values and want to reflect them outwardly.

In other words, it is crucial to carefully consider the reasons behind your rebrand, and weigh up whether this investment can benefit the business or not…

3 good and 3 bad rebranding considerations

Your motivations behind a brand change are vitally important to look upon with a critical eye. Due to the seismic shift a full-scale corporate rebrand could have on your organisation’s image, your relationship with your customers and more, it is vital that one is pursued for the right reasons.

Below, we give a quick breakdown of three worthwhile reasons to start the rebranding process, and three that might require a rethink:

Good reason #1: New company direction

Over time, the mission, vision and values of your company may have shifted to the point of being unrecognisable to what they were originally. Whether as a result of new market conditions, a change in senior management, or simply natural evolution, your brand identity may need to be freshened up or changed entirely to reflect your new direction.

Bad reason #1: Boredom with current identity

Just because you may have fallen out of love with your existing branding doesn’t mean your customers have. It is important to separate your own feelings from what your brand is meant to do – appeal to your target audiences. Making a change due to your own disillusionment could have major ramifications to your company’s future

Good reason #2: Reaching a new region or audience

Whether you are expanding to another part of the country or around the globe, or you have shifted focus to a new target audience, you might need to refresh your brand in order to better appeal to these customers. Alternatively, in the case of venturing abroad, you may consider adopting a ‘sister brand’ that aligns more closely to the culture you are entering.

Bad reason #2: A dip in sales

A recent reduction in revenue could be an indicator of many things, not just that people are bored with your brand. When Uber updated their brand a few years ago, half of their customers surveyed had no idea what their new logo represented. Instead of making this hasty decision, take the time to consider if other areas of your marketing strategy or overall business could account for this loss of sales.

Good reason #3: Mergers and acquisitions

If you find yourself in the situation of having joined forces with one or more additional companies, it can be beneficial to bring relevant elements of all brands involved into one united identity that previous customers of all sides (and future customers) can familiarise themselves with.

Bad reason #3: Covering up a crisis

While it might feel like a wise decision to rise from the ashes of a PR disaster as a completely different brand, today’s savvy consumers can see right through these attempts. This can actually exacerbate the crisis, making people feel you are trying to take the easy way out rather than owning up to and learning from your mistakes.

Added to this, you may have to convince important stakeholders in your organisation to opt for a rebrand. Make sure that you are well prepared by setting out any arguments clearly and draw up a strategy to help you make a decision that is fully supported by all parties.

Tips to prepare for your corporate rebrand

Once you have established your reasons for pursuing a rebrand are appropriate, a brand refresh rollout plan will involve several significant steps to best ensure a successful result.

Identify your company’s vision, mission and values

Start by reaffirming in your mind what your company stands for today, and how that differs from where you were when your current branding was introduced. How have your values shifted? Do you have new objectives and targets? By devoting time to this topic you’ll have a stronger sense of where your identity needs to evolve and in what direction.

Audit existing brand assets

You don’t necessarily need to reinvent the wheel to refresh your brand. Rather than start from scratch, look at your existing assets and see what can be salvaged. What still aligns with the new direction you wish to take your brand, and what needs to be reimagined?

These expressions of your existing brand will be indispensable for your team – only by understanding where your brand is now can you effectively plan for its future.

Secure buy-in from key stakeholders

Leadership. Employees. Customers. Shareholders. There are a lot of groups that you will need to convince in order to make your rebrand a success, so it is valuable to canvass their opinions and prepare them for the change that you intend to make.

Once you have their support, the chances of a good outcome greatly improve than if you were to spring the ideas or change onto them without any warning. It will also give you valuable insight into whether your rebrand would be accepted and if it is necessary.

Build the right team

A rebrand must be a collaborative effort across your team in order to make the move stick and to ensure the final product does not alienate employees. Get representatives from across your senior management, marketing, sales, human resources and further departments involved who can actively lend their insight into repositioning your brand.

Get ready to update brand guidelines

As the key documentation at the crux of your brand identity, it is important that you are ready to update your brand guidelines with the new visuals, colour palettes, verbiage and more that will underpin your new direction.

Furthermore, storing this valuable information in a digital brand portal could be crucial in ensuring that everyone in your team is aware of the change, limiting the potential for any of your previous brand assets resurfacing later on.

Plan a successful launch

Consider how you will intend to make the world aware of your new direction. You may want to tease the arrival of your rebrand through a social media or email marketing campaign, getting people excited about the arrival rather than springing it on the unaware.

Or, maybe you feel an out-of-nowhere advert or website update will have a more eye-grabbing effect. A classic example of this is the Old Spice viral campaign that absolutely catapulted the previously old-fashioned brand into the next generation.

Of course, there is so much that must be taken into account for a rebranding strategy to work as intended. If you’d like to know more, download our essential guide to rebranding below.

Are you ready for a rebrand?

Whether you are opting for a light refresh of your brand visuals and messaging, or a complete brand overhaul that pushes your company towards a bright new tomorrow, it is essential to have the tools alongside you to accommodate this massive shift.

BAM by Papirfly™ offers a powerful selection of features that can help ease the process of rebranding and ensure that the results stick across your future marketing campaigns.

• Use the template studio to bring asset creation in-house, locking down the key elements of your new branding so all assets produced are perfectly consistent
• Keep all up-to-date brand assets in the in-built DAM system, preventing outdated logos and obsolete branding from re-emerging
• Coordinate the steps involved in your rebrand with birds-eye campaign planning
• Introduce an online, accessible brand portal to act as a single source of truth for all your brand now represents

Discover the efficient, consistent and exciting future of marketing – get in touch to learn more about BAM or book a free demo today.