Rebranding is more than a new logo or tagline—it’s a strategic shift that ensures your brand remains relevant and aligned with business goals. For brand managers, a successful rebrand requires careful planning, stakeholder alignment, and a strong execution strategy.

In a recent webinar, branding experts Maarten Evertzen of VIM Group, Blake Howard of Matchstic, and Espen Harstad from Papirfly shared their insights on why rebrands fail and how organizations can set themselves up for success.

Define strategic drivers and measure success against business goals

Before embarking on a rebrand, establish the underlying business reasons. Are you repositioning to reach a new audience, aligning with a merger, or responding to market shifts? Clarity on your objectives will shape the scope and direction of the rebrand.

Once you have clarified these business reasons, success can be measured by tangible business impact—brand perception, market positioning, and revenue growth—not just visual appeal. Align KPIs with business objectives to track progress effectively.

Conduct in-depth research to inform decision-making

A data-driven approach ensures your rebrand is built on insights, not assumptions. Assess your current brand equity, audience perceptions, and competitive landscape. Avoid rebranding for the sake of change—every decision should serve a strategic purpose.

Plan for full implementation and allocate resources effectively

Rebrand execution extends far beyond design. Updating assets across all touchpoints—digital platforms, physical locations, internal materials—can cost 15-20 times more than the design phase alone. Budget accordingly to avoid hidden costs and disruptions.

For every dollar you spend in design, you would be paying between $15 to 20 in implementation. And that’s a figure people are not always aware of. You need to budget the actual change process itself, not just the design.

Choosing the right agency partner is equally critical. Seek a team with relevant industry experience and a collaborative approach that aligns with your internal culture. Look for agencies that provide strategic insight and creative guidance, not just execution. Ensure there’s good chemistry and a shared vision between your team and the agency.

Engage internal stakeholders early and drive cross-departmental alignment

Even if confidentiality is required, involving key internal teams from the outset ensures smoother implementation. Marketing, product development, HR, and operations all play a role in embedding the new brand.

Clear internal communication fosters buy-in and ensures employees can confidently represent the refreshed brand. Externally, customers and partners need to understand the rationale behind the rebrand to maintain trust and engagement.

Execute a phased rollout and manage timelines realistically

A phased approach reduces risk and allows for refinements along the way. Prioritize high-impact brand elements—website, social media, key marketing materials—before transitioning less visible assets.

Avoid the temptation to rush the process. A well-paced rollout ensures consistency and minimizes operational disruption.

Use the rebrand as a catalyst for operational improvements

Beyond aesthetics, rebranding presents an opportunity to streamline workflows, update brand governance, and improve asset management. Implement tools that enhance efficiency and enable teams to maintain brand consistency at scale.

During a rebrand, you can educate people not only on the brand, but also on how they can execute faster with more efficiency and more effectiveness in going to market with the new brand.

By following these strategic principles, brand managers can navigate the complexities of a rebrand with confidence—ensuring the new identity resonates both internally and externally while driving meaningful business impact.

Rebranding projects often feel like they’ll never end. Decision-makers understandably want swift results, but a truly effective rebrand requires a strategic and phased approach. This isn’t a quick fix; it’s a transformation.

This post provides a realistic template, highlighting the importance of alignment across the three foundational elements of the Forrester Brand Lifecycle Framework (corporate, functional, and measurement) for a successful and sustainable rebrand.

Phase 1: Discovery & strategy (4-6 weeks)

Why are you considering a rebrand? Before proceeding, validate your reasoning and assess if this can justify such an extensive initiative. Rebrands can consume anywhere from 10-20% of an organization’s marketing budget and involve significant portions of team members’ time, potentially impacting 30-50% of overall available resources during peak periods.

Phase 1 is a foundational phase that sets the stage for success. On average, what firms anticipate as a 3-6 month project can stretch into a year or more, depending on the project’s scope and complexity. Centralized information management and collaborative tools are essential for effective planning. As Forrester notes, “Brand is a strategic asset for B2B businesses and drives impact throughout the company,” making thorough initial planning crucial.

• Brand Audit, market research & competitor analysis: Understand your current brand’s strengths, weaknesses against your competition and identify opportunities for differentiation. Data integration and analysis tools can significantly streamline this process.
• Define objectives & KPIs: Clearly define your goals to measure success. Project management tools are essential for tracking progress and ensuring accountability.
• Develop a rebranding brief: A comprehensive document outlining the overall rebranding strategy. A centralized repository for this critical document and related materials is essential.

When B2B marketing leaders neglect to perform the foundational work to secure alignment and measure the impact of their brands, they hamper their ability to successfully fulfill brand objectives that are aligned to business strategy. – Forrester

Phase 2: Essential tools for rebranding (2-4 Weeks)

Before rolling out any changes, it’s crucial to establish the right tools that support the rebranding initiatives. They ensure consistency and streamlined processes throughout the lifecycle of the rebrand:

• Digital Asset Management (DAM) systems: Implement a DAM system to house all brand assets. This includes features such as a brand portal for showcasing the new brand, enabling easy access and sharing of brand elements like logos, images, and guidelines.
• Marketing material creation: Utilize on-brand content creation (OBCC) systems to create templates and develop new marketing materials (e.g., brochures, ads, social media posts) aligned with the new brand. Rebranding software that empowers employees to create on-brand marketing materials quickly and efficiently are a must.

Phase 3: Brand design & development (6-8 weeks)

This creative phase benefits from efficient asset management and collaborative tools:

• Brand messaging & story: Develop compelling brand messaging aligned with your target audience. Maintaining consistent messaging across all materials requires a centralized system.
• Visual identity and style guide design: A comprehensive guide detailing the visual and messaging standards including logo, color palette, typography, and visual style guide. Version control and easy access to design assets are crucial for maintaining consistency, as well as efficient distribution.
• Brand tone of voice: Define the personality of your brand. Consistent application of your defined brand voice relies on readily accessible guidelines.

Phase 4: Internal rollout & training (4-6 weeks)

Securing internal buy-in is critical.  Forrester emphasizes the need for “Functional interlock,” where “Marketing, sales, product, customer service, HR, finance, and other functions must embrace their role as brand ambassadors.”

• Internal communication plan: Inform employees about the rebrand, address concerns, and build enthusiasm. Streamlined communication and content distribution to employees are key, rebranding management software can support this.
• Employee training: Provide training to educate employees on the new brand guidelines and ensure consistent application. Centralized access to training materials is critical.
• Internal branding materials: Create internal communication materials to support the rollout (e.g., presentations, FAQs, style guides for internal use). 

Phase 5: External launch & ongoing measurement (6-8 weeks+):

Efficient workflows are key for a successful launch. Forrester’s framework highlights the need for “Measurement interlock” to demonstrate ROI.

• Public relations & media outreach: Announce the rebrand to the media and generate positive press coverage. Maintaining brand consistency in your press kit and assets is critical.
• Post-Launch monitoring & analysis: Track key performance indicators to assess the rebrand’s effectiveness and make necessary adjustments. Data integration with analytics platforms is invaluable.
• Brand maintenance & evolution: Ensure consistent brand application across all channels. A robust system for managing brand assets and guidelines is necessary.. A flexible system that can adapt to changing market conditions and future brand evolution is essential..

This rebranding template provides a roadmap, but remember that the true value of rebranding lies in its capacity for ongoing evolution. Consistent application of your brand strategy, continuous monitoring of performance, and agile adaptation to changing market conditions are crucial. A well-defined framework—one that facilitates data-driven decision-making and enables agile adaptation—is essential for maximizing the long-term ROI of your rebranding initiative.

It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent. It is the one that is most adaptable to change. – Leon C. Megginson

Customer attitudes, cultural acceptances and the overall business landscape are constantly shifting. What was considered relevant, desirable and “in vogue” a decade ago may be considered old-fashioned or unappealing today.

As the world evolves, brands must evolve with it. Rebranding enables companies to recalibrate their visual identity, messaging and story to adapt to external influences, or to reflect changes in their own goals, values and target audiences

It’s a powerful marketing strategy that every household-name brand has undergone during its existence. But it must be approached carefully – a poorly executed rebrand can significantly weaken a brand’s position in the market, and in extreme cases, mark the beginning of the end.

In our essential guide to rebranding for 2025, you’ll learn what rebranding entails and the steps involved in achieving a successful, sustainable outcome:

• Explore the risks, rewards and challenges associated with rebranding
• Gather tips and tools on how to effectively plan and execute a rebrand
• Discover strategies to align your employees, stakeholders and design partners across the process
• Learn from examples of successful and failed rebrands of the past

Ready to become a rebranding expert? Then let’s get started.

What is rebranding?

Rebranding is the process of altering your organization’s corporate identity. In some cases, this could involve changing your brand’s name, logo, slogan and overall visuals. In others, it involves updating your goals, ideals and strategic direction.

But one thing is constant – a rebrand is more than just a change in aesthetics. It’s about reshaping your brand’s identity in the market. It’s about changing the way the world perceives your organization. It’s about evolving your image to build stronger connections with your customers.

Brand refresh vs rebranding

Sometimes the terms “rebranding” and “brand refresh” are used interchangeably. While they both follow the same general goal of updating a company’s brand, the scope and impact is far different.

A brand refresh typically involves updating or modernizing certain elements of a brand without completely overhauling its identity. These changes are often more subtle and superficial, intended to make the brand feel more contemporary to modern audiences.

A rebrand, on the other hand, refers more to a complete or near-complete transformation of a brand’s identity. This is usually driven by more strategic reasons, with the goal of presenting a revitalized image that resonates with existing customers and connects with new audiences.

In a nutshell, a brand refresh is like giving your brand a fresh coat of paint – a rebrand is like knocking down walls and rebuilding from the ground up.

How much does rebranding cost?

There’s no one-size-fits-all answer to this question, as it very much depends on the magnitude of the rebrand and the scale of your organization.

However, research suggests that businesses can spend anywhere up to 20% of their annual marketing budget on a rebranding project. This represents a huge investment that can have ramifications on your company’s bottom line.

What is a typical rebranding timeline?

Again, every rebranding project is unique, meaning the timeline of this process will differ from company to company. But estimates suggest it can take anywhere between 12 and 18 months to fully plan and execute a rebrand, illustrating that the investment in these projects stretches far beyond any direct payments – there’s a labor cost to consider as well.

The right and wrong reasons to rebrand

Rebrands are complicated and carry significant risks (more on those in the next section). When you take into account the time and cost associated with these projects, it’s imperative that any rebrand is done for the right reasons.

So, what represents a “good” reason to rebrand? Here are a few standout situations where rebranding is a smart move:

1. Your company is moving in a new direction

Your company’s mission, vision, and values may have evolved due to market changes or natural growth, calling for a brand refresh or overhaul to reflect its new direction.

2. You are trying to reach a new audience

If expanding to new regions or targeting a new audience, you may consider refreshing your brand or adopting a ‘sister brand’ to better align with the local culture.

3. Your industry is evolving beyond your brand

When the trending direction of your market or industry has outpaced your current brand identity, a rebrand may allow you to keep up with your competitors.

4. You have recently undergone a merger

When merging with other companies, it can be beneficial to combine key elements of all brands into a unified identity that both current and future customers can recognize.

These are among the most appropriate and sensible reasons to rebrand. But, many rebranding initiatives have been followed for the wrong reasons:

1. You feel bored with your existing identity

Falling out of love with your branding doesn’t mean your customers have, and changing it based on personal feelings could harm your company’s future.

2. You are attempting to cover up a reputational crisis

Rebranding after a PR disaster may seem smart, but savvy consumers often see it as avoiding accountability, potentially worsening the crisis.

3. You are reacting to a short-term drop in sales

A recent revenue drop may reflect various factors, not just brand fatigue. When Uber changed their logo in the pursuit of short-term gains, it simply confused their customers.

4. You have new leadership in place

If a new CEO, CMO or other executive chooses to impose their own impression on the company branding, this can fail to reflect its core guiding principles.

If there is no good or logical reason for your rebrand, there’s a much greater risk that this change will alienate your customers, rather than unlock a brave new future for your brand. On top of that, poor justification makes it harder to secure buy-in from your stakeholders.

The risks and rewards of rebranding your business

A rebrand is a high-risk, high-reward marketing strategy.

Executed properly, it better positions your brand for the future, reflecting an image that resonates more with customers and aligns with current trends.

But carried out incorrectly, it can instead simply confuse your audience, creating a disconnect that takes an incredible amount of time and effort to restore.

The pitfalls of a poorly executed rebrand

Losing customers and market position

Loyal customers might feel alienated or confused by your new brand identity, leading to loss of trust and reduced customer retention. The emotional connection consumers have with the old brand could also be disrupted, affecting your overall position in your market and nudging them closer to your competitors.

Exceeding your marketing budgets

The costs of a rebranding initiative are often high. If this process is mishandled or incorrectly budgeted, it can leave you in a tough position financially, affecting your wider marketing efforts and overall business operations.

Damaging your brand equity

If your brand has built significant recognition and goodwill over time, rebranding may result in a loss of this hard-earned brand equity. After all, it isn’t guaranteed that customers familiar with your former visual branding will transfer their loyalty to your new look.

Hurting your global brand reputation

Consistency is the core of any trusted relationship. So, if a rebrand isn’t communicated properly to your customers, employees and other stakeholders, it can damage your brand’s reputation in your audiences’ eyes. Restoring this trust is a huge endeavor, if indeed it can be done at all.

The benefits of a successful rebrand

For all the risks involved in a rebrand, updating your identity can contribute to better brand loyalty and market growth – helping your organization lay the foundation for renewed success.

Revitalizing your brand’s appeal

A successful rebrand can restore life to your brand if it has fallen behind the times or no longer resonates with your customers, helping you stay relevant in a rapidly changing market and aligned with modern trends.

Expanding your market share

A rebrand can help expand your business’s appeal to new demographics or geographic markets. By changing the tone, look, and messaging, your brand may be able to attract different age groups, income levels or international customers.

Improving employee engagement in your brand

A rebrand can represent a clean slate between your workforce and your company as a whole. By bringing your teams on board with a refreshed brand, you can foster a stronger emotional bond with your people, raising retention and unlocking the potential for stronger employee advocacy.

Syncing up your brand and business goals

Finally, a rebrand can forge a clearer connection between your brand and your overarching business goals. With brand assets and collateral designed around your business strategy, you’re more likely to achieve the results you want.

3 major rebrand challenges

Even when a rebrand is the right call, numerous challenges during this process can stop you finding success.

Here are 3 of the most common rebrand challenges you need to overcome for a winning rebranding project:

1. Securing buy-in from your customers, employees and stakeholders

For your rebrand to be a bonafide success, it must get the green light from your customers and internal teams.

It doesn’t matter how long your organization has been around: your customers, employees and stakeholders have become familiar with your visuals, messaging and personality over time. Pulling the rug from under their feet by springing a completely new identity on them can cause confusion and seed distrust inside the business and out.

To avoid this outcome, having a solid rebrand communication strategy in place can gradually introduce your new vision to these groups – encouraging their feedback and impressions along the way. This eases your transition and sharpens your final brand, giving your rebrand that all-important staying power.

2. Maintaining brand consistency during the rebrand

Of course, when transitioning from one brand identity to another, brand consistency is more important than ever. If your new visuals or messaging is not presented consistently to your audience, this disruption can prevent your new identity from settling in properly.

Especially if your organization has a worldwide presence, you also have to consider how your up-to-date content must be adapted for your localized marketing campaigns. This adds another layer of difficulty to executing a consistent, coherent presentation globally.

3. Coordinating all refreshed brand assets and materials

Finally, there are the logistical aspects of any rebrand to consider. Your company may need to update hundreds, maybe even thousands of brand assets across your numerous marketing channels. If there is no plan or structure in place to coordinate this work, it can lead to a great deal of confusion and mistakes.

• Brand assets that must be created are overlooked, leading to a staggered rollout or inconsistent presentation
• Refreshed assets get lost in email chains and crowded folders, meaning work must be duplicated
• Poor communication and collaboration causes frustration that slows down the project, stretching your budgets to their limit

Again, this is even more apparent in global organizations who need to oversee campaigns in many locations for distinct audiences. Without a well-organized repository for your rebranded marketing materials, such as a capable Digital Asset Management (DAM) solution, your rebrand rollout can struggle to get off the ground.

Rebrand planning and execution: Understanding the process

So far, we’ve established what a rebrand is, the reasons for and against these projects, and the notable risks, rewards and challenges associated. Now, let’s move onto what the rebrand process actually looks like.

Any project of this significance and weight cannot be approached lightly. Rebranding is a multilayered journey, one that requires meticulous planning, a solid structure and many hands working together in harmony.

But before we look at each of the core steps in more detail, here’s an overview of what this process typically involves:

Establishing your rebranding strategy for 2025

Like any marketing plan, project or initiative, rebranding starts with a clearly defined strategy. This outlines the ambitions, budget and timeline of your rebrand, which in turn dictates every decision and step taken along this journey.

If your rebrand strategy is unclear or incomplete, this will likely be reflected in an incoherent, disfigured brand identity. So to ensure your rebrand gets off on the best possible footing, we recommend taking the following steps:

1. Conduct an end-to-end brand audit

First, it’s important to establish your starting point. A comprehensive brand audit across your existing assets, designs, messages and mission statements will identify any gaps, inconsistencies and areas for improvement.

This assessment will also give you a foundation to help you understand what aspects of your existing brand should be revamped or reconsidered to improve market perceptions.

2. Understand your audience and market

Knowing your target audience and what they want from organizations like yours is critical to establishing a brand that clicks with them. Conduct market research into your customers, competitors and wider industry to see what they expect, and use this to help craft your new vision and identity.

This is also an opportunity to reflect on how your audience has changed since your company was founded, or research the needs and wants of a new customer base you wish to tap into.

3. Reflect on your current values and vision

Next, look inward – does your existing brand reflect your company’s targets and values? If not, where does this need to be addressed? This step requires a lot of self-reflection and internal discussion.

Here are some helpful questions to think of at this stage:

• What’s our value proposition?
• What makes us different from our competitors?
• What’s our mission, core values and beliefs?
• What’s the story of our brand’s history?
• What do we want our next five years to look like?

4. Define your core objectives

Once you’ve considered your audience’s needs and reflected on your own ambitions, the next step is to define the objectives of your rebrand project. What are the fundamental goals of carrying out this initiative? What do you want the end result to deliver?

The more specific and tailored you can make your objectives, the more likely your strategy will be executed as intended.

5. Create an execution roadmap

Goals established, it’s time to set out your rebrand execution roadmap. This provides a top-line sequence of tasks your project must complete, with deadlines attached to each one.

As you can imagine, these documents add structure to your rebrand and set expectations for all parties involved, so that this long and complex process doesn’t descend into chaos.

6. Establish your budget

As noted earlier, a rebrand is a significant investment of time and resources – one that can grow steeply if this is not handled properly.

To keep costs under control from start to end, rebranding budget management is vital as it allows you to set aside a fund that reflects the scale of your project and the timelines established. In turn, this means your project can avoid any unpleasant budgetary surprises along the way.

Uniting everyone around the same goal

Any rebrand implementation strategy will involve multiple contributors – from your senior marketing team members, to frontline employees and external partners.

Despite such a broad range of people onboard, it’s critical every player is pulling in the same direction from the outset. If there are any discordant voices once the strategy has been established and execution is underway, this can seriously undermine your project and cause a lot of internal unrest.

A shared vision and united front must be established at this early stage between your core stakeholders, be they CMOs, marketing executives, business leaders, or agency partners. To achieve this, consider the following:

• Involve all stakeholders in the strategic planning stages, so they have a chance to state their opinions and contribute to the process
• Share the objectives with all stakeholders to ensure they understand the purpose and expected outcomes of the rebrand
• Organize brainstorming or feedback sessions with key stakeholders to align everybody on the desired direction
• Form a central leadership team for the rebrand that represents all departments and key stakeholder groups, bringing their thoughts together
• Arrange workshops or one-on-one meetings to resolve conflicting views and foster greater collaboration between all parties
• Establish regular touchpoints for status updates, and ensure all stakeholders have a forum to ask questions or voice concerns

Picking a design agency partner for your rebrand

While it’s possible for an individual marketing team to handle a rebrand, this can put a lot of pressure on professionals who are already at the heart of your day-to-day marketing operations.

Plus, because your internal team is so close to your existing brand, culture and content, this may blind them to other perspectives when imagining what your rebrand might look like. Sometimes, it’s better to have the insight of a dispassionate, impartial third-party to unlock the best concepts and ideas.

That’s why, in our experience, the most successful and structured rebrands are supported by an external design agency. Their unbiased position, creative skillset, unique experience and greater bandwidth can enable your rebrand to flourish, and ensure work is completed on time.

However, selecting the right rebrand design partner is not a decision to take casually. These experts will be critical in determining the look, tone and story of your refreshed brand – if they are constantly deviating from your strategy or not clicking with your marketers, it can derail the progress of your project.

With that in mind, here are a few things to consider when choosing the most suitable agency partner:

• Review their past rebrand projects to assess their ability to create transformative brand identities that align with their clients’ goals
• Evaluate the agency’s creativity through their past work and see if they offer fresh, innovative ideas
• Check their understanding of modern design trends, especially for digital media and user experience
• Assess whether the agency understands and aligns with your company’s ethos
• Ask about the agency’s approach to workflow, including their project management tools, timelines and deliverables
• Seek out testimonials from past clients, specifically related to rebranding projects

Taking these steps and asking other illuminating questions will provide much-needed assurance that your agency partner can guide your rebrand to the intended outcome.

Collaborating with your design partner across the rebrand process

Clear collaboration between your internal marketing leaders and design agency partners is essential through this creative rebranding process. Any miscommunication can noticeably extend project durations, cause tension between all parties and negatively impact your spending.

With solid communication key to a smooth, successful rebrand, here are a few steps to make this a reality:

• Invite your agency partners to conduct their own audit of your existing brand, so they can bring their own thoughts and ideas to the creative process
• Establish clear communication channels and point-people to manage meetings and regroups between all parties
• Utilize brand portal software for more immersive, interactive design presentations, so all stakeholders get a solid feel for the new brand
• Use a DAM system as a central repository for all content created, meaning all assets are kept in one place for review and discussion

3 steps to rebuilding your brand identity

With your rebranding strategy settled, the stage is set to go about actually rebuilding your brand identity. This is the most creative stage of the process, where new brand elements are developed that will translate your updated vision and personality to global audiences.

While there is much to consider here, it can be broken down into 3 broad categories:

1. Visual identity

Your visual identity is the most immediate and recognizable aspect of your brand. It encompasses everything from logo designs and color schemes to typography and imagery – all of which creates a visual language that communicates who you are.

Like your underlying rebrand strategy, all these elements should be evaluated against the findings of your initial audit and the objectives you set out at the start. You may need to refresh your logo for a more modern appeal, update your color palette to evoke the right emotions, or simplify your designs for a more clean and cohesive look.

Whatever the case, the key is to ensure that every visual element is consistent across all platforms, reinforcing your brand’s personality and setting you apart from your competition.

2. Brand messaging

Brand messaging covers your company’s tone of voice and style of communication. It’s how you convey your value, mission and promises through words, shaping customer perceptions and forming emotional connections.

When redefining your brand’s message and tone as part of a rebrand, ask yourself the following:

• What are the key messages we want to communicate?
• How do we want to sound – authoritative, approachable, innovative, humorous?
• Who are we speaking to, and where will they engage with our brand?

Refine your tagline, slogans, and wider content to align with the resolutions within your rebrand strategy. Strong, consistent messaging enhances trust and loyalty, which will be important as customers get to know your new brand.

3. Story, mission and values

Finally, your brand’s story, mission, and values are the foundational elements that define your organization’s purpose and long-term direction.

When rebuilding this aspect of your brand identity, focus on aligning these elements with your evolving goals and market realities. Your brand story should highlight your journey and values in a way that speaks to your audience – both existing and new.

Your mission must clearly articulate what your brand stands for and the problems you solve, while your values should inspire both employees and customers. By crafting a story, a mission, and core values that are authentic and forward-looking, your rebrand gains a purpose that will improve how well it’s accepted by your audiences.

Between your internal marketing team and your design partners, all 3 of these brand elements should be settled before proceeding to implementation, and bundled together as part of your refreshed brand guidelines.

The importance of employee and stakeholder alignment in a rebrand

Even if the intention of your rebrand is to present a rejuvenated image to your customers, it very much requires the buy-in of your employees and internal stakeholders. After all, these are the people who will be communicating your new brand to your consumers on a daily basis, so it’s vital that they both understand and agree with the concept.

Employee engagement in rebranding is essential. You must communicate the rationale behind your change in direction clearly, so that everyone is aligned on the reasons for this evolution. Where possible, you should also consider involving your staff in shaping the new identity – this will help foster a sense of ownership and connection from your team to the rebrand.

There are multiple ways to nurture this engagement:

• Hold workshops and training sessions on the new branding
• Digitize your brand guidelines and tutorials for easy accessibility
• Establish regular internal communications through your established channels
• Host an internal launch event to unveil the new brand to your teams
• Offer rewards or incentives to employees who embrace the refreshed brand

Utilizing brand portals can be an effective way to achieve company-wide alignment. These online hubs can immerse your entire workforce in your updated branding and provide a one-stop shop for any education resources you develop to help them understand the rationale behind your rebrand and how to apply it consistently.

By getting your internal teams aligned with your rebrand, you lay the foundation for it to be communicated consistently and correctly from rollout and beyond. Plus, it also offers an opportunity to establish brand advocates within your teams, who can play a big role in helping your new brand settle during the challenging first few months.

Executing your rebrand rollout plan

With all the groundwork done, and your updated visual identity, tone and brand story built, all that’s left now is to unveil your new look to the masses.

A rebrand rollout is where all your hard work comes to fruition. With only one chance to make a strong first impression, it’s essential you’re doing everything you can to get this crucial step right.

Any misstep here can risk customer confusion or outright rejection. Needless to say, this isn’t the outcome any brand wants after spending an enormous amount of time and money developing their new look. So, it’s vital you thoroughly prepare and organize a comprehensive plan before the rollout.

Generate all assets for a smooth implementation

First and foremost, once you’ve settled on the final design and messaging of your new brand, you need to ensure all your existing content across your marketing channels is aligned. This could mean updating hundreds, maybe thousands of assets, from social banners and job adverts to website logos and print adverts.

This may be a herculean task, but if any old branding remains following your relaunch, it can immediately water down the impact of your new identity and sow distrust.

So, begin by establishing a centralized checklist that everyone can check when producing rebranded assets. This must contain every type of collateral you need to recreate – from your website and social media profiles, to stationery and packaging for your products and services. Having this in place will ensure that you cover all bases.

Next, consider investing in content creation tools and templates to speed up the production process. These easy-to-use solutions lock down your core brand elements, meaning anyone in your teams, regardless of their design acumen, can support this process. This can help reduce the time and effort it takes to create all the materials you need.

Finally, using a DAM system enables you to house all rebranded assets in one central location. Relying on emails or disparate servers can make it much easier for assets to go missing and slow down your production times, pushing your intended “go live” date further.

A centralized DAM solution brings everything together with a clear order and categorization. This helps ensure everything is in the right place for your grand rollout.

Captivate your audiences with a successful relaunch

All assets present and accounted for, now is the moment to land the relaunch. This is a critical moment – a misstep here can add to the unease your audiences might already feel.

To rollout your rebrand in the best possible manner:

• Develop a strong rebrand story that emotively conveys the reasons for your rebrand
• Create buzz with a teaser campaign that eases people into the change
• Test out your rebranding on select customers, to gain their feedback and apply any necessary changes
• Have your employees share the new brand on their personal channels alongside the launch event
• Create emails, social media campaigns and video explainers for the weeks and months after the launch to guide your customers through this transition
• Work with industry influencers, thought leaders and media outlets to increase awareness of your rebrand

What if my rebrand goes off track?

Once your rebrand is up and running, it’s time to put your feet up and celebrate a job well done, right? Wrong.

Research suggests it often takes up to 6 months for a rebrand to become entrenched in people’s minds. Long-term brand management is vital to embed your new identity into your customers, employees and other stakeholders, until it eventually becomes the norm for them.

So if your rebranding campaign starts to go off track, or old-style assets begin to resurface on your channels, what can you do to course-correct?

Don’t be afraid to pivot with your rebrand where necessary. Campaigns are rarely perfect first time out, so listening to your audiences and adjusting according to their feedback may lead your rebrand to a more successful, sustainable future in the long run.

How do you measure rebrand success?

Evaluating the impact and success of your rebrand is key to long-term sustainability. Even if you follow everything in this guide to the letter, it’s likely your rebrand will rub some people the wrong way, or you’ll reconsider certain aspects of your new identity over time.

Unfortunately, there is no overarching measure for rebrand performance you can use to judge how well yours is working in the weeks, months and years after launch. However, there are several rebranding success metrics you can track than give you a solid grasp over how well it is resonating with your audience:

Net Promoter Score (NPS): NPS measures customer loyalty and satisfaction by asking how likely a customer is to recommend a brand to others. By tracking NPS before and after a rebrand, you can gauge whether the new brand positioning, messaging and design resonate with customers.

Social media engagement: Social media engagement tracks the interactions on your social media platforms, including likes, comments, shares, mentions and direct messages. A successful rebrand should lead to higher engagement, as customers better connect with the new brand identity, messaging and tone.

Customer retention rate: Customer retention rate refers to the percentage of customers who continue to do business with a brand over a chosen period. If the rebrand alienates or confuses your current customer base, or leads to a worse customer experience, you’ll likely see a drop in retention rate. 

Revenue growth: Revenue growth tracks your changes in sales or revenue over time.  A successful rebrand should ideally lead to positive financial outcomes, be it through attracting new customers, increasing repeat purchases or differentiating your company in the market.

5 top rebranding tools for a smooth, successful process

Anyone who has been involved in a rebrand or brand refresh will gladly tell you how complex and stress-inducing it can be. When you’re responsible for delivering hundreds of unique assets and managing numerous outlets worldwide, it’s a strenuous experience for all involved.

Equipping your teams with the right rebrand tools puts your company in the strongest position to overcome all challenges associated, so you can deliver your strategy on-time and on-budget.

With this in mind, here are 5 rebranding technologies we highly recommend investing in ahead of your next project:

1. Digital asset management for rebranding

One of the greatest challenges in executing a rebrand and making it stick post-implementation is coordinating your content. You never want an asset bearing your old branding to accidentally be posted on your feeds – it reflects poorly on the quality of your organization.

Digital Asset Management (DAM) software keeps the latest verified and approved assets in one library, creating a single source of truth for all marketing campaigns and activities. With the best software including features like user permissions and version control, preventing colleagues from accessing incorrect or outdated assets can protect the sanctity of your new identity long after launch.

2. Brand portals

Maintaining your brand identity during and after your rebrand requires your internal teams to be fully aligned on your new visuals, vision and voice. Any regressions back to old habits or collateral can compromise the consistency of your presentation and the impact of your new look.

Brand portals provide a centralized online space to house everything that dictates your branding – from guidelines and handbooks to tutorials and example assets. This helps keep your content creators educated on how to represent your new brand, leading to more consistent application across your marketing channels.

3. Rebranding project management tools

The many moving parts behind a rebrand make strong project management vital to its progress. Any oversight or gap can cause mistakes that set your rebrand back weeks, send costs skyrocketing and lead to a rocky, inconsistent rollout.

Investing in a trusted project management solution, such as Trello, Asana or Basecamp, can help you ensure tasks are assigned to the right people, collaboration is upheld with your key players, and progress is tracked from start to finish.

4. On-brand content creation software

Both in the months leading up to your rebrand rollout, and the years beyond that point, your teams will be expected to create a considerable amount of assets that all reflect this fresh identity.

As demands for content grows, equipping your professionals with on-brand content creation tools empowers them to produce branded assets faster and more accurately. These smart templates preserve your visual identity on every piece of collateral created, making your marketing more agile and self-sufficient overall.

5. Team communication platforms

If the parties involved in your rebrand are spread across the globe or work remotely, relying on emails and phone calls to communicate each phase will only slow down progress.

More instant, purpose-built communication tools such as Slack, Zoom or Lark enable your stakeholders to interact more efficiently. This streamlines the journey to executing your rebrand, and helps ensure that everyone stays on the same page throughout.

3 successful rebranding examples… and 3 not-so-successful ones

In any topic or subject, it’s always helpful to learn from past examples, both good and bad. Rebranding is no different, and there are plenty of instances where organizations have made their rebrands stick to great success – and some where missteps damaged their standing with customers.

As we bring this guide to a close, let’s look at a few company rebrands from both perspectives:

Rebrand success #1 – Old Spice

Over time, Old Spice’s perception had shifted to being an outdated brand only worn by older men. This shifted in 2010 with the launch of their “The Man Your Man Could Smell Like” campaign.

These funny, engaging commercials went viral, grabbing the attention of a younger audience. Within six months, Old Spice had increased its market share to 37%, breaking free from its old reputation and becoming the definitive leader in its industry.

Rebrand success #2 – Dunkin’

Previously known as Dunkin’ Donuts, Dunkin’ abbreviated their name and shifted their brand identity to reflect its more diverse product offering, particularly coffee, which made up 60% of their sales.

Dunkin’ simplified its logo and store design, aiming for a faster and more efficient customer experience that resonated with time-strapped millennials.

Rebrand success #3 – PostNord

In 2019, Nordic delivery giant PostNord underwent a rebrand to update and modernize their visual identity, aiming to establish their company as the brand of choice for e-commerce consumers.

Creating their own digitized “brand terminal” accessible to all users helped ensure that everyone in their organization understood and correctly applied their new brand guidelines, helping them better resonate with their new audience.

Want to know more about PostNord? Check out their rebranding case study.

Rebrand fail #1 – Tropicana

Tropicana’s decision to redesign its iconic juice packaging in 2009 from the familiar “orange with a straw” to a minimalist, plain design proved to be highly unpopular with its loyal customers.

Their attempts to modernize their brand were roundly rejected by their audience, as sales plummeted by 20% in just two months, costing the company over $30 million in lost revenue.

Rebrand fail #2 – Gap

In a similar story just a year later, Gap unveiled a new logo and visual identity, replacing its iconic blue box logo with a simpler, more modern black Helvetica font and a small blue gradient square.

The rebrand was intended to appeal to a younger, more digital-savvy audience. Instead, the backlash was so intense that Gap reverted to its original logo within a week. This failed experiment cost them approximately $100 million, including the costs of creating, marketing, and reversing the change.

Rebrand fail #3 – British Airways

In the late 1990s, British Airways (BA) launched a rebrand designed to give the airline a more global image, replacing its Union Jack tailfin design with abstract, multicultural art. The goal was to position BA as a forward-thinking global airline, rather than a symbol of British tradition.

However, this removal compromised BA’s identity as the “flag carrier” of the United Kingdom – a significant part of its appeal. Both customers and employees felt the airline was abandoning its heritage, and they reverted to a refreshed version of their original design in 2001.

Unlocking the true potential of rebranding

While change is hard and sometimes scary, staying in one place for too long is the most unsustainable thing a business can do.

Evolving to the changing needs of customers and the ever-shifting market landscape is crucial to your long-term survival. And to do this, rebranding and refreshing your identity is key.

We hope the insight we’ve covered in this comprehensive guide enables you to unleash the full potential of your new identity at every stage, both now and in the future.