Rebranding Essentials: Why Rebrand?

1. Proactive Rebranding
Sometimes a company sees a reason to rebrand to seize an opportunity or thwart potential threats in the future. For example, proactive rebranding might happen in the following situations: Predicted Growth: When a company is preparing for expected growth,

particularly international growth, it might rebrand products and services into a consolidated brand. This is often done for consistency and to save money over time. This type of rebranding is also done when a company simply needs to create a greater sense of brand unity across its business.

New Line of Business or Market: When a company enters into a new line of business or market that is not cohesive to the existing brand identity, a rebranding might be in order. Remember when Apple was known as Apple Computer? As the company evolved into new lines of business beyond computers, the original brand name was too restrictive. With a simple snip to the ancillary word in the brand name in 2002 (which most people didnt use anymore), the brand was ready for new growth and opportunities.

New Audience: When a company wants to appeal to a new audience, a rebranding might be necessary. Keep in mind, the rebranding might not require an actual name or logo change. Think of McDonalds referring to itself as MickeyDs in commercials to target a different demographic from its traditional family audience. Relevancy: When a company realizes its brand is losing relevancy in consumers minds, it might be time to rebrand. The Yellow Pages rebranding is a perfect example. With the use of printed Yellow Pages directories declining, Yellow Pages rebranded to YP and began to focus more attention on the digital space making it significantly more relevant.

2. Reactive Rebranding
Other times, companies rebrand in reaction to an event that is so significant that the existing brand must be changed. For example, reactive rebranding might happen in situations like the ones listed below:

Merger or Acquisition: When companies merge or acquire other companies (and even when they break apart), rebrandings are often required. Thats how weve gotten brand names like Pricewaterhouse Coopers and Bank of New York Mellon. When AT&T broke up into three separate companies in the late 1990s, Lucent Technologies was born. These types of rebrandings are very common and often go through multiple iterations. Legal Issues: There are a number of different legal issues that could cause a company to rebrand. Trademarks are often at the root of these rebranding examples. Thats why its so important to conduct an exhaustive trademark search and obtain the trademark rights to your brand name before you launch it. Competitive Influences: Sometimes a companys competitors activities can be the catalyst to a rebranding. When a competitor renders your brand useless or dated, a rebranding could help you regain a foothold in your market and give you the facelift you need to effectively strike back. Negative Publicity: Remember a company called Andersen Consulting? It was part of a larger company along with the accounting firm Arthur Andersen that was tied to the collapse of Enron. Andersen Consulting was granted independence from its parent company in 2000, and on New Years Day 2001, the consulting company was reborn as Accenture, representing a great example of effective rebranding in response to negative publicity.

Rebranding in 10 Steps
If you think it might be time for a rebranding of your company, product, or service, then you need to understand the steps to take so your rebranding is successful. The primary 10 steps of rebranding follow:

1. 2. 3. 4.

Establish the reason for rebranding. Identify your strategic goals for rebranding. Determine who the stakeholders are both internally and externally. Conduct research to validate the need for a rebranding, determine consumer perceptions, wants, needs, and so on (discussed in detail in Part 3 of the Rebranding Essentials series). 5. Define the budget for rebranding creative, roll-out, tracking and ongoing research. 6. Create a new brand identity, messaging, and so on based on research findings and strategic goals. 7. Plan the new brand identity roll-out, including advertising, production (e.g., signage, printed materials, advertising, packaging, and so on). Be sure to have plans in place for potential negative backlash a new brand can cause. However, its hoped that youve identified potential negative reactions during the research process and mitigated them through the creative process. 8. Launch the new brand internally. Provide training and education to employees and ensure employees understand, buy into, and advocate the new brand. Ensure first-line employees are extremely well-versed in and supportive of the new brand identity. 9. Roll-out the new brand externally. 10. Monitor consumer reactions, conduct ongoing research to ensure the brand identity is working, and tweak, update, and communicate as necessary. In other words, dont launch the brand and forget about it.