This question is something that people often ask, should I rebrand? Is it the right time? I think the first thing to make clear is that when we refer to rebranding, that doesn’t mean simply your company name and logo. There are many more factors to a brand, including your mission, vision and values. It’s effectively your businesses personality and your brand needs to share its story and set the tone for how you want people to feel about your company. So when they see your logo or company name they think of your business and its story.
Rebranding isn’t always the right move, or sometimes it might be that you only need to change a part of your brand as opposed to the entire branding. So it’s important to be sure that it is the correct decision for your business before you invest in a full rebranding project.
Good reasons to consider a rebrand
There are many good reasons for rebranding, here are a few -
Your branding is outdated – maybe your branding colours are old fashioned, or the style is outdated. If you’ve not updated your branding for a good 10-20 years then it can be worth changing things up a bit and modernising things. But if you have a well-established and loved branding, then it may simply be a case of modernising your existing logo and brand colours, ensuring that they reflect your vision and values, rather than an entire rebrand.
Struggling to differentiate between your business and competitors – If you’re struggling to differentiate yourself from your competitors then rebranding will help you to rethink your story and businesses vision, mission and values.
Sometimes starting from scratch and really thinking about what your business stands for, what its story is and what makes you unique, will help to really set you apart from your competitors and make your new branding stand out from the crowd.
Your brand doesn’t reflect your current company vision – if your business has changed somewhat and your goals or visions have either naturally altered as your business has developed, or you’ve recognised that you need to change direction, then rebranding would be the next natural step to achieving this.
Big changes have happened or you’ve outgrown you current branding – new acquisitions, change of direction, big company move – Any really big changes can often be a good time for a rebrand. If you’ve made a number of acquisitions and as a result have grown significantly, may have a number of new brands now under your umbrella and/or new services or products as a consequence. Then a new brand that encompasses all of these new changes may be the logical next step to making these exciting announcements and changing the narrative to help recognise these changes and focus on your new visions.
You want to connect with / are targeting a new audience – If you’ve decided you want to target a new audience, then some market research would be necessary to begin with but following that you may recognise that rebranding is needed to appeal to your new audience. Maybe you have a travel company that used to focus on honeymoons, but now have decided you want to focus on family holidays. Your branding may well have reflected classy, elegant, exclusive and high end. But if your target market is changing to families then you may want to change that feel to fun, energetic and laid back instead. Your new branding would need to reflect the new approach and appeal to your new audience.
Where to start
Re-evaluate your vision, mission and values and establish new ones OR reaffirm your current ones. Your messaging is key to your business and brand. People connect with humans, so think about your business that way, show them the human behind your business. That doesn’t have to be an actual person, but showing your clients why your business does what they do, why it’s important to them and how your business has gone about it.
Research and gain feedback from current customers about their perceptions and experience of your business. Research the market and your competitors to ensure a clear understanding of where you sit in the market and how you need to differentiate from your competitors.
Establish what of your current branding is not working – you don’t have to rebrand everything, there may be elements of your branding that are working well and others that aren’t. Maybe you just want to refresh the overall look of your logo or your website needs redesigning, or perhaps your message is not working.
Still feel that Re-Branding is the right move for you?
If you have any questions or would like some help with your branding project, drop me a message or get in touch, I would love to provide advice or help to reflect the exciting changes happening in your business.
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