Rebranding is a vital evolution for businesses seeking to stay relevant and competitive. There are several key signs it might be time to rebrand your business, including:
- A mismatch between your brand and the reality of your business
- A brand that is poorly or inconsistently used by your team
- A dated or out-of-fashion design
- A brand that has been around longer than 8-10 years
In the rebranding process, it’s important to gather team feedback and partner with experienced professionals to ensure that the rebrand aligns with strategic goals and resonates with the target audience.
Looking across the landscape of American businesses, you’ll find a few companies that have been reliably using the same branding for what seems like ages. Companies like AT&T, McDonald’s, Apple, and Chevrolet have used a consistent, unchanging, and solid brand identity for decades.
Or have they?
When you look back at every single one of those companies listed above, you may think you’ve been seeing one brand consistently – but you haven’t. Every one of those major companies has undergone a rebrand – some of them extremely subtle – in the past twenty years:
- In 2005, AT&T dropped the all-caps Helvetica wordmark and flat design that had served it since the 1980s in favor of a lowercase wordmark and a more stylized, dimensional look for its “Death Star” logo.
- McDonald’s has rebranded several times in the past two decades, opting at various times to spell out its full name, lean heavily into the “McD’s” naming, or drop the name from the logo altogether and simply let the Golden Arches speak for themselves.
- Apple dropped its 80s-era “Rainbow Apple” logo in favor of a simpler version in the 1990s, but in recent years, the logo has gone through multiple flat and dimensional looks before becoming the current monochrome logo in 2017.
- Chevrolet has rebranded three times since 2004, changing the dimensions of their famous “bowtie” logo and alternating between a symbol/wordmark logo and a standalone symbol with varying degrees of dimensionality and depth.
Mind you, this list only discusses the changes to the companies’ logos. Most of these businesses have changed their other brand elements, such as taglines, color schemes, and typefaces, at least once.
If these multi-billion-dollar enterprises – companies for which a rebrand could cost tens of millions of dollars – rebrand that frequently, what does that say to you as a business owner?
Why Rebrand?
Rebranding is a vital part of growing a business. Your audience’s preferences change over time. What we find appealing in a logo is tied very closely to what we generally find appealing, and anyone who ever goes shopping for clothes knows how frequently styles change.
If your business does not keep up with design and messaging trends, it will quickly become seen as dated or out-of-touch.
“So what?” we hear you say. “I sell car parts, not designer fashion.” Fair enough. Your customers probably aren’t consciously basing their buying decisions on the aesthetics of your logo. But they do it subconsciously, even if they’re not aware they’re doing it.
If your parts shop looks out of date, will customers subconsciously associate your lack of modernity with a lack of capability? Will they see your vintage logo and assume that their visit will mean a frustrating slog through printed parts catalogs? Will they decide your shop may not be the place to find the diagnostic tools for their technologically advanced automobiles?
Here’s a hint: They absolutely will.
Rebranding isn’t about making your business look better. It’s about making your business look current.
When Is It Time for a Rebrand?
Deciding when to take on a rebranding project requires some serious thought.
If you rebrand based on a design or messaging fad instead of a genuine trend, you may have to do it again much sooner than expected. If you wait too long to rebrand, it may be too little or too late to salvage your audience’s impression of your business. And if you jump the gun and rebrand while your company is still enjoying high brand affinity, you can turn off new customers.
You can ask a few questions to help you decide, “Is it time to rebrand my business?”
Rebranding Question #1: Does Our Brand Reflect Our Business?
Sometimes, a rebrand is less about how design and marketing trends and audience preferences have changed and more about how your business has changed. Your business is – or should be – an ever-evolving entity that recognizes changes in the competitive landscape and makes strategic, intentional shifts in its offerings to capitalize on emerging trends or new developments.
Sometimes, these changes are minor – such as making your best-selling shoes in a new variety of stylish colors. Other times, they’re foundational – such as closing off a central service line to free up your team for newer, more valuable services.
Imagine you’re running a home services company that does heating, air, and plumbing work. You’re making good money on the plumbing side of things, but with the more stringent environmental laws and increased cost of things like refrigerants and replacement parts, you’re not as competitive in HVAC. So, you decide to get out of the heating and cooling business and focus exclusively on your profit driver: plumbing.
That’s the kind of change that should prompt a rebrand. When some foundational, core element of your business changes, then your brand has to change along with it. Failure to make appropriate changes to your brand can:
- Cause confusion, as people continue to reach out to you for services you no longer offer.
- Create frustration in your audience since your brand no longer reflects your offerings.
- Dilute your brand since it’s no longer meaningful relative to your business.
- Open a space for your competitors to target your business as no longer offering the products or services your customers want.
Another thing to note is that the change in your business doesn’t have to be as dramatic as the one above to prompt a rebrand. Take a look at Dunkin’, formerly Dunkin’ Donuts. While the company still sells doughnuts, its 2018 rebrand reflected the fact that coffee beverages had surpassed doughnuts as its most popular product line.
Ever so often – once a year or so – take a look back at changes that have been made to your business since the last time you took stock. If they add up to a significant modification of your operations or operating principles, it’s probably time for a rebrand.
Rebranding Question #2: Is Our Brand Being Used by Our Team?
Sure, your brand is a core part of your business’s identity—but it’s also a tool. Your team uses your brand to communicate your value to your leads and customers, and a well-developed brand eventually becomes a convenient shorthand for the values you offer.
If your team isn’t using your brand and all its elements – logo, colors, typefaces, voice, vision, etc. – in their interactions with your audience, leads, or customers, then it may not be the team’s fault. They may simply be recognizing a brand that won’t resonate and choosing not to use it.
Your team has your business’s best interest at heart—after all, if your business fails, they’re out of a job. If they see that your brand voice isn’t resonating with the people they meet on the sales floor and on their service calls, they won’t use it. If they think your logo is ugly or out-of-date, they’ll avoid placing it prominently in proposals and estimates.
Your team can actually be a good indicator of how your brand is being received in the wild. If they’re not using your brand, there’s a reason. Get a group together and talk through the reasons why they’re avoiding the brand identity—it will give you a good idea of where you might want to start your rebranding efforts.
Rebranding Question #3: Is Our Brand Current and Appealing?
The two previous rebranding questions were a little easier to answer. For the first question, you really need to assess what changes you’ve made to the business; for the other, you need to talk to members of your team.
To answer this question, you need to talk to everybody. And we do mean everybody: your leadership, your team members, your loyal customers, your new customers, your leads, and at-large members of your target audience. If possible, you need to talk to folks who saw your brand and then went in a different direction – their feedback is more valuable than you can ever imagine.
Ask these folks questions. A series of focus groups is a great way to organize and intentionally ask your questions and get actionable responses. A good place to start with all of these audiences is “What comes to mind when you see our logo or hear our tagline?” If the answers to this question don’t align closely with your mission, vision, and values, then you have your answer: it’s time for a rebrand.
But you should also ask about the brand’s “style.”
- What do you like about our brand?
- What don’t you like about our brand?
- Is this brand aligned with current trends and preferences?
And keep going from there. Dig deep with these audiences and discover how people really feel when they see your logo, colors, typefaces, etc. If you keep hearing words like “dated,” “old,” “tired,” or anything even remotely in that vicinity, then it may be time to refresh your brand.
Rebranding Question #4: When Was Our Last Rebrand?
This question may be the easiest to answer in the whole bunch. The answer’s just one number – how many years has it been since your last rebranding effort?
The standard here is easy to evaluate, too: if it’s been more than eight to ten years since your last rebrand, it is probably time to consider making some brand refreshments. Very, very few brands will ever have more than ten years of longevity before they become dated, less valuable, or so ubiquitous as to become background noise instead of a highly recognizable symbol of your and your team’s hard work.
Rebranding Question #5: Who Will Be Your Rebranding Partner?
If the answers to any or all of these questions have you reaching for a sketch pad and a pencil, let us offer one last question you should ask yourself: “Why am I doing this alone?”
Rebranding can be a tricky needle to thread, particularly for growing businesses that have been successfully using their brand for several years. How do you make a change that’s meaningful enough to capture new eyeballs without muddying the waters for your loyal customers or damaging your existing brand recognition?
Fortunately, the marketing experts at M&R have been threading that needle for a long time. We’ve helped countless businesses of all sizes successfully navigate rebrands, from simple logo refreshes to complete business renaming.
Time for a Rebrand? We’ve Got You Covered. Call Today: 478-621-4491
Give us a call today at 478-621-4491 to hear from one of our Sales team members about how M&R can make your rebrand strategic, intentional, and—above all—effective for your business.
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