Determining the right moment for a rebrand involves assessing whether sales have hit a plateau, competitors are gaining momentum, or if your connection with the intended audience has waned. In such instances, reassessing your brand strategy and contemplating a rebrand might be prudent.

Primarily, it’s crucial to recognise that branding encompasses more than just logos, fonts, colours, or taglines, which are visual elements aiding in recognition. Your brand in its entirety also encompasses a comprehensive strategy that commences well before the creative execution phase.

Ensuring your value proposition resonates with your target audience hinges on the alignment of your business and brand. Envision ‘brand’ and ‘business’ as interwoven strands forming a double helix; maintaining equilibrium is pivotal for the vitality of your company’s DNA. If your messaging and offerings are out of sync, your audience can discern it, often speaking through their purchasing choices.

What is rebranding?

Rebranding involves the transformation of an organisation’s corporate image and messaging, aiming to enhance the business by reshaping the previous brand into a new and distinctive form that can outshine competitors in the market.

While your brand serves as an export of your company, it ultimately belongs to your audience. Without a consumer base, a brand lacks its essential purpose. The primary objective of rebranding should be to realign existing messaging to establish a stronger connection with the target audience. This process offers an opportunity to genuinely comprehend your audience’s requirements and affirm that your brand serves as the solution to those needs.

A rebranding effort might encompass the creation of a new product, a shift in services, or even a substantial corporate shift to achieve success. Understanding the end user and how your company can uniquely address their challenges provides the foundation for successful brand positioning.

What makes for a successful rebrand?

A successful rebrand must strategically position your company to boost product sales, command higher prices, effectively target the intended audience, and diminish the impact of competition.

Common reasons it’s time to revisit your business strategy and consider a rebrand:

There’s a misalignment between how your brand is perceived internally and externally.

This scenario is quite common, particularly in the bustling startup landscape of venture capital and e-commerce products. Often, a company introduces a product or service without a robust brand strategy or a genuine grasp of the intended audience.

While sales may transpire, the brand (remember – it belongs to the target audience) gradually evolves based on their brand experience. No matter how meticulously you crafted your corporate image initially, your brand isn’t solely under your control. It is moulded by the consumer’s encounter with the brand.

Failure to thoroughly comprehend these needs and formulate a brand strategy to shape expectations might result in missed profits and competing primarily on price.

Examine your company comprehensively. Do your employees share the same sentiments about your brand as your target audience does? Your employees should serve as your top brand advocates and offer a valuable gauge of how your messaging aligns with your business model. Irrespective of the number of posters adorning your office walls, if your target audience doesn’t share the brand perception that exists within the company, there’s work to be done.

Your target market lacks clarity, or it’s time to engage with a fresh audience.

When your target market lacks a clear definition, understanding their actual needs from your brand becomes challenging.

Embrace the idea of sacrifice. Abandon the pursuit of pleasing everyone and concentrate on truly serving your target audience. Be willing to forgo omnipresence for the sake of success.

Demographics are in constant flux. Familiarise yourself with your audience to discern shifts in the market and remain adaptable when it’s time to revisit messaging, brand touchpoints, and even your product offerings.

Perhaps the success of your ecommerce venture has propelled you toward serving a national or global market. This may necessitate segmenting audiences based on geography, language, or cultural disparities.

Pay meticulous attention to every brand touchpoint, spanning from your social media presence to your brand packaging. Often, a brand message, terminology, or even the packaging itself doesn’t convey the same message in new markets.

Your product or service offerings have undergone a change.

You’ve honed in on your audience enough to recognise their yearning for something fresh, or the advancement of technology has finally presented an opportunity to fulfil those desires with a novel experience.

Embrace the creation of new products without trepidation. If you introduce a product or service that meets your audience’s needs and isn’t offered by your competitors, guess who emerges victorious?

You’ve now secured the top spot in your sector, leaving your competitors in reactive positions.

A robust brand strategy to delineate and safeguard that new territory is imperative. Foster a deep affection for your brand within the target audience and cultivate trust. Otherwise, you’ve merely cracked the door open for others to forcefully kick it open.

You have the wrong brand image 

Brand image encompasses more than just visual identity. It represents your customer’s perception of your brand. It’s here that the wider audience can influence your primary audience if the brand image takes on a negative connotation.

One of the enduring principles of branding is that regardless of whether you actively cultivate it, your company possesses a brand. This brand can fluctuate due to various factors beyond your control. At times, your marketing or business decisions may diverge from the brand strategy, leading to the dilution or even destruction of the brand image within your target market.

However it unfolds, when you recognize that the brand perception among consumers no longer aligns with your strategy, it signals the time for a rebrand.

Your visual brand is outdated. 

We’ve emphasized that a brand transcends mere logos and colours. However, let’s acknowledge the undeniable truth – people often judge a book by its cover. Your visual branding not only distinguishes you in the market but also conveys relevance to the intended audience.

An outdated visual brand doesn’t exclusively pertain to the logo or colours. It could be that your competitors have surpassed you at the retail level, and your packaging fails to hit the mark. This might involve design, physical structure, placement, or the hierarchy of your value proposition amidst a sea of rival products.

When was the last time you physically perused a store, or several stores, where your product is available? Understanding how your brand distinguishes itself and competes within the market is crucial information for a comprehensive product line review with your merchandiser.

In-store, you might notice other brands mimicking the category leader, blurring the distinction. This presents an excellent opportunity to create a striking contrast within the space and emerge as a symbol of reassessment for the consumer.

Whatever the reason to rebrand, do it with purpose.

Regardless of the reason behind your company’s contemplation of a rebrand, ensuring it’s executed accurately is crucial. Brand represents the most significant investment for the long-term trajectory of your business, offering the potential for enduring benefits.

Seize the opportunity to thoroughly comprehend your target audience and take a deliberate step back to assess your company’s objectives and mission.

Allocate sufficient time to execute the process meticulously, enabling the development of a strategy that resonates with all your stakeholders and garners their trust.

Still not sure if to get started on your rebrand?

If you find yourself lacking essential insights necessary for a successful rebrand, uncertain about the timing, or unsure about how to convey the necessity of a rebrand to your company’s leadership, let’s engage in a conversation about how made of möre can help you make the right choice.

All Insights