The Ultimate Guide to Rebranding: Why, When, and How to Do?

Branding is a crucial aspect of any business, representing your company’s identity, values, and mission.

However, as your business grows and evolves, your brand may no longer accurately represent who you are and what you stand for.

That’s where rebranding comes in. Rebranding is the process of changing your brand’s visual identity, messaging, and strategy to align better with your current goals and audience.

Regarding the business, branding, and brand identity is the important part. The brand is the identity of what you do and who you want your company to become.  

It helps you connect with your customers and establish yourself in the industry. 

So, what happens if your old branding is not fulfilling its duties? This brings us to another important aspect which is called rebranding. 

Not just can you give a totally fresh start to your business, but also you can approach it in much better ways. 

To keep your rebranding successful, here is a guide to help you throughout the process. 

What Is Rebranding For Small Businesses?

Rebranding is a marketing strategy that includes the company’s image change in developing a new name, logo, symbol, and visual assets. 

With rebranding, small businesses can create new and differentiate their identity to change the image of their customer’s minds, prospects,  investors, employees, competitors, and the public in general. 

 Types Of Rebranding You Can Consider 

There are three types of rebranding that are considered as important. You can choose any of them depending on what you are looking for. 

Brand Refresh

The common type to consider in rebranding is refreshing your existing brand. 

It depends on what changed in your objectives and goals. If there are any slightest changes, you can consider for this rebrand to communicate that well. 

Also, it includes keeping fresh touch by adding a new logo if it’s outdated or considering a new agency for boosting engagement. 

The changes are minute, and their tweaks are based on how your visual identity looks. It will keep your brand up to date and also first the latest trends in the market. 

Full Rebranding 

Unlike the previous one, a Full rebrand means doing some serious, serious changes in your business. It will affect different aspects, and it should be something really strong to do it.

The company only considers going with full rebranding if it failed to resonate with its customers also when their services and products are not reaching their potential.

With a complete rebranding, you can change your company without assembling anything to the previous one. 

Brand Merger 

The brand merger is different from both types in different ways. This one is used when your brand is merging with new management. 

You can choose this type when planning to combine two or more platforms. 

This also means adding new partners or merging a new business together.

When Your Business Need A Rebranding?

Well, timing is important when it comes to rebranding your business. 

There are a lot of reasons that call for rebranding, and understanding when you should consider this can help you in keeping it much more efficient too. 

Here are a few reasons that you can consider for doing the rebranding. 

Change In Direction Because  Of the Pandemic 

Since the pandemic hit, no corner on this earth has been changed. 

People had to stay in their houses, most of the businesses had to close down, and even after lots of started again, there are tons of rules and regulation 

There are lots of changes that a business needs to handle. And in between all this, there is the possibility that you had to change the direction of your business. 

Maybe you worked as a retailer but now switched to an online business. 

This is a huge change and an opportunity to rebrand your business. 

Reach To New Audience And Market 

For a business that is planning to attract and engage more audiences, it’s important that your brand is spot on.  

When your brand is not connecting, there are huge chances of losing potential customers as well as opportunities in a new market. 

It might be the reason because you are launching new products, targeting new customers or the market. 

It’s also a reason to do the rebranding because if you change your locality, it means you have to pick the different lifestyles of your new customer. And your brand should appeal to those people. 

Difference Yourself From Competitors 

Business often does its branding based on other giants in the industry. 

There are always chances that you have followed their best practices,  trends, etc. Because of this you are getting similar fonts, color schemes, and even the message to some of those giants. 

When you follow these guidelines, it’s a safe bet. But if you are using it for standing out, it becomes crucial to add something to your skills.

You can consider rebranding when you think you have the right message, color schemes, and font that you believe would fit your brand. 

The Outdated Brand Needs Updates. 

Branding is not just about one thing. The trends keep changing, and freshness is the key that will keep your brand new as ever for the customers. 

The business needs to adapt during the time and grow as well as learn. The same thing applies to the brand. 

For example, Google is one of the world’s biggest and most recognizable brands. 

Image source: CNN

Even though They don’t need the changes, they still keep updating their brand and coming up with something new to connect more people. 

Saving Time And To Improve Your Results 

One of the reasons that people consider rebranding is that the old branding is not working for you.  It’s not helping you to get the results you are hoping for and it’s costing you too. 

If your old brand is failing to do what you expected, this is the right time to do the rebranding. 

Also, personal brand identity is an investment that can help you in the long run. 

What Reasons Should You Avoid For Rebranding?

Rebranding is a trend now. Lots of famous names like Dunkin’ Donuts,  Uber, Watchers, etc are doing frequent rebranding. 

It’s important to understand that rebranding takes time, money, effort, and lots of resources. It’s not just for the image change, but you are going to need some strong reasons behind those changes. 

However, if you have reasons like these, it’s important to avoid rebranding at all costs. 

• You are not in the mood to rebrand all of your visual assets. It will end up confusing your customers, and if it’s not updated to all aspects, it won’t work too. 
• Don’t consider rebranding just because you are bored with your current brand. Even companies like Coca-Cola maintained their consistent brand for decades.
• A change of power or someone else is holding the CEO position who wants to leave their mark is a bad idea for rebranding. This won’t affect you well and also not an ideal reason.

Efficient Strategies For Rebranding Your Business 

Your brand shows your company culture. When you are considering doing the rebranding, there are few points that you need to consider. It will affect the business and how your customer sees your brand

When considering a rebrand, the right way is to understand if it’s changing anything to your important branding factors. 

These factors include: 

•  Relevancy 
• Culture 
• Associations 
• Equity 
• Brand awareness
• Market differentiation 

If your rebranding is improving any of these factors, it’s perfect for doing it.

To keep your rebranding on time and efficiently. Here are the strategies that you can try today  

Determined Your Current Brand And Decide The New Form 

This is an important and hard question that you need to ask; it includes understanding what is running smooth;y and what is not.

This is the ideal place to start your charges. It will give you a clear idea of what to fix and what to not. 

Also, you can save time when getting a fix is unnecessary. 

Well, here you are going to take your company culture into account. It will keep your brand more suitable and fit better.

Layout your business goals and repurpose them. This is the perfect time to remind you of your business’s mission statement. 

Consider this time perfect for analyzing what goals you want to achieve from this rebranding. 

For example,  Pabst Blue Ribbon was the cheapest beer college kids consumed. 

Image source: Themercuryviews

Well, now the company is selling beer for $44 in China. This helped the innovative idea for labeling. 

Image source: mindfuldesignconsulting

Instead of condensing their name as PBR which is used in America, They launched their brand as Blue Ribbon in 1844.

Takeaway:  One of the changes that you can decide on how to do it the right way is to talk with loyal customers. 

Talk to your current employees and see what they have. Ask their opinions and concerns. Make sure you know how the market changed since you started first and what else is needed to make your business fit. 

Audits Changes Are Important To Made

The important part to understand here is when you make a plan about changing certain business aspects. You are going to document all those changes. 

With this, you are making the job easier for your employee to understand and also to know what to bring out. 

When you make a plan of action, it will lay out everything wrong, and what you are going to do to fix it. 

You can start with making a list of things that needed to be changed or required an update. Such as social media,  logos, websites,  signs, invoices, etc.

For example,  Seattle’s Best Coffee did analyze to find out that their consumers are sick when it comes to drinking fancy coffee with their unknown origin. 

Image source: seattlebest.com

So the band changed its marketing inventory and also kept it simple as well as accessible. 

With this, the brand recreated to keep their coffee good, fast, fun, and easy.

Takeaway: The best way to know what needs to be changed is to check your competitor first. You can compare how things are changed and what else you can do to improve your rebranding.

Shift You, Employee, As Your Brand Ambassadors 

To keep your brand successful, it’s important to turn your employees into your brand ambassadors. 

Include them and keep your employee excited about what they are selling.  

When it comes to business, your employee plays a huge role. Not just that,  they are important in company culture and brand identity. 

You can use this opportunity to get a new logo and brand out. You can use it on T-shirts, sweatshirts, etc, and give it to your employees and clients to wear. 

This will promote your brand and keep your employees included and excited about the business. 

This is also an inexpensive and great way to make your business promoted. 

For example, one of the successful cases of how these marketing techniques can help is Old Spice and their Smell like a man, Man advertisement. This one went viral and boosted the company’s sales. 

Research Well Your Consumers 

Well, rebranding gives you an opportunity to make changes. This also gives you a chance to do research on what your consumers do. 

You can check what your consumer base is thinking and target the new market with this.

Appeal to the demographic with new ideas or areas to create loyal customers. 

With this, you can boost your company and change the vibe of your brand.

This can help you keep your business accessible to new people and find a better consumer base. 

Takeaway: With your research, you can do better work on how you can approach the consumers. This allows you to change the direction of your goals, add new trends, and approach the loyal base with different strategies. 

It’s helpful to keep your marketing powerful and efficient for the business. 

 Communicate & Initiate The New Changes 

When you are launching your new changes, make sure your employees and managers are comfortable. 

Also, make sure that the new changes are adapted to your new changes. Set the date and announce the official launch. You can use social media sites,  paper, radio, and email. 

Convey your changes and make sure everyone knows about them. Also, keep your employees updated and ready to follow the guideline of the new brand. 

Takeaway: It’s important for you to let the people know about the reason why your brand needed the update and changes that will happen after the rebranding. 

Your audience should know what you want to achieve after the changes. 

Checklist For Rebranding That You Need 

The rebranding is a bold move and it includes lots of aspects when you consider the change.  With the help of a checklist, you can secure your process and make sure you have listed all important points. 

About The Company 

• Your vision, mission, and values
• Brand style
• Slogan or Tagline description 

Digital Assets 

• Change in the content on the website 
• Web domains
• Updates on website visuals 
• New graphics and notifying on social media accounts
• On-page SEO 
• Web feed links
• Web directories 
• Business Directories
• Google my business listing 

Materials For Marketing 

• Videos
• Product demos 
• Powerpoint presentation 
• Education materai liike brochure, flyer etc
• Case studies 
• White paper
• Testimonials 
• Newsletter or E-newsletter templates 
• Digital banner ads
• Email campaigns
• PPC campaigns 

Internal 

• Compute logins 
• Name on server and files
• Business cards 
• Email Signature 
• Addresses
• New email address
• Letterhead
• Labels, envelopes, etc

Human Resources 

• Training materials 
• Employee agreement 

Legal & Finance 

• Accounting software 
• Tax documents 
• Contracts 
• Invoices
• Statements 

Extra To Remember 

• Hire a lawyer for legal paperwork. 
• Fix goals and deadlines
• Set up communication for internal changes
• Device to trademark new brand 

Steps For Rebranding Your Small Business Effectively 

Well, now that you have your reasons set and purpose ready for rebranding. 

The next part is to follow the steps for rebranding the business. 

Since rebranding is not an easy process and you need lots of understanding as well as analytics, here are the steps for keeping it better and more effective for your business. 

Step 1: Research About Your Customer Insight 

You can’t plan your future actions if you don’t know where you are now and what other things look like. 

The most important step is to take feedback from your audience. Include your loyal ones and add the employees to know what they are thinking about the brand. 

Add things that they like or dislike about the brand, 

You can combine qualitative and quantitative methodologies, which include focus groups, interviews, surveys, etc.  

This will help you in building your strength and weaknesses to get better opportunities. This will help in the brand move forward. 

There are some key areas that you need to look at, it includes : 

• Pricing 
• Customer support 
• Marketing assets such as emails, websites, and brochures 
• Indirect and Direct competitors 
• Product Quality 

 Step 2:  Define Your Market

Now when you look internally, you can map what kind of marketplace you belong to. 

Here, ensure you include your customer segments along with where you fit when it comes to a precipitation map. It also includes your competitors.

With this, you can understand the segment that you want to approach. Also, it can help you in knowing which situation you are in right now. 

Before launching your new product, do your reach regarding what is helpful for your customers and matters. It includes reliability, money, personal services, and security. 

Align these factors with your new brand. You can use this for helping out the customers if you are lacking at an earlier time. 

Step 3: Have Your Story 

Successful projects in rebranding include the positive story that you can offer to your customer and staff,

Your story is not about getting new leads. It should run much deeper and connect to the emotional level. It should be beneficial for your customers. 

It’s important that your re-branding has its story to tell. This should include something new and refreshing to keep it apart from the previous one. 

Step 4:  Make Your Mission Clear 

Make sure that you know what you want to achieve. Also, keep it clear that your internal and external stakeholders are on the same page. 

You can start by making points on what you aim to achieve with this rebranding. It can be :

• You want to target and resonate with the customer. 
• You are facing too much competition.
• You want to stand out
• Do you want to change your image 
• You consolidate multiple sub-brands into the simple structure 

This includes understanding what you are going for and creating a mission statement. Keep your objectives supported by SMART. 

Ensure everyone has the best understanding and is focused on achieving the same results. 

For example, here are some real words of the mission statement that famous brands have. Such as : 

• TED:  “Spreading Ideas”
• Livestrong: “To inspire and empower people affected by cancer. “
• Honest Tea:”… to create and promote great-tasting, healthy, organic beverages.”

Step 5:  Keep Testing & Get Feedback 

When you are going to change how your brand looks and give vibes, either you can do it on your own if you know how to. Or it’s recommended to go with a Professional as they know better. 

You can use Fiverr as you can get professional designers who can help you in making new logos and you can keep it under your budget. 

It is important that you do the test first. Check the new brand proposal and different designs. Make sure your new aesthetics are suitable for your brand. 

You can get feedback from your focus group, representing your target customer. 

In case of not get a response, you can step back and make the necessary changes. It will still be better rather than launching it without understanding the value of this step. 

How To Communicate With Customers After Changes?

For any business, its customers are the most important asset. If they don’t know why these changes are made and how they can get an advantage, it will also fail your rebranding. 

Ensure you offer them a way to ask questions and be a part of the changes. 

Image source: columnfive

It brings to the important part of communicating with your customers about the changes. 

Before you choose the approach, it’s important to know that a good branding-building project should have all these important points checked. 

• You can differentiate yourself from your competitors 
• Your new brand should have a clear  message which should be easy to understand 
• You can deliver your  promises with the rebranding. 
• Your new branding should respect the customer’s emotional attachment to the existing one. 

To summarise, here are three basic approaches that you can do.

Launching Your New With The Old One

You can consider launching your new brand in parallel with the old one. This will keep the brand familiar to the customers. Along with that, you can make the differences between the both. 

The benefit you get here is that the disruption risk to existing customer relationships can be lower. 

However, there are a few things you might understand too. Such as, it can be expensive to launch two brands together. 

Also, it brings competitors and risks to yourself. Not just that, if you don’t do it nicely, you will confuse the marketplace. 

Do It at Different Stages 

Instead of jumping to the endpoint, this one is helpful to break the rebranding into small stages. 

This allows you to communicate well with your customers regarding the changes. Also, it brings fewer risks of something going wrong.

This will also help your customer to notice the evolution over the period. 

But with this, you will make sure about losing the PR impact on its potential. Also, it increases the cost to support, which can be iteration for the brand. 

The Big Reveal 

Instead of waiting or going into bits, you can host an event and turn the rebranding introduction into a big event. 

The big reveal is also good to give you much more exposure to the changes you made.  This will help create excitement within the market and customers. 

Also, it brings more opportunities related to PR. The example you can consider is Apple. 

However, big reveals have some of their points to understand too. 

• It brings more chances of something going wrong. 
• It can too adjust not to let customers understand
• It needs better communication to know everyone is aware of this
• It needs a strong backup story for the changes

 Inspiring Examples Of Rebranding & What You Can learn?

Rebranding is a whole process. And if you have done it right, it can change the story of your business. 

Not just you get better opportunities to target your new customer base, but also, this helps in boosting growth. 

It includes honoring your new brand commitment without leaving the old one. 

To understand how rebranding can help your business, here are some of the most inspiring brands that did the whole process correctly. 

Airbnb 

Airbnb launched its online platform for those people who want to list their owned or rented properties. The brand started in 2008 and became a global success. 

However, even after achieving success on a global level, the rentable issue was pretty unclear for the people. 

The company rebranded its brand to a new one by adding posting and a new identity. 

Image source: underconsideration.com

They changed their previous logo font and chose the bespoke color known as Raush. 

This was selected to honor the street where the company was started. With this, the brand successfully delivered the passion and emotion related to the company. 

Image source: Designstudio

With their new icon, “The Belo”, the copy highlighted their four important principles : 

• People 
• Place
• Love
• Airbnb

They blended all in one single A shape. 

For the company, the rebranding was for making and defining a clear understanding of their business. Also, they include the approach and are attractive to their people. 

Takeaway: Just like Airbnb, the company did nothing as per the major changes but still successfully delivered the purpose and delivered the story to connect well with their customers. 

The company had a strong backup story which helped customers know why the changes were needed. 

To the business, Airbnb is an example of understanding how small changes can help in approaching your customer. You can keep your brand understandable and clear to your customer. 

Blueberry 

Blueberry has been seen as a luxury brand for more than 150 years. The company brought the iconic design that reflected from clothing to fragrances. 

But the problem that occurred with Blueberry is the band became the target of gang wear. 

The news spread on such a level that if someone wearing clothes from this brand was banned in city pubs. 

To overcome this,  Blueberry did a spin on utility clothing and an endorsement from celebrities with a good public image too. 

However, they carried their old essence and had their trench coats and swimmers. But now they added an artistic touch and creative approach without ending their 150 years of history. 

Takeaway: Blueberry is an example of overcoming a situation without control. It’s impossible to keep your brand away from being adopted by some unwanted target. 

But you can take measures and find ways to adjust with a more unique and well-modern touch. You can rebrand your business without making the quality suffer or damaging the reputation. 

Blueberry also didn’t let the goodwill go in vain, which they created over 150 years. This is an ideal example of using new trends to keep your brand improving. 

Old Spice 

Old Spice started selling their deodorant, but it reminded the young generation of their grandparents. However, the first design was targeted at women, 

Even after that, Old Spice failed to get its young generation’s attention because of its image. Also, so many options out there boosted the competitors and reduced sales. 

To overcome this, The brand worked with Isaiah Mustafa who was an NFL player and known as Old Spice Guy. 

Image source: marketingstrategy&businessconsultingfirm

They created ads aimed at women where the old spice was portrayed as alluring and seductive. 

Old spice didn’t change its packaging or logo. Instead of that, the company focused on changing the impression that people had towards the brand. 

The company used this to keep its impression of something fun, attractive, and young. Something that they want their audience to consider when they are purchasing the deodorant. 

Takeaway: Old Spice is an example of how you can change people’s impressions of your product. 

Without changing anything in the product or logo, the company attracted its audience’s attention by changing its impression. 

 From here, you can learn about the message and brand consistency. Both are important that can help in improving your sales and customer awareness. 

Tupperware 

Tupperware was conjured as images from 70s mom. Instead of avoiding or running, the brand embraced the image that later on became an important part of its legacy. 

Tupperware used the image to become something greater. Their product is not just about the container but also about empowering the women who are selling the products worldwide. 

Tupperware rebranded its tagline, which becomes – Confidence becomes you.

Image source: rebrand

With their bold marketing visual and introducing the vibrant addition of colors. The brand turned its product, focusing on people and offering a clear and modern aesthetic. 

Takeaway: Sometimes, the images you create in the market are not just about what you are looking for, just like Tupperware accepted their image and used it to boost their sales. 

Also, it’s important to know that adapting according to the market can help keep the business related to the people. 

CVS Pharmacy 

CVS Pharmacy was familiar to me like any other one. They sell medications and vitamins. But unlike anyone, CVS pharmacy was the first chain of pharmacies that banned selling tobacco products in their stores. 

Image source: multichannelmerchant

This affected their sales by 4%, but even after that, the company was committed to something positive and boosting health awareness.

They also changed their CVS Health to CVS Caremark. With the effort of changing the name to putting a stop on tobacco products, they did the marketing initiative. 

With this, the company successfully generated more than 100,000 tweets and also a comment from the President. 

The brand stood with something rather than just talking. They became the first owner who took the bold step even when the matter was not famous. 

Takeaway: With a strong statement, even if it’s unpopular and bold, rebranding can help a business like CVS gather more attention. But with this, they connected with people as a barn who take health seriously. 

The step was not just bold but fresh and dedicated, making you different from the people in business. 

Lee 

One of the most prominent companies that sell jeans in the United States, Lee was established by  Henry David Lee in 1889. And focused on the wholesale grocery industry. 

Over a few years, they shipped their perishable goods, but their inconsistent attire in suppliers made him unsatisfied.

To solve this, he launched a factor for creating denim clothing, including overalls and jackets. 

Image source: fashionunited

That one thrived the sales and in the 1960s, Lee expanded to become more approachable and recognized for their denim brand. 

They turned it to their mainstream customers in the 70s, 80s, and 90s.

Takeaway: Lee is the example of going complete rebranding; from grocery to selling denim clothing is what is called a complete change. 

For business, it’s important to understand what works and what does not. It’s helpful for you to go slow but know when to switch. 

Lee made a bold decision to change its direction, goals, ideas, and complete market. However, they kept their name to start their denim clothing which made the company famous even now. 

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