How Do You Approach Rebranding and the Challenges Encountered in the Process?

When it's time to refresh or refine your brand, it's important to make sure you're set up for success. There are three challenges you should never overlook in a rebrand.

Focus on the right problem: Seems pretty simple, right? Well, I've found that the majority of clients came to me with one stated problem when their actual problem lay somewhere else. If an organization has an issue with positioning, it is typically due to a lack of differentiation. Differentiation requires the courage to put a stake in the ground around why you are unique and refuse to be all things to all people.

Strong, decisive, and engaged leadership yields results: Key decision-makers must champion the branding process. These are leaders who have the authority, experience, and respect needed to make important decisions for the rest of the company. If someone with veto power is absent from the table, my experience tells me that important decisions might get redirected—holding up timelines, stretching budgets, and creating rifts.

Clearly understanding your audience upfront makes the difference: An audience-driven data set gives you and others more confidence in making decisions, thus allowing for more internal buy-in and project satisfaction.

When rebranding a company, I have a hierarchy of attributes that need to be addressed—the primary element being that the branding must be memorable. It doesn't matter as much what story the logo may tell or the color scheme used; if the design itself is not something that people will remember when they see it again, it's not effective.

The second element is the feeling that the branding gives the consumer. As with all design, the combinations of the color palette, style, fonts, imagery, etc., need to evoke a feeling in the consumer. This could be a feeling of luxury, simplicity, sustainability—whatever it is you want to convey—but the viewer should feel that emotion.

The next attribute would be storytelling—which is sometimes a nice-to-have. It makes it enjoyable for the consumer to interact with, but it's not as imperative as the top two aspects of being remembered and conveying a feeling. Storytelling is the most fun part of the branding creative process; this is where your skills really get put to the test. How can you integrate a subtle element into the branding that gives a clue or tells part of your mission to the viewer? It's an element that is satisfying for the consumer to digest and helps contribute to the two other hierarchy attributes above.

Finally, simplicity. Once you've narrowed in on the new branding style, how can you make this as simple and clean as possible? This will not only help from a usage perspective (reduced size visibility, background variations) but also feeds back into the top two elements of the hierarchy as well. I'm not saying that USA Today's branding is the greatest example of a rebrand I've ever seen, but when it first launched, I marveled at the simplicity of just using a blue dot to represent your brand.

There are a lot of aspects to the process of rebranding a company, but in the end, if the branding is not memorable, it's not doing its job.

When rebranding a company, you want to think about more than just the logos and colors. You want an overall brand strategy. What will people feel when they encounter the brand? How do you want the brand represented? The colors and logos will add to this piece, but it is the feel of the brand that you need to think through first in that vision. This should drive the rest of the decisions, and even future business decisions.

I begin by thoroughly familiarizing myself with the company. I explore their aspirations, values, and desired public persona. Right after that, my main goal is to update or design a visual identity that conveys this. I previously worked with a software startup, for instance, whose brand felt too generic, and they needed a makeover. The problem was that their target demographic had moved on from their prior logo and color scheme. A new logo, color scheme, and font were all part of the revamp I oversaw. The challenge was to convey their main point in a way that seemed fresh and interesting while maintaining its integrity. We worked with their team to make sure the updated graphics reflected their goals.

When we decided to rebrand RecurPost, it was a strategic move to align more closely with our evolving vision and to better connect with our audience. We conducted extensive market research and engaged with our user base through surveys and feedback sessions. This direct interaction helped us pinpoint areas where our brand image was falling short and where it could be enhanced to reflect our core values and new offerings better.

One significant challenge we faced during the rebranding process was transitioning our existing loyal customer base to the new brand without losing their trust. A specific instance was when we had to update our logo and website design to reflect the new brand identity. The new design was a complete departure from the original, and there was initial resistance from some of our long-time users. To overcome this, we launched a phased introduction of the new elements and maintained open communication with our customers throughout the process. We shared the rationale behind the changes and showcased how the rebranding would ultimately benefit them. By involving our community in the journey and being transparent about our goals, we were able to turn initial skepticism into strong support, ensuring a smooth transition.

Rebranding isn’t just about slapping a new coat of paint on a company. It's a deep dive into who you are, what you stand for, and how you want to be perceived. It's about understanding your core values, your target audience, and the market landscape.

First and foremost, you need to have a clear reason for rebranding. Is your current brand not resonating with your customers? Is it holding back your growth? Or maybe your business has evolved, and your brand no longer reflects who you are. Whatever the reason, it should be a compelling one.

Once you've established the need for rebranding, it's time to start the discovery process. This phase involves extensive research and introspection. You're on a quest to reveal your brand's true nature—its personality, tone, and narrative. It's crucial to identify what sets your company apart and find ways to communicate this uniqueness in a manner that's both genuine and engaging.

One of the most important decisions to make when rebranding is the degree to which you want to build off of the previous brand. In cases where you're tweaking or evolving a successful brand, it makes sense to announce the brand transition as part of your narrative and choose a new brand that echoes or reflects the old one in some way. This is a great option for mergers, for example. In other cases, a brand isn't worth saving. In these moments, it's usually better to draw less attention to the change and focus on launching the new brand as something truly new. One of the hard parts of this process that I've dealt with is bringing social media followers along. With 'clean break' transitions, we've had to start over from scratch.