Understanding Rebranding: A Comprehensive Guide

Rebranding is a strategy that goes far beyond simply slapping a new logo onto an existing business. Of course, that begs the question, “What is a rebrand, then?” It’s a strategic transformation of a company’s image and messaging to align with evolving markets, audiences, or internal goals. 

Staying relevant means revisiting and refining your brand identity. Mixing things up can breathe new life into what could very well be a stagnant brand, realigning your messaging with what customers want and opening doors to new markets.

With all of that in mind, MarcomCentral is proud to provide a wealth of brand identity solutions and tools to successfully manage your latest business transformation. By streamlining asset management, we help marketing teams navigate the rebranding process with confidence.

The following guide will fully unpack the question of “What is rebranding?” and provide practical tips for building an effective rebranding strategy.

What Is Rebranding?

In short, rebranding involves changing your company’s entire image, including its logo, messaging, and overall identity. It may even involve adopting a new name.

Here’s a closer look at what it entails:

Defining Rebranding

Rebranding is somewhat of an umbrella term, seeing as there are two ways you can undergo the process.

The first is a partial rebrand, which may involve updating your brand image and tagline to align with the needs of today’s audiences. On the other hand, there’s the option of a complete rebrand, which may be necessary after a merger or significant shift in the direction of your business.

First impressions and consumer perceptions of your brand will directly impact customer engagement and loyalty. A strong, updated brand can, therefore, better reflect your values, culture, and goals.

Before embarking on a rebrand, however, you’ll need a redefined brand strategy to guide your journey. It must outline your purpose, goals, and reasons why you are shifting away from your current brand in the first place.

Why Rebranding Matters

By adopting a new brand identity, you can accomplish the following:

• Stay aligned with your target demographic(s)
• Increase awareness among new customers
• Strengthen customer relationships by staying relevant
• Modernize your image to reflect current trends and values
• Differentiate your business from competitors in crowded markets
• Boost awareness and engagement through renewed storytelling

The purpose behind your rebranding efforts will dictate its scope and scale. If you want to reposition your current brand with a new visual identity, a partial rebrand will be most appropriate. In contrast, attempting to break into new markets or intending to completely shift your values and culture may require a complete rebrand.

The Rebranding Process: Steps and Tools

Like most things in the realm of business, the rebranding process needs to be tailored to the unique needs of your organization. Nevertheless, there are some basic steps that you can use as a template for creating your strategy, as you’ll discover below.

The Rebranding Journey

Your path to a brand redesign will involve these key steps:

• Market Research: Analyze how people currently perceive your business and brand, as well as their expectations
• Redesigning the Brand: Update visual elements, including logos, fonts, and color schemes, to reflect your new direction
• Stakeholder Engagement: Involve employees, partners, customers, and other stakeholders in the process

Additionally, as part of your rebranding efforts, you’ll need to ask plenty of questions, primarily out of a need to clearly define the scope of your rebranding journey to avoid scope creep. The last thing you want is for your project to go off the rails and leave you facing costly delays. And if your brand elements aren’t cohesive and purposeful, you may inadvertently alienate your customer base.

Tools for Successful Rebranding

When embarking on a brand refresh, you need to make sure you invest in the right tools to support your journey.

One of the key challenges businesses face during a rebrand is a lack of alignment. Ensuring that everyone is working from the latest version of an asset can become a nightmare, especially if you have a large, decentralized workforce. When companies rebrand, they need a unified platform like MarcomCentral.

MarcomCentral sets you up for a successful rebrand by providing a centralized repository for all of your marketing materials and content. With our software, you can do the following:

• Consolidate all of your assets in a single, easy-to-manage platform
• Ensure all departments have access to updated materials in real-time
• Provide version control and brand compliance checks
• Enable multi-channel distribution to ensure consistency

Furthermore, the MarcomCentral platform will remain an incredibly valuable digital marketing resource after your rebrand. You’ll be able to use it to distribute approved marketing assets across your entire team, as well as identify which fields team members can alter and which ones are locked to protect your brand voice. MarcomCentral also includes built-in analytics tools so you can determine if any assets are being underutilized.

Personal Rebranding: Transforming Your Identity

Revamping an established brand is just one form of rebranding. You can also rebrand your personal identity, which can be an invaluable choice when changing careers or pursuing professional growth.

What Is Personal Rebranding?

Personal rebranding involves reshaping your professional image to reflect a new path or career shift. It may include changing any (or all) of the following aspects:

• Your professional name or title
• Your visual identity
• Your social media presence
• Your overall brand message

A personal rebranding campaign can be a differentiator as you pursue your professional goals.

Tactics for Personal Rebranding

If you’re looking to retool how prospective employers view you, here are some tips for getting noticed through personal rebranding:

• Refresh your digital footprint, including your website, email signature, and LinkedIn profile
• Update your resume and business cards
• Align the messaging and tone of all of your content with your new vision
• Consistently communicate your new direction across all platforms

Your personal brand needs to be recognizable and powerful. Within a few moments of browsing your social media page, for instance, a prospective employer or recruiter should have a good idea of your values and professional aspirations. More importantly, they should know what you bring to the table.

The Main Purpose of Rebranding: Goals and Objectives

Whether you are changing the brand name of your company or revamping your entire professional persona, it’s vital to have clear, realistic goals. Here’s why you may want to undertake a rebrand and how to set clear objectives.

Primary Aim of Rebranding

At its core, rebranding aims to achieve these five goals:

• Promote brand awareness
• Increase brand recognition
• Build brand equity
• Connect with a new audience
• Strengthen ties to your existing consumer base

Beyond these, you’ll also need to define your “why.” Perhaps you are trying to attract new business or break into a different market segment. From there, it’s time to consider the “how.” A simple name change might do the trick, or you may feel the need to update everything.

Strategic Goals

Whether you are targeting a new market segment or distancing yourself from outdated perceptions, rebranding can redefine how your business is viewed. But in order to achieve that, you need to first understand how people currently view your business. Their perception is the culmination of your company name, color palette, stated values, and even your logo.

Focus groups are an invaluable tool for setting strategic goals. They can also help you identify where and how to break into new markets, which is another common goal of rebranding.

Lastly, you must make sure you clearly identify your target market. If you don’t know who you are trying to connect with, you’ll have a tough time developing a brand personality and brand guidelines to achieve your goal.

Rebranding a Product: Refreshing Your Offerings

Sometimes, your company name, logo, and overall reputation are strong, but you need to change how people view one of your current offerings. Rebranding a product is, as a matter of fact, one of the most common types of rebrand. Just think about some of your favorite consumer products and how they’ve changed over time.

The most successful brands know how to strike the right balance between developing new products and refreshing existing ones. A product refresh is all about reminding existing customers about an item and its usefulness while also connecting with entirely new audiences.

Product-Specific Rebranding Tactics

If you need to overhaul a flagship product, explore these tactics:

• Introduce updated logos or packaging
• Tailor your product messaging to reflect customer lifestyle trends
• Align that new product branding with your refreshed company identity

A rebrand is a great way of increasing a product’s visibility without trying to compete on price. You don’t have to reinvent the wheel, either; often, new packaging, some slight tweaks to the color palette, and a catchy new slogan are enough to make new audiences fall in love with a staple product.

Benefits of Product Rebranding

Through a successful product rebrand, you’ll be able to do the following:

• Attract new customers who identify with the item’s newly updated look and feel
• Reignite interest from existing customers
• Highlight innovation without alienating your loyal base

Rebranding a product can be especially useful when trying to connect with up-and-coming generations of consumers. However, you must be careful not to cause friction with your core audience; after all, they’ve supported your product for a long time, and you need them to continue doing so.

Successful Rebranding Examples: Insights and Case Studies

One of the best ways to prepare for a rebrand of any kind is to look at what successful companies have done in the past. While you need to personalize your strategy to suit the needs of your company, you can build on their wins to minimize the risk of any missteps. Rebranding can be expensive, and you can’t afford to get it wrong.

With that in mind, here’s a look at two of the best rebrands in recent memory: Dunkin’ Donuts and Apple.

Case Studies of Effective Rebranding

Dunkin’ Donuts transitioned to simply “Dunkin’” in 2019. It’s a change that may seem inconsequential on the surface, but shortening its name helped the brand to appeal to a broader audience. The new name conveys exactly what the company wants it to: that its services are modern and convenience-oriented. In the years since, Dunkin’ has also added more drinks and food items, reinforcing the idea that it prioritizes convenience for its customers. 

Apple, on the other hand, didn’t change its name, but it did make several seemingly subtle changes to its digital marketing and brand image. Cumulatively, these changes convey concepts like minimalism, innovation, and high-end technology. The Apple of today is a far cry from its days with a colorful rainbow logo in the 1970s and 80s, but these rebranding efforts were huge wins for the company and have helped it dominate its respective market.

Lessons Learned From Rebranding Success Stories

Here are some tips and tactics we’ve distilled from both Apple and Dunkin’:

• Always keep detailed brand guidelines to promote consistency
• Involve stakeholders early and often to garner support
• Align rebranding goals with your long-term business strategy

Remember, your goal is to optimize how consumers perceive your business and its offerings. Doing so effectively means you need to know who your audience is and what it is they want. 

Impact of Rebranding

Altogether, when done effectively, revitalizing your brand can lead to these outcomes:

• Improved brand perception
• Increased customer loyalty
• Greater market share
• A refreshed internal culture

Reshaping your logo and repositioning your company gives your team something to rally behind.

Navigating the Rebranding Journey With MarcomCentral

Rebranding is more than a marketing initiative. You need everyone on board to succeed, and that means you need a selection of digital tools that will keep everyone on the same page from day one. Enter MarcomCentral, a cloud-based digital asset management solution.

With MarcomCentral, you can manage transformations smoothly and ensure that all of your efforts are consistent. Your team can also use our platform to create powerful new assets that support your brand voice and market position.

But suppose that you’ve already successfully rebranded. You might wonder what comes next. Now’s the time to use your new look and assets to attract customers, build loyalty, and grow. And MarcomCentral, as a robust asset distribution platform, will protect the reputation and newfound image of your company.

If you’re ready to embark on your own rebranding journey, we can help. Request a demo of MarcomCentral to learn more about our solutions.