It’s often said that a change is as good as a rest and there are plenty of instances where this is undoubtedly true. If you are thinking about refreshing your brand or even going for a total rebrand, it’s worthwhile to sit back, take a cold, hard look at what you want to achieve and really explore how revamping your most treasured business possession might help you.

Rebranding is not only about a nice new shiny logo but about the direction and identity your company is going to take. Any change can have a big effect on future productivity and success. There are a number of reasons why you might seek to rebrand and these may well revolve around the fact that your customer base has changed. Examples of this could be if you run a fast food outlet but are conscious that people are becoming more health conscious or you are going to expand your organisation into other products which require a whole new outlook.

Rebrand – Pros

On a superficial level a rebranding can deliver all sorts of exciting things:

• It can help you stay more focussed on your values and mission statement.
• An organised rebranding can help raise more awareness of your company and attract new customers.
• You can bring together the development and release of new products with rebranding in one exciting package.
• It can also show your existing customers that you are firmly committed to staying with the times and giving them the best experience you can.

So far so good. Sounds like a pretty good case for a rebrand, wait, as we’ve said, this is a good time to take a deep breath and a longer, harder look.

Rebrand – Cons

The case for rebranding is not all positive. For a start, existing customers will have developed an emotional attachment to your existing brand and changing it could have negative consequences if you get it wrong. It can also be an expensive and time consuming process, especially if you shoot too high and don’t implement the changes effectively.  If you are not confident how long it will take to get a return on your investment when you go for rebranding then the chances are you haven’t thought it through well enough.

Some of the questions you might like to ask are:

• How old is your brand and is it well established?
• Are you 100% sure where you want your ‘new’ brand to go?
• Have you got the budget to implement all the changes that are going to be needed?
• Are your staff going to go with you on this new journey?

Whilst it’s an easy thing to change a logo or a domain name and have traffic redirected, you also have to consider what impact a rebranding will have on areas such as handling sales and customer service policies and implementation. For SMEs who have a limited budget it pays to take a serious look at the costings of rebranding and whether this outweighs the overall benefits.

Another thing you might like to consider is that some people don’t like change and are even suspicious of it – that includes staff as well as customers. There have been a number of cases where businesses have rebranded and gone on with the same old bad practices, so many customers will look at your plan to rebrand as something slightly suspicious.

Of course, there are valid reasons why your company should rebrand and, if done properly, it can bring wide ranging benefits. Whatever the reason for a rebranding, it is not a change that you should undertake lightly. Our advice is to sit down and work through it thoroughly, be sure that this is what your company needs and don’t be afraid to change your mind and stay with the old brand if that turns out to be the best thing for the business.

Here are some great examples of a rebrand done right courtesy of pencilscoop.com and here are some that examples of rebrands that were reversed, courtesy of businessinsider.com. See, even the big brands get it wrong from time to time!

This article hasn’t been compiled to put you off rebranding rather a cautionary tale to encourage you to think before jumping into the exercise. If you would like to discuss a rebrand in more detail then give us a call on 01604 654545 or email sales@thelasthurdle.co.uk and our marketing team will be in touch for a chat.