Skip to main content

3 Steps to Re-Branding Your Company

Sometimes, you hear that a company announces that they are planning a rebranding initiative. You might wonder what exactly this means. Are they changing their logo, their brand colors or maybe even adding some additional brand touchpoints like signage or event banners to the brand?

What might often be overlooked is what a rebranding initiative really entails. Rebranding is the changing of a company's brand's identity. A company's Brand Identity includes everything from why the company is in business, how they operate and what they are offering. Rebranding a company can be compared to a person not only changing the person's cloth. It is more like a person decides to go to different restaurants, changing the job, getting new friends or even changing a partner. Here are the three basic steps to rebrand your company:
  1. Research how people see your brand by looking at your Brand Image.
  2. Review and re-define your Brand Identity.
  3. Hire a graphic designer to create your Brand Personality (marketing touchpoints).
Step #1 and #2 can be done simultaneously or even switched around – depending on the reason for your re-branding. Here is a great interview about a re-branding initiative in the hospitality industry with Robert Warman, CEO of Langham Hospitality Group:



Once you have created and documented your company's brand identity you can hire a designer to create your Brand Personality by creating your new logo, brand colors, and fonts:



Now, tell people about your new brand:

Comments

Popular Posts

Jumping The Curve

On October 6, 2011, the day after Steve Jobs died, Guy Kawasaki gave a talk at the Silicon Valley Bank’s CEO Summit. He talked about lessons he learned from Steven. And one lesson he mentioned was "jump the curve". What Steve meant by that statement is not really a new concept but it makes clear what entrepreneurs really need to do if they want to become and stay relevant.  You certainly have seen a typical product life cycle curve that every product runs through. The picture below illustrates this curve. What Steve is referring to is the fact that if companies, especially start-ups, want to avoid the harsh headwind from their competition, and if they like to grow their business, they need to be innovative and bring a new product onto the market, which is unique and valuable to the customers – they need to jump onto a new product lifecycle curve.   

Branding vs. Brand

It is important to make a distinction between the term Brand and Branding. If we use the analogy of an iceberg, things underneath the waterline are represented by the term Brand. They are not immediately seen by the audience, like employees, suppliers, and even the company's products or services, customers and other partners represent the brand. In contrast, Branding is an activity that is visible and is considered the process of  designing brand identity .  Items that are the result of branding include all identifying artifacts like the logo, icons, avatars, taglines and the company name. The output of branding activities consists also of a style guide, employee guidelines, the vision and mission statement and a list of company core values. If we go one step further and create branded touchpoints like flyers, business cards, posters, etc., we consider this step Marketing. Marketing is illustrated as ships that come and go from the iceberg. Brand Builder Box™ considers the e

Unique and Valuable

Imagine a product that is very unique but does not have any value for anyone. You might agree that this product would not be worth much. Now, think of a product that is very valuable but not unique, then the product would not be worth much either because a lot of competitors produce the same product and there is an over-supply, which causes prices to plummet and margins for the producer become only sustainable for mass production. In other words, a company has the best selling proposition when its products are unique and valuable to the customers. The same is true for brands. A brand will need to be unique and valuable, so people feel drawn to the brand. It is remarkable that big brands have figured out their formula for brand success and are constantly developing their brand to stay relevant. So, it is no wonder that big brands become bigger over time.  Brandz.com analyzes hundreds of brands and creates an annual report for each country and for the world. These reports show annua