From what we analyzed in the previous blog, a dichotomy emerges in branding between developing new brands and revaluing old ones.
Today, companies tend to reinvent themselves and look for new ways to get customers and improve their sales. Many opt for rebranding, but seen from the second position explained in the previous blog, the radical change of brand is. That is important to remember since rebranding is much more than that. It does not necessarily mean changing one brand for another.
Getting rid of an established brand with history and years of continuous investment and superficially replacing it with a new brand contradicts everything discussed since we started this blog. Despite this, rebranding has become a popular strategy for companies.
The idea of the brand as a significant asset on which the success of organizations depends is deeply ingrained in today’s corporate culture. Furthermore, it is an essential pillar of the modern marketing discipline.
Time: a key factor for brands
Another premise that supports the effort applied to rebranding is that strong brands are built through many years of sustained investment. That, if executed well, will provide a vast stream of loyal customers leading to massive sales. At the same time, it will gain an enviable market share and a continuous stream of revenue for brands. Despite this, there has been a marked increase in well-known companies renaming or changing names in recent years.
That is why discarding a long-standing brand and starting over from scratch with a new brand overnight makes no sense. Likewise, the effort to launch a new brand when an obsolete one is at hand is another case that draws attention. It could relaunch itself and take advantage of its brand equity built up over the years. The important thing would be to explore the problems of relevance to the phenomenon of the development and launch of a brand, be it new or revalued.
Analyze brands first
Therefore, everything analyzed throughout the previous articles helps to better understand the processes followed when undertaking a rebranding project. This includes topics such as name change, redesign, repositioning, and communication with stakeholders. This knowledge leads to addressing a critical issue: the effectiveness of rebranding in entering new businesses and finding new market niches. For this reason, before deciding to change the brand, the company must conduct a strategic analysis that will either guide or hinder the final decision.
In relation to the above, this analysis must consider the factors that could lead to the brand’s exit from the market, which, according to David Aaker, can arise from several conditions. First, when the brand’s decline rate is rapid and continues to grow while demand is decreasing. Second, when extreme price pressure from competitors is anticipated. This occurs due to a lack of brand loyalty and a lack of product differentiation in the customer‘s mind. Third, when the brand’s position is weak, and competitors have gained significant and irreversible advantages. Fourth, when the company’s mission has changed. And finally, when there are certain insurmountable obstacles.
Decide later
In many cases, the decision to rebrand proved highly unstable, with many companies facing the opposite of expected results. As Professor Andrew Ehrenberg states, even if the brand declines and begins to lose some customers, brand loyalty and purchase rates remain stable among other customers. Thus, the decision to rebrand must be well-founded on a detailed analysis of the brand’s characteristics.
Things to keep in mind
As an example, Puma, Apple, and Gucci are among the brands that have successfully rebranded. These companies have established some golden rules in the strategic decision-making process for rebranding, mainly regarding what they didn’t do. They didn’t change their name or logo; they didn’t announce through any media channel that they were about to reposition or do something radical to the brand; they were very patient—each brand took a decade or even more to change; changes in advertising strategies only came at the end of the rebranding process.
According to Tito Ávalos, founder of La Cocina, a brand is an experience that generates a mental representation in the public. This experience is driven and sustained by the organization’s culture, which involves all its members, to achieve a brand that is sustainable over time. The survival of an organization depends, to some extent, on its purpose and organizational culture being well aligned. This requires a business strategy that ensures the fulfillment of that purpose. But at the same time, it takes ownership of the experience it creates for users through its culture. Therefore, branding is a process that occurs both inside and outside the organization, and the branding strategist must be prepared to guide and support it.
In conclusion
A successful rebranding strategy starts with something other than million-dollar campaigns or radical changes to the name, logo, or other branding elements. It begins by solving various internal problems in an inside-out process.
