Why Does Your Business Need Rebranding

What’s in your Brand?

This is a critical question for small and medium companies who trying to develop a brand.

Rebranding a company is not an easy feat to achieve. When you have started a company, you invest a lot of time and money to create a brand for your company, an Image - an image that people can identify with. And then you change that. The hard part is, you don’t want to lose your customer base, and you want them to remember your business. So when one thinks about rebranding their business, there are a lot of pros and cons that need looking into.

Why are you thinking of rebranding in the first place. Changes in market? Changes in the company? Changes in the product? Mergers and acquisitions or expanding into global markets or even change in leadership and vision? All these are fairly good reasons to start considering rebranding.

Rebranding can be done at three distinct levels in an organization:

• Corporate,
• Strategic business unit, and
• Product level

Rebranding is costly and time-consuming and as the number of corporate rebranding practice increases, the rate of failure is high compared to the successes. Transfers of a brand would cause danger, such as loss of choices, loyal customers, and market share. However, this strategy is still practiced widely by firms to modify the brand, and better corporate rebranding examples can be found. Unfortunately, very few brand researchers have investigated service rebranding in depth.

There are just about as many reasons to rebrand a business as there are ways to do it. These reasons can be positive such as the two organizations have merged or a company has significantly expanded its offering, while others are less rosy like the current brand has been tainted in some way or has become out-dated. Corporate mergers will often result in complete rebrands. When businesses have failed to establish a brand, or have been through any kind of scandal, total rebranding may also be in order. In such cases, the intent is to erase any previous brand identity and replace it with completely new imagery and messaging.

In other situations when a brand has been firmly established yet is simply out-dated or needs to be refreshed due to the addition of new products or services, tweaking of the brand is required, rather than a full blown rebrand. In these cases, marketers do not want to eliminate the brand value that has been developed over the years, but just make subtle changes to update it or make it representative of an expanded offering. In other words, it is all about updating a tired brand or creating an entirely new identity with a smart rebranding strategy. It has been highlighted that there are many reasons to rebrand. The need for rebranding must first be determined by business owners and this should be based on the premise that something has changed in the business mix that dictates a need for evolving the brand. These reasons can be;

• To keep up with the times and keep pace with changing consumer needs (e.g. services, accessibility, convenience, choice, fashion and technology).
• Because a brand has become out-dated or old fashioned and is in danger of stagnation or is already in a state of extinction
• Due to high and fierce competition or a developing and quick changing environment.
• As a means of blocking or outmanoeuvring competitors, or a way of handling increased price elasticity. As a result of globalization.
• As a result of change in leadership through mergers and acquisitions.
• In order to generally improve a brand's competitiveness by creating a common sense of purpose and unified identity, building staff morale and pride, as well as a way of attracting the best talent or even a way of testing new markets or products.
• To cut down on business development and operational costs, or a way of countering declining profitability or consumer confidence.
• To highlight a change in direction, focus, attitude or strategy.
• Where there are complex product mixes, considerable advertising and branding clutter, media proliferation and subsequent audience fragmentation.
• To capitalize on new opportunities or innovative mediums such as the Internet.

Rebranding is not just about simply changing the name. It requires a lot more research and funding as well as a lot of hard work. A change in name will not turn a company around, nor will it revitalize a dying product. However, rebranding can give the opportunity to get into an exercise where people can rediscover which strategies would encompass those values that we think are important in the business. Marketers in the 21st century may find it necessary to relook their brand in terms of its relevancy to consumers and the changing marketplace. There has been a shift from brand image marketing to brand innovation. It is more involving, interactive, authentic and dynamic.

A rebranding process is one that takes time, effort and sacrifices. Rebranding is a lengthy, demanding but necessary process in order for the company to achieve its proper potential.