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Rebranding Your Business: Steps and Strategies
While rebranding may be highly effective, the decision to rebrand should not be made lightly. There are pros and cons to the process, and generally, a substantial financial investment is required. Importantly, if there are intellectual property rights that your brand is entitled to (i.e., a word or design trademark for your name, slogan or logo), it is important to remember that those rights will not necessarily automatically transfer to your rebranded intellectual property and will likely need to be reregistered in all relevant jurisdictions.
When is rebranding a good idea?
The decision to rebrand may manifest itself in different ways. It may come as a result of slowly declining sales and brand performance, or it may be prompted by an external catalyst. Often times, businesses rebrand when the scope of their services no longer fits within the bounds of their original brands. Another common reason for re-branding is to distance the business from a brand that’s been the subject of negative news attention and has come to be distrusted by the public. Facebook is an excellent example. The company’s rebrand to Meta at the end of 2021 is thought to be in part a product of the Facebook name having been the subject of countless headlines related to the company’s failure to protect its users’ personal data. The company, however, explained at the time that the rebrand was meant to give the business room to continue its expansion into the virtual reality domain.
Another famous rebrand, motivated by a related but distinct problem, was that of the Washington state football team, now called the Washington Football Club but previously named the Washington Redskins and associated with a logo publicly shamed for being a racist depiction of a native American.
Tupperware is an example of a successful brand refresh. Swapping their retro image for bold colours and clean lines, and outdated messaging with anti-plastic waste campaigns and direct sales strategy with a shoppable website and their first brick and mortar store. Tupperware’s brand refresh ensures that their brand meets the needs and expectations of modern consumers.
Consider whether any of the following gives you reason to rebrand:
- Social pressure (like the Washington Football Team).
- Negative attention.
- It’s been reported that, every day, social media sees 2.1 million negative mentions of brands in the U.S. alone
- Business growth (like Facebook and like Apple when it dropped the “computers” descriptor from its name).
- Adopting a more marketable name/dropping the “working” title (in its early stages, Instagram was called burbn and Google started as BackRub).
- Disputes with other brands (SnapChat was originally picaboo but the photobook company by the same name was not a fan).
- Undoing a previous unsuccessful rebrand (you may be familiar with Gap’s rebranding in 2010 which was reverted, Mastercard’s rebranding earlier in 2006 that was reverted, and potentially the developing Twitter/X rebranding).
- Brand refresh (occurs when a brand is looking to modernize its image and or tweak its image to either capture a new group of consumers or to re-engage and maintain existing customers - some examples include Burger King, Dunkin’, Starbucks, and Mastercard in 2019).
Regardless of the specific reason, you should be able to concisely answer why your business needs a rebrand (i.e., customer profile has changed, competitors/industry has undergone a significant shift, pigeonholed in an outdated marketing strategy) and which problem the rebrand will solve.
Once you have identified a specific reason for the change that can be resolved with rebranding, consider what parts of the marketing strategy need to be altered and which can stay consistent. If possible, conduct focus groups that test the impact of the various components of your brand in isolation (i.e., separating the product name and slogan from your logo) to see whether some parts of your brand resonate more effectively than others. Through this process, you should be able to identify where change is needed.
It is important to analyze both your consumer base and your competitors in determining whether rebranding is a good idea. Consider whether changing your brand will attract consumers that were previously outside of your target market, as well as whether it is likely to alienate existing purchasers. Determine what feelings and associations you want the new brand strategy to evoke, and how it is likely to impact the loyalty of existing customers.
In making this decision, it is crucial to consider that rebranding will involve a high initial cost (designing the new brand, registering intellectual property rights, getting the word out to employees, customers and other stakeholders, etc.), and may result in a drop in consumer engagement at the beginning of the transition due to confusion.
Once you have evaluated these considerations, the decision to proceed should hinge on a positive answer to three key questions:
- Is the new brand conception likely to increase overall consumer engagement and positive perception of the business?
- Is the increase in revenues brought on by the expansion likely to outweigh the costs of the rebranding process and the potential for consumer confusion?
- Will the new brand align with the business’s culture and values and likely be implementable given the business’ operations and processes?
If you can answer the preceding questions affirmatively, rebranding your business may be a worthwhile endeavour.
Intellectual property considerations in rebranding
If your rebranding strategy involves changing any aspects of your business that are eligible for trademark or industrial design protection, it is key to investigate whether such protection is available for the new brand elements (or whether the assets are already owned by someone else). A successful rebrand, however, need not always include the abandonment of previously employed brand names and logos in favour of the adoption of entirely new trademarks. One recent example of a rebrand which maintained use of the brand’s registered logo, a logo dating back to at least as early as 1983, is that of Abercrombie & Fitch. The clothing company’s rebrand appears to have been focused on the content of its marketing material, its in-store shopping experience, and its products.
If you are adopting new brand identifiers, make sure to conduct a trademark search on any words or designs that you are intending to use as part of the rebranding to check that they are available for registration within the jurisdictions in which your business operates. In a case like this, the trademark search should not be cursory; it is best to employ legal help to conduct a comprehensive trademark search rather than rebrand and discover down the line that your new logo infringes another company's intellectual property. Moreover, you will want to ensure that the brand you have chosen is registrable. Availability and registrability are not synonymous. Engaging a lawyer to provide you with an opinion on both availability and registrability will ensure that you have not wasted time, money and energy on the re-brand. Further, considering these best practices while developing your new brand strategy helps ensure that your new or improved brand elements encounter minimal resistance when applications for these marks are examined by the trademark office, saving you time and money.
When considering and designing your new brand, ensure that you follow basic trademark guidelines. A logo, brand name, or slogan that is distinctive and not clearly descriptive or laudatory is significantly more likely to be eligible for trademark protection and also more likely to develop a strong reputation among consumers. A simple example illustrating this principle is the brand name “Golden” selling honey. Imagine a happy customer speaking to a friend about how much they like “Golden Honey”. Rather than earn you a new customer, this conversation could be understood as referring to honey generally, honey being “golden” in colour. That’s why distinctive, non-descriptive marks are so valuable. The same conversation about “Picket” honey would most likely have resulted in a potential new customer for the “Picket” brand. Finally, highly distinctive trademarks are also easily recognizable. It’s easy to see, therefore, how choosing a highly distinctive trademark could be the difference between a successful and an unsuccessful re-brand.
Once you have ascertained that your proposed trademarks are available for registration, and registerable, it is key to apply for protection before publicizing your rebranding strategy. Otherwise, you may risk competitors attempting to capitalize on your trademarks or presenting an opposition to your application. Knowing you’ve invested into your rebrand, a third-party could apply for the relevant trademark in bad faith and hold it hostage, offering to transfer it to your company in exchange for a sum.
Another important consideration in the realm of brand redesign is the ownership of any new brand elements. If you employ a contractor to design a new logo, for example, it is critical to ensure that your company has all rights to the design. To this end, provisions can be incorporated into a contract between the designer and the company. To be sure that the company has full ownership of the design, consider working with an intellectual property lawyer to draft the contract. In the alternative, if you have an employee involved in the design aspects for your brand redesign, for greater clarity, be sure to review their employment contract for intellectual property-related clauses to avoid ownership disputes pertaining to the IP arising from the rebranding.
Your rebranding is likely to also involve the authorship of artistic works protected by copyright, for example, video advertisements and print material. Although copyright subsists in every original literary, dramatic, musical and artistic work as soon as it is created, there are benefits to copyright registration which may motivate you to register your copyright in one or more of these works.
On top of registering intellectual property, consider filing for a trade name registration if you are changing the name of your business, as well as purchasing new domain names if necessary. Essentially, the goal is to ensure that there is no consumer confusion and that none of your marketing efforts are wasted.
Finally, do not immediately discard the intellectual property rights that you have obtained for your original brand name (slogans, logos, etc.). Even when consumers adjust to your rebranding, they will associate the old marketing symbols with your business. Thus, it is important to keep a monopoly on the name and symbols originally associated with your brand to ensure that you control the message that is conveyed to your consumers through them. This might require simultaneous use of the old and new brand to signal you as the source of goods and services while you make the transition.
Consumer strategy in rebranding
Introducing customers to your new brand is a key step of business rebranding. An immediate and synchronized rollout across all consumer communication channels can help decrease customer confusion and create excitement about the change.
The employees and stakeholders within your business are a key part of creating excitement about the change. Consider involving the internal team in the rollout by asking them to share it across personal social media channels, employee profiles, and, if possible, through team events based around the new product or service. This can create awareness of the change among a key component of the consumer base before the bulk of the public rollout.
It is important to be clear and consistent across all channels of communication. Once the rebrand is announced publicly, all relevant elements should be changed uniformly and ideally at the same time on the company website, promotional materials, social media, email signatures, etc. Allocate increased time to any customer service employees to answer questions about the change.
To get your consumers excited about the change and attract new market segments, consider running promotions during the rollout period such as coupons, discounts on bulk purchases, or loyalty program rewards that feature the new brand strategy. During this time, continue to solicit customer feedback and opinions on the change through methods such as surveys and focus groups to determine whether the change has been received positively, whether any confusion has been created that needs to be resolved and whether any new promotional elements may need to be added to the marketing mix.
After the rebranding rollout
At the end of the campaign, it is crucial to assess whether your new marketing strategy has been successful with consumers. Focus on obtaining tangible metrics of consumer engagement such as sales, revenue, number of leads and conversion rates. Further, calculate the total costs of the rebrand to evaluate whether the benefits from the change have outweighed the investment that you have made. One final thing to keep in mind is that it is always possible to revert a rebrand and attempt a future brand refresh, or a different rebrand, if necessary. While it may seem like a waste of money, the data obtained from even a failed rebranding could be invaluable and could be extremely helpful and insightful into any future rebranding or brand refreshing attempts.
While you want to steer clear of changing your brand or other crucial marketing elements too often, as doing so may make it more difficult for consumers to identify and to form associations with your brand, remember that your business need not be locked into the same marketing and branding forever. Keep evaluating your marketing and brand strategy on a consistent basis to ensure that it resonates with consumers and consider further changes if you find that it is no longer reflective of your business values and goals.
Would you like our help with conducting a trademark search or registering a new trademark for your business? Contact us now for a complimentary and confidential initial telephone appointment with a member of our team.
