Whether-to-Rebrand

To rebrand or not to rebrand? That is the question.

11 Good Reasons to Change your Brand Identity (and 7 Reasons Not To)

So, you’re considering a rebrand? Or, you are a designer whose client has come to you for rebranding advice?

Rebranding – completely overhauling the existing brand, possibly with a new name – or refreshing – making updates to the existing identity – can be a transformative and inspiring process for a business from the executive level to the junior employees. However, it can also have its pitfalls, or – be applied as a solution after the misdiagnosis of another business problem.

So, before committing to a rebrand, have you considered these important factors? Read on to see 11 reasons to support deciding on a rebrand, followed by seven reasons why it might not be the best idea.

Mailchimp-Rebrand

01. You’re entering a new market or scaling up

Expanding into new regions, launching new product lines, or appealing to a new market segment may require a brand refresh or complete overhaul.

For example, Mailchimp rebranded when they upgraded from email marketing to a complete online marketing system for small to medium businesses. The new brand needed to work across their refreshed offerings while retaining some of their original quirky character.

If you’re expanding internationally, your brand name, slogan, or visuals might have unintended meanings in other languages or cultures. Rebranding can help avoid cultural missteps and ensure your brand resonates with a global audience. For instance, some colors or imagery that work in one region may be negative or taboo elsewhere.

Align-Brand-Vision

02. Your brand no longer reflects business values or long-term vision

As businesses evolve, so do their goals, values, and missions. If your brand no longer aligns with your current purpose or vision, it could be time to rethink it. This might be because you’re pivoting towards a new focus (e.g., sustainability) or rethinking the values under which you operate.

From a color psychology perspective, does your brand palette reflect the new values? Is the brand using a visual language that communicates the long-term vision of the business? What about tone of voice – how are you speaking to your audience, and does it align with business goals? If the answer to any of these questions is no, it might be a good time to look for a brand designer – to start with, you can check out the Bravemark community for advice and potential collaborators!

Coca-Cola-Brand-Evolution

03. The brand aesthetic or identity feels outdated

Just like fashion, architecture, art, and technology, design trends and practices change over time. A brand’s visual identity may feel “stuck in the past,” – especially if it has been around for a while. This can mean customers perceive the business as outdated, even if the products are cutting-edge – rebranding can refresh your image.

But tread with caution—modernizing a well-known brand demands nuance, and often an experienced team of designers who have a deep understanding of audiences and culture, especially if the brand is well known. Several premium brands have shifted from traditional, more decorative logos to minimalist sans serif logotypes. Some argue that this ‘Blanding’ has resulted in a loss of character and differentiation in the industry.

Brands like Coca-Cola have successfully modernized through subtle refreshes while maintaining brand equity – the logo has barely changed since 1890. It now holds so much emotional weight in the minds of – well, everyone – that they can play with it to reflect social shifts in culture. For instance, Coca-Cola’s ‘Real Magic’ campaign in 2021 aimed to foster togetherness when the world was forced apart.

Conversely, Elon Musk’s rebrand of Twitter to ‘X’ illustrates the risks of messing with a well-known brand —many people still refer to the platform as “Twitter,” and trust in the brand has eroded after the brand’s messy rollout and Musk’s erratic treatment of the network’s previous rules and standards.

Rebranding-Reputation-Reset

04. Your reputation needs a reset

Brands occasionally face setbacks—negative press, industry shifts, or a loss of customer trust. A rebrand can help reposition your brand, restore credibility, and signal a new direction.

Hermes rebranded to ‘Evri’ in 2022 to combat claims of poor service. This caused the company to re-evaluate its values and rebrand with the phonetic spelling of ‘Every’ to reflect their new customer centric focus. However, rebranding alone isn’t enough—the internal problems must be addressed for lasting change. In Evri’s case, customers were still unhappy with service quality following the rebrand which stresses the importance of following through with claims that a brand makes.

Meta-Brand-Umbrella

05. A merger, acquisition, or major shift has occurred

Structural changes like mergers or acquisitions require rebranding to unify identities. It’s essential to capture the strengths and values of each entity or, if creating an umbrella brand, ensure all sub-brands align cohesively. Meta’s rebranding, encompassing Instagram, Facebook, WhatsApp, and their other organisations, aimed to reflect this cohesion—though it faced challenges, it recognised the unique audience served by each platform.

Rebrand-Legal

06. Legal or trademark issues

If your brand’s name or logo is too similar to another business’, you could face legal challenges or trademark disputes. To avoid litigation, it may be necessary to rebrand. This is a lesser-discussed but crucial reason, as many businesses only realise this when they receive a cease-and-desist letter or face difficulties registering trademarks in new markets.

Brand-Cohesion-Organization

07. You’re facing brand confusion

If customers have difficulty understanding your brand’s message, products, or differentiating factor, it’s time for a rebrand.

This is a common issue, particularly when many startups often launch with limited budgets for strategic branding, using semi-custom or self-made brands. Later, investing in a real rebrand makes sense as they better understand their audience, unique value, company culture, and customer problems—crucial information for a meaningful brand strategy and an effective identity redesign.

Internal brand confusion is also common. When multiple departments use brand assets differently through varying output streams, it’s easy for things to get messy very quickly. The resulting inconsistency can harm recognition, credibility, and trust. A brand refresh or rebrand helps realign everyone, ensuring consistency and effective internal communication.

Bravemark can help with maintaining brand consistency going forward from a rebrand by allowing employees to access assets easily, and avoiding clunky file-sharing processes.

Consumer-Lifestyle-Habits-Branding

08. Adapting to consumer lifestyle changes or shopping habits

If your target audience’s lifestyle or behavior has evolved – like shifts to remote work, aging into a different life stage, or increased health consciousness – a rebrand can help align with these changes. Trends and population interests change, so younger members may not be as interested in what the generation before them loved. In this case, a brand could either pivot towards the newer generation and adapt their offer accordingly, or they might elect to recapture the audience that already loved them before.

Refreshing the brand to meet previously loyal customers where they are now, could have an added bonus of earned brand familiarity and nostalgia of times gone by. This can ensure your brand remains relatable and connected to your audience’s daily experiences and remains front of mind for your customers.

Rebranding-to-attract-talent

09. Attracting new talent

A brand’s visual identity and reputation play a significant role in talent acquisition. Rebranding to appeal to a younger, diverse, or specialised workforce can signal a dynamic company culture. In today’s market, where purpose, sustainability, and work-life balance are vital, rebranding might help attract top talent. This can be especially relevant for medium-sized businesses looking to compete with larger companies for top talent. In today’s world, there is more emphasis placed on purpose, ‘zig-zag careers’ are more prevalent, and people don’t expect to stay at the same institution for the majority of their working life.

Stanley-Brand-Reposition

10. Embracing market opportunity, pivoting your business model, or changing your services

If your offerings change substantially, rebranding can help communicate this to existing customers and attract a new audience.

An interesting story is the journey of Stanley, a 110-year-old outdoor camping brand which up until 2018 had been mainly focused at a male audience and looked just like… well, as you’d expect a camping brand to look. Its main competitor was Camelbak, who still operates in the same space. But Stanley caught on to an opportunity by listening to their audience members, specifically the founders of online blog ‘The Buy Guide’ – and have gone viral in recent years – benefitting from female influencer culture. Although the logo remains unchanged, they have entirely repositioned the product from their female centric online experience to their range of pastel choices the steel tumblers now come in.

From what was a good product in a saturated market, they have become the best product in a market that hadn’t been tapped into yet. Stanley has become the go-to for busy city dwellers wanting a trustworthy, no spill cup to take from their 6am peloton class, through the day at the desk to school pick up – prioritizing health and style – based on insights and feedback, taking a direction that wasn’t expected – as the best brand experiences often are.

Rebranding-to-differentiate

11. Differentiating in a saturated market

In crowded markets with look-alike brands, rebranding can help re-establish differentiation. For brands that pioneered a trend and now face imitators, rebranding can help demonstrate their leading edge and originality, reinforcing a loyal customer base. While many brands can follow, only the most innovative can reset the playbook and continue to innovate and be original, always finding new space to move towards and new opportunities to differentiate by. It’s these brands that can create cult followings.

When-Not-To-Rebrand

After thinking about many of the reasons a business may want to rebrand, let’s consider when it may not be the right time to make the decision…

1. You’re reacting to temporary market trends

After thinking about many of the reasons a business may want to rebrand, let’s consider when it may not be the right time to make the decision…

While it’s essential to stay relevant, rebranding based solely on passing trends can make a brand appear inauthentic. If the purpose of branding is to flaunt your differences, trend-based branding is the antithesis, unless you are ready to update and evolve season after season.

Instead of looking at what other brands are doing to decide whether to rebrand, focus on your own business’ core identity, messaging, values and audience needs to decide whether it is needed. And, in terms of refreshing designs – try to objectively decide whether your branding follows good design principles and is aesthetically aligned. If so, it might be wise to sit tight and wait out the trends.

2. Internal problems with the business, product, or service

Changing the brand’s appearance won’t fix fundamental underlying issues and may even confuse or frustrate loyal customers. Before deciding that rebranding is the solution, run an in-depth internal audit to diagnose why you are having problems. If you are struggling due to failing product quality, service, or internal operations, focus on resolving these issues first. If your systems and services are in check, and you decide that any of the 11 reasons to rebrand above are relevant, then you’re good to go.

3. Underestimating the investment required

Rebranding as a strategic move is not just about changing a logo or updating visuals. It often involves a comprehensive transformation across customer touchpoints, from marketing materials to the website and even internal culture. Cutting corners on the process, through lack of time or budget, or not working with an experienced brand designer, may not have the results that you hope for. If your business isn’t ready for this level of commitment, it may be wiser to hold off until you have sufficient resources.

4. You’re Looking for a quick fix to increase sales

A rebrand can increase visibility, but it’s not a guaranteed solution for boosting revenue. If the business has issues with its pricing, product-market fit, or customer experience, a rebrand won’t solve these. Address these foundational areas first, then evaluate if a rebrand could amplify your success.

5. You want to go viral or reach a wider audience

While having an aligned brand message and identity is certainly needed to set the foundation and inform how you show up in the world, branding in itself does not necessarily include marketing strategy. While the two are closely interlinked, to widen your audience you might need to invest in (on-brand!) advertising. The channels you focus on will be up to your business, audience, and budget, but the strategy that underpins your branding will be able to help in crafting targeted marketing communications to speak to your audience. Remember that Customer Persona you did during your last branding process? It might be time to pull it out again now, update it and think about all the ways to reach them in their zone!

6. Your brand still has strong recognition and equity

If customers already recognize and trust your brand, be cautious about a rebrand. Sudden changes can disrupt brand loyalty and risk losing customer trust. Sometimes a “brand refresh”—updating specific elements without overhauling the brand—is a better option to modernize without alienating your existing audience.

7. You’re bored of your current branding

We understand. If you are an entrepreneur or an in-house creative, you are probably someone who thrives on change and new ideas. Sometimes it can get repetitive using the same assets and design templates every day. But there is still space for creativity within the brand guidelines for your own interpretations, as long as the output remains consistent with the overall brand.

If the brand is working for your business, it is advisable to keep it, rather than overhaul it for a change of scenery. There may be other areas in your business that can be refreshed to keep things new, or another creative area that is always looking for new ideas, is your marketing strategy.

Rebrand-Questions

Questions to Ask Before Committing to a Rebrand

1. What are we hoping to achieve?

2. Does our current brand hinder growth?

3. How will we remove barriers in a rebrand?

4. How will our audience respond?

5. Do we have the resources for a comprehensive rebrand?

So, now you have a comprehensive list of factors to consider if you’re thinking about a rebrand – if you decide that now is the time, congratulations and good luck! A rebrand can be an exciting journey leading to your future growth and success.