Rebranding - What it is and how to do it successfully

There are two common camps of people when it comes to rebranding - one that says “let’s rebrand!” and throws everything to the wind and starts completely from scratch, and a second that says “let’s not rebrand - don’t fix what isn’t broken”.

The reality is that both camps have got it wrong - assuming the goal is to increase brand recognition, conversions, and ultimately sales, which I assume is an accurate assumption, if not you wouldn’t be in business.

The First Camp - Let's Rebrand & Start from Scratch

The first camp is discrediting everything they’ve built. While it can absolutely be improved and remodeled, removing every recognizable asset from your brand can leave your audience feeling lost and ultimately disconnected. They’ve built a relationship, and therefore trust, with the current brand look. They can easily identify it when scrolling on social media. They feel comfortable continuing to buy from your brand. When you flip everything on its head and come up with a full blown new look, you shake things up quite a bit - and it’s risky. 

It’s like being with your partner for 5 years and suddenly showing up with purple hair, knee-high boots, and piercings when you’ve literally worn a cardigan every day of your relationship. It leaves the other party feeling like “Wait, who are they? Is this the same person or has everything completely changed?”

"Removing every recognizable asset from your brand can leave you audience feeling lost and ultimately disconnected"

It’s crucial to take into consideration your current brand when rebranding, identifying recognizable assets or color palettes - pieces that need to stay to create a positive transition. The goal is to dissect what you currently have, keeping what is helpful (communicates your brand values, accurately communicates your brand emotions, is associated with your brand, etc.) and removing what simply no longer works (outdated typography or color palettes that convey a wrong emotion, for example)

The Second Camp - Don't Fix What Isn't Broken

The second camp - the whole “don’t fix what isn’t broken” - is leaving money on the table. Not to mention that this approach is simply not sustainable, because at some point it will actually be broken and it’s a lot harder to repair something that’s broken than to do regular maintenance. 

Acting like everything is fine and not doing internal audits is their biggest error. Does your brand communicate your current values? What emotion does it elicit in your audience? Is this the emotion you intend? Does it communicate the value of your product? Is there an opportunity to increase prices with a new visual identity? Would conversions increase with a cleaner, more well-designed site? Would new photography help upsells? Audit, audit, audit. Just because it’s working now, doesn’t mean you couldn’t be making ten times more with a just a small investment. 

The True Definition of a Rebrand

Looking up the actual definition of the word “rebrand” is incredibly surprising - they’re all immensely broad and unhelpful, no wonder companies feel confused when heading into the process. 

Take a look for yourself -

Oxford definition -

“change the corporate image of (a company or organization)”

Merriam-Webster definitions -

“to change or update the brand or branding of (a product, service, etc.)”

“to publicly refer to or describe (someone or something) in a new or different way”

What do these even mean?? And how would you possibly go about it? Not to mention the last one is vastly inaccurate.

Here’s a better explanation -

"Rebranding is taking the existing look and feel of a company and updating it to reflect the brand's current values and emotions in the eyes of todays society - this includes both visuals and messaging."

There are a couple of key points in this definition, so let’s elaborate on each one.

“Look and Feel”

The look and feel of a company does not simply mean visuals, which most people think of as logos, colors, and typography. It also means messaging (in terms of copy and tone of voice), photography and videography, the physical feeling you get when holding the product, and the intangible feeling you get when interacting with the brand.

Which is why the end of the definition “this includes both visuals and messaging” is crucial in executing a successful rebrand.

“Current Values and Emotions”

These two seem so simple and obvious, especially for an established brand, but the reality is they change over time. Your mission, values, how you want to make people feel should change over time - and it’s important to audit them during your rebrand to ensure they’re up to date.

“In the eyes of today’s society”

This is an essential piece of the definition. What may have reflected as “upscale and luxury” ten years ago most likely gives a very different feeling now. Taking society’s current views, trends, likes, and dislikes, and looking at your brand through the lens of today’s society ensures the rebrand actually hits home and doesn’t miss the mark.

How to Successfully Rebrand

If you’ve been reading closely and taking notes, you’ve probably already written down a few points on the best way to go about rebranding, but let’s actually break them down and get into the nitty, gritty details.

Audit your existing brand

The first step in rebranding is understanding what’s working and what’s not with your existing brand. Are people getting confused on what you actually sell? Do people think the product is too expensive? Have you been told that your website is difficult to navigate? Think through anything and everything you’ve been told about your company. Make a list, sort through and categorize it, erase anything that’s not valid (“I hate blueberries” when your reports show your best seller is blueberry pie), identify commonalities, and define the areas you’d like to improve during the rebrand.

It’s also just as crucial to think through what is working. If people tell you they know it’s your brand just by looking at your plant (or whatever object) icon/submark - don’t it throw it out! Uplevel it instead, refining the design and color palette, and make sure to keep it in your rebrand.

But most importantly ask, how do you feel about your brand? Do you feel proud - like you want to tell anyone and everyone that will listen what you do for a living? Or do you feel embarrassed to hand over your business card? Or give a disclaimer when mentioning your website or social - “it’s still very much in the works” (even though you know it’s not) or “we don’t post much, who has the time” (but really it’s because you don’t know what to post). Understanding your own thoughts and feelings surrounding your brand will help you better define your goals for the rebrand and help you know what specific projects you want to tackle.

Define your updated company principles

Read through your current mission, vision, drivers, values/beliefs, tagline/phrases, brand personality, brand voice, and core emotions - dissecting each one, determining whether they’re still accurate and relevant. Could they be reworded in a more impactful way? The goal being that anyone could read these and feel what you feel so deeply about your company - just through words alone. Getting this right allows you to bring people onboard who easily see your vision, build a beautiful company culture, and have everyone working towards the same goals in the same way - knowing exactly how the company moves, acts, thinks, and feels.

Or maybe you never had these defined to begin with. Take the time to write them, pour your heart into them, these are the guideposts for your rebrand. Every decision from here on out will be held against these definitions - asking yourself whether each visual and messaging component accurately reflects everything you defined.

Narrow in on your audience

Understand them, stalk them (online), determine their likes & dislikes, figure out what they’re struggling with and what they deeply, deeply desire. Know them like you know your best friend or sister or partner or whoever you know most in this world - to the point that you know why they make each decision they make, even if they themselves don’t know why.

The more you understand your ideal customer the better you can write, create content, tweak products, determine promotions, design ads, create funnels - specifically for them, knowing what makes them feel deeply, share passionately, and ultimately buy.

Create new visuals to reflect everything above

While this step can be done in-house if you have a designer on staff, working with a studio or agency well-versed in not only helping you define everything above but successfully transforming that into a visual identity is pivotal in determining the success of the rebrand. While you can do the work to define everything mentioned here, if you don’t accurately translate that into design, you’ll fall short, leaving you right where you are now (a visual identity that doesn’t reflect the core of your company) or worse, in a position where you’ve rebranded and isolated your audience causing a negative reaction. 

Find a design studio or agency that understands both strategy & visuals, produces design that you resonate with, can jump into your target audience’s mindset, is current - understanding society today, and ultimately that you just get along with. These projects typically take a few months in most instances and having a partner you vibe with helps make a long process an enjoyable experience.

With every design decision you make ask yourself the following questions -

• Does this make people feel how we want them to feel?
• Will our target audience resonate with this?
• Does this accurately reflect our company’s values/beliefs?
• Does this match our brand's personality?
• Will this resonate with today’s society?
• Do I personally like this? (because if you hate your new brand you’re not going to be shouting it from the rooftops and you need to be ultra confident in it to take it to next level)

Examples of a Successful Rebrand

Below you’ll find a few examples of rebrands we’ve designed here at Studio Fulchi. While we can go into so much more detail on each of these and the meaning behind each one, we’ll keep it short and sweet here, providing a simple before and after, what we kept and what we ditched, so you can see the impact from a high level -

Lotus Fresh

We stripped back the logo, keeping only the type portion (it still said modern and gave a simple, clean look). We redesigned the lotus flower, making it a little more current, bringing in the brand’s new gradient design that we also incorporated into their packaging. We updated the color palette, typography, added in those gradients, redesigned the majority of their product packaging, and most importantly did a brand new photoshoot that perfectly captured her rebrand.

Alice & Wonder

We kept what was working and recognizable (and already on store signs in Chicago), aka their logo. We pulled out the ampersand, redesigned it to stand alone and work with the new rebrand. We updated the color palette and typography to feel more current and added in whimsical illustrations that visually communicated their brand personality.

Panache Apparel Co.

We kept the crown illustration, the one recognizable element, as a submark and revamped everything else - designing multiple robust logos and changing the name from Panache Accessories to Panache Apparel Co to better reflect what they sell. We defined typography and colors which they didn’t have before and added a rough texture to their brand to reflect their industrial design style. 

How to Know if it's Time to Rebrand

This is always a hard question to answer - it depends on a lot of individual components. How long have you been in business? Are your brand visuals updated? Do they reflect your current company values? Do they resonate with your audience? Do you have the capital to invest? What is your gut saying about it all? 

Here are a couple of resources that can help make the decision easier - 

Take our Rebranding Quiz

We’ve been asked this question a lot and know exactly what to ask to guide you to a concrete answer. Take the quiz, Is it Time to Rebrand?, and we’ll walk through several questions to guide you through whether your company should rebrand right away, hold off for a bit, or is doing great as is.

Get on a Project Consultation Call

If you’re pretty sure it’s time to rebrand, are looking for a raw, honest opinion of what your next steps should be, and would love to work with our studio should you go down that route, fill out the form here and we’ll schedule a call. We love getting deep with businesses, doing an audit of their current visuals, and chatting about how we can improve them to better resonate with you, your brand, and your audience. 

The Ultimate Rebranding Checklist

If you know it’s time to rebrand (or just want to be prepared for when you do), download The Ultimate Rebranding Checklist to make sure you think of everything in the rebrand process - whether you’re doing it alone or with a studio you don’t want to miss a step.

Ready to Rebrand?

Let’s do it together.

Fill out the form here and we’ll get on a call to chat through the details. If this was on your list to get done this year, let’s get the ball rolling.