Sometimes you just have to rebrand. Maybe your company’s changed focus, or you’ve entered a new market, or perhaps you just want to start all over again with a fresh face and a fresh set of products to offer. Depending on the situation, rebranding can seem either a positive or negative action, but regardless of why you’re doing it, there’s always good and bad points to a rebranding campaign.

Rebranding Cons

The problematic part about rebranding your company is that it involves change, and all at once. This is never easy for a company, employees or customers. When things don’t go as planned, there are a few possible issues that could result.

1. You lose out on recognition.

Rebranding always requires you to sacrifice one thing – your reputation and recognition. People don’t like change because it comes with uncertainty, and in this case, that means they may question the outcome. This is why communication is vital during rebranding.

Even if you clearly announce you’re the successor business to your last one, a specific portion of your customers will be guaranteed to ignore or miss that information. It’s a catch 22 situation because rebranding (if done in the right way) will likely attract new customers, so it’s worth the risk. While you might retain some of your customers, it can be challenging to get in contact with them to let them know why you’ve changed your brand, and if they end up finding the new brand less attractive to them, they’ll often leave for one of your old competitors.

A significant example of this is how the UK’s Royal Mail rebranded into Consignia, which cost them £1.5 million initially.  Then another £1 million to revert back to Royal Mail once the public expressed how confused they were and how easy it was for them to forget the new brand name.

If your brand is recognisable, you need to change to something equally easy to remember.

2. Be Prepared to Spend Some Money

If you plan on rebranding, then know that it requires efforts on many levels, such as establishing the strategy, new content, graphic design work and marketing campaigns. This means you should be prepared to spend some money.

Going through a complete rebrand is anything but cheap. You will spend money on developing a creative rebranding strategy, new content, graphic design, as well as marketing and advertising campaigns to support your project. While there are ways to save money during a rebrand, it is definitely worth investing some money to ensure it is done effectively.

Rebranding is no walk in the park. It requires careful thought, planning, considerations and investment.  When done right, rebranding a company is absolutely worth it. However, before you go ahead with it, make sure you understand the pros and cons, be clear about what you hope to accomplish before you begin and be as transparent as possible throughout the transition and do your research! Your customers will want to hear how it’s going, so be sure to keep them in the loop. Good Luck

3. Confusion Brings Chaos

Change is scary, mainly because no one knows for sure what the end result will be. People can become easily confused or frustrated whenever a change occurs. By publishing press releases, posting announcements to social media and sending email newsletters, you can keep everyone aware of what’s going on and what’s coming down the pike. Communication is absolutely crucial during a rebranding project.

4. Customers Can Be Suspicion of your brand.

Your customers may not understand that more fabulous motives are involved than a simple change in your perspective, message, or outlook. It may be a need to modernise your graphics because your company has been doing business for so long that the initial images became outdated.

Unless your customers have clear guidance as to why you feel this update is necessary, there is an excellent chance that they will begin to treat your organisation with suspicion.

That outcome can lead to negative feedback and reviews, even when a transaction does not occur.

5. It can be hard to go back.

As mentioned earlier with Royal Mail, they ended up spending almost double their budget due to a botched attempt at rebranding, which emphasises just how hard it can be to abandon a new brand name out of nowhere.

It isn’t just a case of pulling off new stickers – you have to re-rebrand everything, from website domains to employee uniforms, and you have to do it quickly in the exact same way it all used to be. This could quite quickly become a company killer if handled poorly.

Even if you’re only changing the packaging of certain products, you’ll have to spend a lot of money to revert your changes. All the previously-printed new packaging will be useless. Depending on what the customers complain about, you may even have to mass-recall it (If it’s too weak, they properly protect the product, for example).

Do you want more information or need help with your brand strategy, rebrand or brand refresh? Get in touch; we are here to help.