When is the Right Time to Rebrand?

Rebranding is a major project which should start with an analysis of your company based on self driven market research. This will identify your current market position and the perception held by your relevant audiences.

Market perception is crucial to long-term success. A rebrand is often the best solution when there is a disconnect between your brand and market perception.

When should a company rebrand?

Core influencers determining when your company should rebrand include;

• Outdated, in comparison to the market.
• Repair brand reputation. For example your brand suffered a catastrophic incident forever tarnishing the name or brand.
• To remove branding confusion. If your data revealed lack of understanding around your offer product or service the market is likely confused.
• To address brand perception issues your company holds across your target market caused by inconsistent or ineffective brand identity and messaging. Rebranding may be the way to address these fundamental flaws and bring consistency. Consistency over the long term will have one of the greatest impacts on revenue in this age of shortermism, according to branding legend Les Binet.

There are no hard and fast rules covering if or when a company should rebrand.

Change within a business is the major catalyst for rebranding projects, but ‘if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it’.

Strategic considerations to consider when rebranding

Market and customer research is the best starting point, because it provides an awareness of how customers and the broader market perceive your brand. This helps understand what objective needs to be addressed in your rebrand.

IMA recently undertook a global rebranding project for leading agricultural brand Case IH. The reason for the rebrand was that the company wanted to develop a new marketing ‘look and feel’ that more strongly aligned with its brand position: to enable optimal productivity by providing innovative solutions specifically designed for the professional producer.

Although the company had the products, solutions and human resourcing to deliver its objectives, a missing ingredient was a marketing look that aligned the brand’s leadership position as an innovator that was reimagining the agricultural industry.

The scope of work included creative strategy and concept creation, brand guidelines development, full literature update, launch campaign for internal and external stakeholders, digital and video. This volume of tasks demonstrates several areas in practice a rebranding project will take.