brand strategy case study (mailchimp rebrand)

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Rebrand Case Study | Mailchimp

We love a good rebrand case study here at Brand Master Academy and we also love cute Chimps.

So this piece pretty much wrote itself.

In this article we take a look at the repositioning and rebrand of Mailchimp .

We highlight the nuts and bolts of altering the trajectory of a much-loved brand, while stepping on as few toes as possible.

If you want inspiration on how to go about executing a rebrand for yourself or a client, then read on.

The Brand History

About 20 years ago, a couple of web designers, Ben Chestnut and Dan Kurzius saw an opportunity in the market.

In the early 2000’s email software for businesses was expensive and clunky and reserved for the bigger end of town .

If you were a small business wanting to leverage this growing phenomenon that was email, forget about it.

Then Mailchimp was born, enabling the “small fish” to play in the “big fish” pond, with high-end tools, resources and technology made available at affordable prices .

Both founders Ben and Dan came from entrepreneurial families. Their understanding of small business needs kept the platform nimble, adding functionality wherever required.

That evolution has never stopped and Mailchimp continues to grow , evolve and adapt to the needs of their small business customers.

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Case Study: Repositioning Strategy

Mailchimp has always been adapting to meet the needs of their small business customers adding features and functionality here and there.

That said, they always stayed in their lane as an “Email Platform”.

But an expansion of features to include in-depth marketing executions services including Facebook Ads, signalled a change that was more than just “added features”

This wasn’t just an extra checkbox that shared an image or a link.

This was a full “Facebook Ads Campaign Feature” allowing users to create, launch monitor and optimise Facebook ad campaigns right from within the Mailchimp platform.

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An audience led reposition.

Although Mailchimp has innovation in its blood, the leadership team didn’t decide on a reposition for the sake of innovation. Nor did the idea of a reposition come entirely from their own sense of innovation.

As any brand manager worth their salt should know, if you listen to your customer, they’ll tell you exactly what to sell them .

According to CEO Ben Chestnut

“‘Our customers tell us that MailChimp helps them look pro and grow. It’s not an email platform, it’s not a newsletter tool—it’s the thing that helps them look more professional. That insight gave us a feeling of liberation. We don’t just have to do email. So we began talking to customers with that in mind.’”

The change in direction was an organic one and begun by simply altering how they talked to customers.

Mailchimp’s evolution and direction from an “Email Software” to a “Marketing Platform” was confirmed when he told the New York Times:

The next phase of MailChimp, he said, is to become a one-stop shop for the entirety of a small business’s marketing needs.

Case Study: Adjusting The Brand Message

Repositioning an existing brand with a strong and loyal following is not easy.

Repositioning by definition is taking a different position in the market, therefore wanting to mean something different to both your existing audience your new audience .

It’s a balancing act of making your existing customers feel that they’re still the apple of your eye, while holding out your hand to appeal to the broader audience.

Brand Communication For The Bigger Picture

Prior to 2016, communication from Mailchimp was all geared towards role of email in small businesses .

In 2016, it began its transition with simple adjustments to messaging and copy.

They slowly moved away from “What they did” to “The Outcome Of What They Did”.

Instead of their homepage greeting users with the “Easy Email Newsletters” headline, it read “Build Your Brand, Sell More Stuff”.

This was an insight into what was coming in their shift towards helping small business owners to do more of what makes them grow, i.e. “Sell More Stuff”.

Mailchimp have readjusted the hierarchy of their messaging and though “send Better Email” can still be found in their messaging, today, it’s all about how they help their customers achieve their end goal .

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Case Study: Brand Personality & Voice

Since its inception, Mailchimp has presented as a fun and quirky brand that doesn’t take itself too seriously.

Their fun-loving mascot chimp “Freddie”, hasn’t once dropped his smile and that smile has consistently played out across all channels for 20 odd years.

A reposition for a brand that has come from humble beginnings without any venture capital to bringing in a revenue of over $400 million before their repositioning, it would have been easy for Mailchimp to lose the quirkiness.

To trade in that light-hearted unserious approach for a more sophisticated look and tone that comes with expanding market shares and growing revenues.

But Mailchimp is a brand with strong roots.

A Tone Of Voice With A Joke

Any student of branding looking to beef up their skills to develop a tangible tone of voice can look to Mailchimp’s Content Style Guide for inspiration

When they create messages or write copy, this is how they approach it.

We are plainspoken. We understand the world our customers are living in: one muddled by hyperbolic language, upsells, and over-promises. We strip all that away and value clarity above all. Because businesses come to Mailchimp to get to work, we avoid distractions like fluffy metaphors and cheap plays to emotion.

We are genuine. We get small businesses because we were one not too long ago. That means we relate to customers’ challenges and passions and speak to them in a familiar, warm, and accessible way.

We are translators. Only experts can make what’s difficult look easy, and it’s our job to demystify B2B-speak and actually educate.

Our humor is dry. Our sense of humor is straight-faced, subtle, and a touch eccentric. We’re weird but not inappropriate, smart but not snobbish. We prefer winking to shouting. We’re never condescending or exclusive—we always bring our customers in on the joke.

Case Study: A Creative Brand Culture

Mailchimp’s leadership team is driven by innovation.

As Ben Chestnut reflected

“I had a subscription to Businessweek. I’d get it and flip to any story about inventive companies” There was always a weirdo pushed into a spare room to invent stuff and drop stuff. So that’s how I run my business. I only hire weirdos and let them fail all the time

Mailchimp is full of employees who are given the freedom for creative expression, who believe in the brand and who want to be there and their about us page on their website is a great example of employer branding.

Mailchimp works to create a company culture that sustains a creative, humble, and independent workforce and encourages a healthy work-life balance. Our employees have opportunities to help small businesses grow, attend events, share their work, and take time off to volunteer or learn new skills. And, we’re hiring.

Case Study: A Quirky Brand Identity

Although the brand retained their tone of voice as they emerged into their new position, their quirkiness within their identity was a shoo-in for the chop.

As cute as Freddie was with his funky manbag and his “can-do” attitude, Mailchimp was moving up in the world the surely couldn’t take Freddie with them.

He was to be shipped off to a farm where he would have space to run around and play with other postal chimps.

After all, this was another tech company in the modern era.

Surely the likes of Google , Airbnb , Spotify and Pinterest knew something that Mailchimp should have been noting after they all dropped their more playful typography for the no-nonsense straight-laced sans serif.

EVERYBODY FALL IN LINE! pic.twitter.com/B9JU5nvpMu — OH no Type Co (@OHnoTypeCo) February 13, 2018

But no, Mailchimp went the opposite way and doubled down on their quirkiness with their “ Playful and expressive ” or downright outrageous rebrand with the help of Collins branding agency .

The Identity Rebrand: The Logo & Wordmark

We’re delighted that Freddie didn’t get the chop.

He’s alive and well and looking better than ever.

Not only that, his simplified look means he has now become a more central figure and is used generously in any space and on any platform.

The accompanying wordmark is as playful as the brand’s voice and the lowercase “c” contrasting from it’s previous capital appearance further states the brand name as a single component.

The Identity Rebrand Colour Palette

Mailchimp is energetic and fun-loving at heart and no colour sums up those characteristics better than their dominant Cavendish Yellow.

Though the brand has an extensive pallet they are heavily focused on their dominant colour.

Why do they lead so heavily with such a bold colour?

“We anchor on a single color, used with purpose, to drive consistency across all properties.”

The Identity Rebrand Typography

Mailchimp has gone against the grain of the technology industry and most brands in the world for that matter with a typeface from the 1920’s .

Cooper Light is a lighter version of the rounded serif typeface designed by Oswald Bruce Cooper in 1919 , which went on to have its heyday in graphic design in the 1970’s.

As Mailchimp highlights,

You may have seen its larger cousin on dusty old funk records and inside questionable sandwich shops.

The Identity Rebrand Illustrative Image Style

Quirky illustrations have become a trend in the technology sector to the point that stock houses have now been flooded with extensive libraries, thus extending the trend.

Although Mailchimp’s image style could certainly be categorised as “Quirky Illustrations”, their quirkiness goes way beyond where other tech companies would dare to venture for fear of scaring off their software loving audiences .

Over To You

Rebranding any company is a delicate task especially for brands with a loyal and happy customer base.

Mailchimp’s rebrand however wasn’t driven by a boardroom of C-Suites looking to claim a bigger piece of the pie.

It was driven by a brand culture of innovation and listening to the customer.

Mailchimp has outgrown its “Email Software” niche and just through the desire to better help their customers have expanded their offering in the direction of an “All-in-one marketing platform”.

With strong roots, an unshakable Fun-loving attitude and a fresh now identity, the brand is ready to assume its new position .

What are your thoughts?

Do you like the strategic direction of Mailchimp, its visual identity or its messaging.

I’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments below.

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Really good article in regards to MailChimp’s redesign. I thought that it was well researched with plenty of great imagery. Definitely am looking forward to what comes next.

Cheers Josh – glad you enjoyed it. Plenty more to come ?

Great Article really enjoyed reading it. Love your work.

Cheers Viv – Glad you enjoyed it ?

What would you say Mailchimps’s primary and secondary brand archetypes are?

Primary – Everyman (With a touch of Jester) – Demonstrating you that anyone can do it (with some humor) Secondary – Sage – Guiding you on your email marketing journey

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Viv Harries is the Founder of Vivi Creative. He works with businesses to give them the creative edge with unique designs and a solid brand identity.

Rebrand Case Study Mailchimp

By Viv Harries
Jun 11, 2020

Today we have the pleasure of featuring a guest post by Stephen Houraghan from the Brand Master Academy who has written this amazing case study on Mailchimp and how they have repositioned and rebranded the company since they began back in 2002.

Looking at how successful brands have changed over the years is fascinating. How businesses subtly change and modernise their brand as the years go by, altering their trajectory of their company in the marketplace.

For anyone interested in branding, or looking for inspiration on how to go about a rebrand for a client, then this article is worth a read.

Brand History

About 20 years ago, a couple of web designers, Ben Chestnut and Dan Kurzius saw an opportunity in the market.

In the early 2000’s email software for businesses was expensive and clunky and reserved for the bigger end of town.

If you were a small business wanting to leverage this growing phenomenon that was email, forget about it.

Then Mailchimp was born, enabling the “small fish” to play in the “big fish” pond, with high-end tools, resources and technology made available at affordable prices.

Both founders Ben and Dan came from entrepreneurial families. Their understanding of small business needs kept the platform nimble, adding functionality wherever required.

That evolution has never stopped and Mailchimp continues to grow, evolve and adapt to the needs of their small business customers.

Case Study :- Repositioning Strategy

Mailchimp has always been adapting to meet the needs of their small business customers adding features and functionality here and there.

That said, they always stayed in their lane as an “Email Platform”.

But an expansion of features to include in-depth marketing executions services including Facebook Ads, signalled a change that was more than just “added features”

This wasn’t just an extra checkbox that shared an image or a link.

This was a full Facebook Ads Campaign Feature allowing users to create, launch monitor and optimise Facebook ad campaigns right from within the Mailchimp platform.

An Audience Led Reposition

As any brand manager worth their salt should know, if you listen to your customer, they’ll tell you exactly what to sell them.

According to CEO Ben Chestnut

Our customers tell us that MailChimp helps them look pro and grow. It’s not an email platform, it’s not a newsletter tool—it’s the thing that helps them look more professional. That insight gave us a feeling of liberation. We don’t just have to do email. So we began talking to customers with that in mind.

The change in direction was an organic one and begun by simply altering how they talked to customers.

Mailchimp’s evolution and direction from an “Email Software” to a “Marketing Platform” was confirmed when he told the New York Times:

The next phase of MailChimp, he said, is to become a one-stop shop for the entirety of a small business’s marketing needs.

Case Study:

Adjusting the brand message.

Repositioning an existing brand with a strong and loyal following is not easy.

Repositioning by definition is taking a different position in the market, therefore wanting to mean something different to both your existing audience your new audience.

It’s a balancing act of making your existing customers feel that they’re still the apple of your eye, while holding out your hand to appeal to the broader audience.

Brand Communication For The Bigger Picture

Prior to 2016, communication from Mailchimp was all geared towards role of email in small businesses.

In 2016, it began its transition with simple adjustments to messaging and copy.

They slowly moved away from “What they did” to “The Outcome Of What They Did”.

Instead of their homepage greeting users with the “Easy Email Newsletters” headline, it read “Build Your Brand, Sell More Stuff”.

This was an insight into what was coming in their shift towards helping small business owners to do more of what makes them grow, i.e. “Sell More Stuff”.

Brand Personality & Voice

Since its inception, Mailchimp has presented as a fun and quirky brand that doesn’t take itself too seriously.

Their fun-loving mascot chimp Freddie, hasn’t once dropped his smile and that smile has consistently played out across all channels for 20 odd years.

To trade in that light-hearted unserious approach for a more sophisticated look and tone that comes with expanding market shares and growing revenues.

But Mailchimp is a brand with strong roots.

A Tone Of Voice With A Joke

Any student of branding looking to beef up their skills to develop a tangible tone of voice can look to Mailchimp’s Content Style Guide for inspiration

When they create messages or write copy, this is how they approach it.

We are plainspoken.

We understand the world our customers are living in: one muddled by hyperbolic language, up sells, and over-promises. We strip all that away and value clarity above all. Because businesses come to Mailchimp to get to work, we avoid distractions like fluffy metaphors and cheap plays to emotion.

We are genuine.

We get small businesses because we were one not too long ago. That means we relate to customers’ challenges and passions and speak to them in a familiar, warm, and accessible way.

We are translators.

Only experts can make what’s difficult look easy, and it’s our job to demystify B2B-speak and actually educate.

Our humour is dry.

Our sense of humour is straight-faced, subtle, and a touch eccentric. We’re weird but not inappropriate, smart but not snobbish. We prefer winking to shouting. We’re never condescending or exclusive—we always bring our customers in on the joke.

Case Study:

A creative brand culture.

Mailchimp’s leadership team is driven by innovation.

As Ben Chestnut reflected

I had a subscription to Businessweek. I’d get it and flip to any story about inventive companies

There was always a weirdo pushed into a spare room to invent stuff and drop stuff.

So that’s how I run my business. I only hire weirdos and let them fail all the time

Mailchimp works to create a company culture that sustains a creative, humble, and independent workforce and encourages a healthy work-life balance. Our employees have opportunities to help small businesses grow, attend events, share their work, and take time off to volunteer or learn new skills. And, we’re hiring.

A Quirky Brand Identity

Although the brand retained their tone of voice as they emerged into their new position, their quirkiness within their identity was a shoo-in for the chop.

As cute as Freddie was with his funky man bag and his “can-do” attitude, Mailchimp was moving up in the world the surely couldn’t take Freddie with them.

He was to be shipped off to a farm where he would have space to run around and play with other postal chimps.

After all, this was another tech company in the modern era.

But no, Mailchimp went the opposite way and doubled down on their quirkiness with their “Playful and expressive” or downright outrageous rebrand with the help of Collins branding agency.

The Identity Rebrand:

The logo & wordmark.

We’re delighted that Freddie didn’t get the chop.

He’s alive and well and looking better than ever.

Not only that, his simplified look means he has now become a more central figure and is used generously in any space and on any platform.

The accompanying wordmark is as playful as the brand’s voice and the lowercase “c” contrasting from it’s previous capital appearance further states the brand name as a single component.

The Identity Rebrand Colour Palette

Mailchimp is energetic and fun-loving at heart and no colour sums up those characteristics better than their dominant Cavendish Yellow.

Though the brand has an extensive pallet they are heavily focused on their dominant colour.

Why do they lead so heavily with such a bold colour?

We anchor on a single colour, used with purpose, to drive consistency across all properties.

The Identity Rebrand Typography

Mailchimp has gone against the grain of the technology industry and most brands in the world for that matter with a typeface from the 1920’s.

Cooper Light is a lighter version of the rounded serif typeface designed by Oswald Bruce Cooper in 1919 , which went on to have its heyday in graphic design in the 1970’s.

As Mailchimp highlights,

You may have seen its larger cousin on dusty old funk records and inside questionable sandwich shops.

The Identity Rebrand Illustrative Image Style

Quirky illustrations have become a trend in the technology sector to the point that stock houses have now been flooded with extensive libraries, thus extending the trend.

Thank you for reading.

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Brand Strategy Case Study – The Mailchimp Rebrand

Table of Contents

Brand Strategy Case Study Mailchimp Rebrand

Exploring Mailchimp’s Successful Rebranding

Understanding the need for rebranding.

Mailchimp began as a humble email marketing platform targeting small businesses. With an intuitive interface and affordable pricing, they filled a critical gap for entrepreneurs on tight budgets. As co-founders Ben Chestnut and Dan Kurigius understood firsthand, clunky enterprise software didn’t cater to scrappy startups.

Mailchimp took off quickly. They built strong customer loyalty without much conscious brand strategy. But as revenue tipped over $400 million, Mailchimp realized a rebrand was essential. Why? Their product and customers had evolved faster than their messaging.

Through surveys, Mailchimp saw that customers no longer viewed them as just an email provider. Instead, small businesses saw Mailchimp as a critical tool to seem more professional and build their brands.

This insight was liberating. It meant Mailchimp could expand their services beyond email to help customers “sell more stuff.” But it also revealed how unclear their branding had become. With a larger customer base and product line, Mailchimp struggled to succinctly define their core audience, differentiation, positioning, and messaging.

A rebrand would force Mailchimp to finally distill their brand essence and realign their identity. It offered an opportunity to retain loyal users while appealing to a broader base with a clear, consistent brand platform.

Refocusing their strategy through rebranding was vital for Mailchimp’s next stage of growth. Of course, evolving a beloved brand without alienating existing customers would require some remarkably savvy decision-making.

Mailchimp’s Customer-Driven Evolution

Mailchimp began as an email marketing provider targeting startups and small businesses. But the founders always took a customer-centric approach, using surveys and two-way communication to understand users’ evolving needs.

This feedback revealed that Mailchimp’s clients had outgrown basic email blasts. As brands matured, they wanted Mailchimp to evolve with them into a more expansive marketing platform.

Specifically, small business owners made it clear they saw Mailchimp as more than just an email tool. They viewed Mailchimp as vital to seeming professional, communicating their brand identity, and driving sales.

Empowered by this insight, Mailchimp expanded their capabilities while retaining their branding focus. They adapted their platform and repositioned themselves in the market not simply through innovation, but directly responding to customer demands.

While many brands rebrand to reconnect with audiences, Mailchimp rebranded because their audiences were begging them to grow. Loyal users wanted Mailchimp to facilitate their brand-building, not just email campaigns.

So Mailchimp pivoted from messaging like “Send Better Email” to “Build Better Brands and Sell More Stuff.” This shift hinted at their transition from email provider to comprehensive marketing assistant.

In this way, Mailchimp’s rebranding and repositioning wasn’t about chasing trends or sales. It was about evolving their offering to meet the changing needs of beloved customers. A responsive, customer-centric approach was key to their successful brand transformation.

Staying True to Their Quirky Roots

Despite achieving over $400 million in revenue pre-rebrand, Mailchimp embraced a fun, quirky personality from the start. Their branding oozed self-expression, creativity, and off-beat humor.

Undoubtedly, when preparing their rebrand, advisors pushed Mailchimp to adopt a more “sophisticated” brand image. Major tech players like Google and Spotify had recently rebranded towards sleeker, more conservative aesthetics.

But Mailchimp resisted this pressure. They recognized their playful brand personality *resonated* with users and helped nurture lasting customer relationships.

So while Mailchimp evolved into a fully-fledged marketing platform, they retained their energetic, human personality. Their new branding featured a modernized, but still vibrant visual identity centered around mascot Freddie the Chimp.

Mailchimp even employed their quirky employer brand to continue attracting “weirdos” passionate about the brand. Their work culture empowered staff to take risks and fail fast.

In this way, Mailchimp signaled to long-time users that while offerings expanded, the core brand fans knew and loved remained intact. Mailchimp banked on personality consistency cementing continued loyalty throughout changes.

Rather than chasing trends, Mailchimp tailored rebranding to reinforce their differentiation. Their decision to retain quirky soul mirrors their customer-centric approach. Mailchimp committed to giving loyal users the brand experience they cherished, just modernized.

This commitment to personality helped ensure existing relationships stayed strong amidst Mailchimp’s evolution. Prioritizing recognizable brand essence and emotional connections kept customers embracing growth.

Bucking the Rebranding Trend

When revamping visual identity, most tech players were shifting towards sleeker, more conservative aesthetics. Google, Spotify, Pinterest – sans serif fonts and muted palettes increasingly became the norm.

Mailchimp’s rebrand coincided with this minimalist wave. But while offerings expanded into a full marketing platform, Mailchimp resisted pressure to similarly streamline branding.

They retained beloved mascot Freddie the Chimp as a prominent emblem. Mailchimp also introduced a vibrant new color palette, emphasizing high-energy yellows.

Typography remained playful and lively as well. Mailchimp selected Cooper Light – a funky, characterful font invigorated with unique letter styling.

Illustrations grew more vibrant and eye-catching too. At times almost uncomfortably quirky, these visuals aligned with Mailchimp’s fun-loving essence.

So while competitors sterilized aesthetics, Mailchimp re-committed to courageous design. Their new identity better reflected the brand’s energetic and human personality.

Mailchimp banked on this continuity cementing user loyalty amidst business growth. Though offerings matured, retaining recognizable visual touchpoints ensured the Mailchimp fans cherished remained present.

This consistency provided reassurance. Customers saw Mailchimp was still the approachable, endearing partner they trusted – just more polished. Prioritizing heritage and heart ensured sustained emotional connections as the brand evolved.

Key Takeaways from Mailchimp’s Rebrand

Mailchimp’s evolution reveals crucial rebranding insights. **Most pivotal – brands must understand and respond to user needs.** Mailchimp didn’t rebrand for innovation’s sake, but because clients wanted more comprehensive services.

Regular customer surveys unlocked this demand. Mailchimp then expanded offerings to match. This customer-centric ethos remains integral to operations today.

Mailchimp also shows **personality matters – especially amidst business growth.** Despite advisors pushing for a “sophisticated” rebrand, Mailchimp retained their playful spirit.

Leadership recognized this fun essence strengthened emotional connections. So Mailchimp rebranded to seem more polished, but not at the expense of approachability.

Finally, Mailchimp proves **brands must progress without severing roots.** Mailchimp expanded into a marketing platform, but kept customer relationships central.

And while adopting a bold new visual identity, Mailchimp refused to abandon beloved brand elements like Freddie. This prevented an unfamiliar brand emerging from rapid evolution.

In an ever-changing landscape, Mailchimp reveals key rebranding takeaways:

– Listen to user needs and adapt offerings accordingly – Uphold brand personality – it fosters true user connections – Balance evolution with consistent heritage nods

Get this combination right, and companies can transform to meet contemporary challenges without alienating the core users that fueled initial rise. Mailchimp embodies this rebranding best practice.

Greetings! I’m Jack, founder of Scythos – where I’ve helped over 50 brands transform into unforgettable identities and stunning digital presences. As a brand strategist and creative consultant, I have over a decade of experience taking brands from wallflowers to the centre of attention.

Looking to get your branding noticed and your business thriving? Reach out anytime to brainstorm creative strategies for making your brand impossible to ignore. I love collaborating with passionate entrepreneurs to conceptualize innovative ways to connect with their audiences.

Whether you need help with a logo , website , content or entire rebrand – let’s chat! I’m always eager to share my ideas, creative concepts and expertise to help brands reach the next level. Together, we can make sure your business gets seen and heard. Follow along on social or send me a message to get the conversation started!

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Case Studies: 11 Successful Rebranding Campaigns

Still from GoDaddy's 2013 Super Bowl ad featuring Bar Rafaeli

Successful rebranding campaigns have the power to transform a company’s trajectory, breathing new life into its image, driving customer engagement, and boosting revenue. In today’s competitive market, the ability to evolve and stay relevant is crucial for businesses looking to thrive.

(Image source: Youtube / GoDaddy’s 2013 Super Bowl Commercial featuring Bar Rafaeli)

The rebranding process.

Companies often find themselves at a crossroads where adapting to change becomes imperative. This is where the concept of rebranding emerges as a strategic tool to realign the brand’s identity with its present goals and aspirations. But why do companies opt for rebranding, and what does this process entail?

Reasons for Rebranding

Companies embark on a rebranding journey for various reasons, each stemming from the need to stay relevant and resonate with their target audience. Common reasons for a rebrand include:

Outdated Brand Image : Over time, a brand’s image may become outdated, failing to connect with modern consumers or losing its appeal in the market.
Entering New Markets : When expanding internationally or targeting different demographic segments, rebranding helps in adapting the brand to suit the preferences and expectations of new markets.
Mergers and Acquisitions : In the case of mergers or acquisitions, rebranding is often necessary to create a cohesive identity that represents the newly formed entity.
Staying Relevant in a Changing Industry : Industries evolve rapidly, and companies must keep pace with the latest trends and innovations to remain competitive. Rebranding allows them to signal their adaptability and forward-thinking approach.

Key Components of Rebranding

A successful rebranding strategy involves a meticulous combination of various elements to bring about a coherent and impactful transformation. Key components of rebranding include:

Logo Redesign : The logo is the visual centerpiece of a brand and plays a crucial role in defining its identity. A refreshed logo can convey a new brand philosophy or direction.
Messaging : Clear, compelling messaging is essential for communicating the brand’s values, positioning, and unique selling propositions to its audience.
Brand Voice : The tone and manner in which a brand communicates with its audience define its brand voice. A consistent brand voice helps in building brand recognition and loyalty.
Visual Identity : This encompasses the overall look and feel of the brand, including color schemes, typography, imagery, and design elements. A cohesive visual identity ensures brand consistency across all touchpoints.

By carefully addressing these components, companies can not only revitalize their brand but also forge stronger connections with their target audience, ultimately driving growth and success in a competitive market landscape.

The Impact of Successful Rebranding

The impact of a successful rebranding campaign can be transformative for a company’s market position, customer perception, and financial performance. Let’s delve into how a well-executed rebranding effort can yield significant benefits in enhancing customer trust, loyalty, and engagement, as well as driving notable improvements in financial metrics.

Customer Perception

A well-thought-out rebranding strategy can effectively boost customer perception by signaling growth, innovation, and relevance to the target audience. When a brand undergoes a successful rebranding, it can reinforce customer trust in the company’s products or services, leading to increased loyalty and positive brand sentiment. By refreshing visual identities, messaging, and brand positioning, businesses can resonate better with consumers, fostering deeper connections and emotional engagement.

Financial Performance

Successful rebranding initiatives often translate into tangible financial gains for businesses. Companies that have undertaken strategic rebranding efforts have witnessed substantial increases in sales, market share expansion, and overall revenue growth. For instance, a well-executed rebranding campaign can attract new customers, re-engage existing ones, and differentiate a brand from competitors, driving positive financial outcomes. By aligning branding with evolving market trends and consumer preferences, organizations can achieve sustainable growth and drive profitability.

In conclusion, the impact of successful rebranding extends beyond mere aesthetics; it has the power to reshape customer perceptions, elevate financial performance, and secure a competitive edge in the market. By understanding the significance of a well-planned rebranding strategy, businesses can unlock new opportunities for growth, innovation, and long-term success in today’s dynamic business environment.

Case Studies of Successful Rebranding Campaigns

Meta: Facebook’s Successful Rebranding Journey

Meta, formerly known as Facebook, undertook a significant rebranding effort that caught the attention of the digital world. Let’s delve deeper into how Meta successfully executed this transition and what it means for the future.

A New Identity: Meta’s Vision Unveiled

Meta’s rebranding was more than just a cosmetic change; it symbolized a strategic shift in the company’s direction. By embracing a new name and visual identity, Meta set the stage for its ambitious vision of building the next generation of the internet – the metaverse. This move was pivotal in signaling Meta’s evolution from a social media platform to a technology powerhouse focused on interconnected digital experiences.

Communicating Change: Meta’s Message to the World

One of the key challenges in any rebranding endeavor is effectively communicating the reasons behind the change. Meta tackled this by launching a comprehensive marketing campaign that highlighted the company’s vision for a more connected, immersive digital world. Through a series of ads, press releases, and public statements, Meta aimed to position itself as a leader in shaping the future of online interactions.

Building Momentum: Meta’s Strategic Rollout

Meta’s rebranding wasn’t just a one-time event; it was a carefully orchestrated rollout that spanned across various touchpoints. From updating social media profiles to revamping office spaces with the new brand identity, Meta ensured that every aspect of the transition was seamless and consistent. This approach created a sense of excitement and anticipation among users and stakeholders, further fueling interest in Meta’s vision for the metaverse.

Embracing Challenges: Meta’s Response to Criticisms

While Meta’s rebranding was largely well-received, it also faced its share of criticisms and skepticism. Some questioned the company’s motives behind the move, while others expressed concerns about privacy and data issues. In response, Meta took a proactive stance by addressing these criticisms head-on and reaffirming its commitment to creating safe and secure online experiences. This resilience in the face of adversity showcased Meta’s dedication to transparency and accountability.

Looking Ahead: Meta’s Future in the Metaverse

As Meta continues to pave the way for the metaverse, its rebranding serves as a testament to the company’s bold vision and innovative spirit. By redefining itself beyond just a social media platform, Meta aims to embark on a quest to reshape the digital landscape and create new possibilities for connectivity and collaboration. With its eyes set on the future, Meta is poised to be a game-changer in the evolving digital realm.

In conclusion, Meta’s rebranding to Meta represents more than just a name change; it embodies a transformative shift towards shaping the future of digital interactions. As Meta forges ahead on its journey in the metaverse, the world eagerly awaits to see what groundbreaking innovations and experiences lie ahead.

Starbucks Rebranding

Starbucks, the renowned coffeehouse chain, embarked on a strategic rebranding journey that exemplified innovation and customer-centricity. Let’s delve into how Starbucks revamped its brand to stay relevant in the ever-evolving market landscape.

Evolution of Starbucks Logo

Starbucks’ iconic green and white mermaid logo has undergone several transformations throughout the years. From the original brown coffee-centric design to the current modern, streamlined version, each iteration symbolized the brand’s evolution and adaptability to changing consumer preferences.

Store Redesigns and Customer Experience

Starbucks didn’t just stop at logo redesigns; they also revamped store layouts and ambiance to create a more inviting and immersive customer experience. The introduction of cozy seating areas, free Wi-Fi, and eco-friendly practices reinforced Starbucks’ commitment to sustainability and community engagement.

Expansion into New Product Lines

To cater to a broader audience and diversify its offerings, Starbucks expanded beyond its core coffee products. Introducing items like breakfast sandwiches, specialty teas, and artisanal pastries helped Starbucks establish itself as not just a coffee destination, but a one-stop-shop for a range of culinary delights.

Embracing Technology and Digital Innovation

In a fast-paced, tech-driven world, Starbucks recognized the importance of leveraging digital platforms to enhance customer convenience. The introduction of the Starbucks mobile app for ordering ahead, loyalty rewards, and personalized recommendations showcased Starbucks’ proactive approach to embracing cutting-edge technology.

Starbucks’ successful rebranding efforts serve as a testament to the brand’s resilience and ability to stay ahead in a competitive market landscape. By staying true to its core values of quality, community, and innovation, Starbucks continues to thrive and delight customers worldwide.

Android Rebranding

In recent years, Android has undergone a significant rebranding effort to revamp its image and appeal to a broader audience. Let’s delve into the successful strategies employed during the Android rebranding campaign.

Embracing Simplicity and Modernity

Android’s rebranding journey centered around embracing simplicity and modernity. By streamlining their logo and visual identity, Android aimed to convey a sense of sleekness and sophistication to appeal to tech-savvy consumers.

Enhancing User Experience

A pivotal aspect of Android’s rebranding campaign was its emphasis on enhancing user experience. From intuitive interface redesigns to cohesive app integrations, Android prioritized creating a seamless and user-friendly environment for its users.

Building a Strong Brand Narrative

Android’s rebranding efforts also focused on building a strong brand narrative that resonated with its target audience. By showcasing the evolution of Android through engaging storytelling, the brand effectively created an emotional connection with users, fostering brand loyalty.

Collaborating with Influencers

To amplify its rebranding message, Android strategically collaborated with influencers and brand ambassadors to reach a wider audience. Leveraging the reach and credibility of influencers helped Android increase brand visibility and engagement among tech enthusiasts and the general public alike.

Harnessing Social Media

Android leveraged the power of social media platforms to create buzz around its rebranding campaign. Through captivating visual content, interactive posts, and engaging hashtags, Android effectively generated excitement and anticipation among its followers, driving brand awareness and engagement.

Android’s successful rebranding campaign serves as a testament to the power of strategic branding initiatives in reshaping a brand’s identity and perception. By embracing simplicity, enhancing user experience, building a compelling brand narrative, collaborating with influencers, and leveraging social media, Android achieved a successful rebranding transformation that resonated with its audience and reinforced its position as a leading tech brand in the market.

Instagram: Rebranding Success Story

Instagram, the popular photo-sharing social platform, embarked on a rebranding journey that transformed its image and user experience. Let’s delve into the challenges faced, strategies implemented, and outcomes achieved by Instagram through their successful rebranding campaign.

Challenges Faced

Instagram faced the challenge of evolving in a fast-paced digital landscape while retaining its core identity and user base. The platform needed to stay relevant in a rapidly changing social media landscape, compete with emerging rivals, and adapt to user preferences and trends.

Strategies Implemented

To tackle these challenges, Instagram took a proactive approach by refreshing its brand image and enhancing its features to improve user engagement. The rebranding efforts aimed to create a more seamless and visually appealing user experience, focusing on simplicity and user-friendly design. Instagram leveraged user feedback and data analytics to drive their decisions, ensuring alignment with user preferences.

Outcomes Achieved

The rebranding campaign proved to be a game-changer for Instagram, revitalizing its brand image and strengthening its position in the social media industry. Users were thrilled with the new interface and features, leading to increased user engagement and retention rates. The platform’s rebranding efforts resonated with users, establishing Instagram as a cutting-edge social platform known for its visual appeal and user-friendly interface.

In conclusion, Instagram’s rebranding success story showcases the importance of adapting to change in a dynamic digital landscape while staying true to your core identity. By implementing user-centric strategies and staying ahead of trends, Instagram successfully revamped its image and solidified its position as a leading social media platform.

Harley-Davidson Rebranding

Harley-Davidson, the iconic motorcycle company, undertook a noteworthy rebranding campaign that reshaped its image and connection with the audience. Let’s delve into the key aspects that made this rebranding effort a success.

Understanding the Brand Heritage

At the core of Harley-Davidson’s rebranding strategy was a deep understanding and respect for its rich heritage. By embracing its legacy of quality craftsmanship and a rebellious spirit, the brand was able to retain its loyal customer base while attracting new enthusiasts.

Embracing Innovation and Modernization

While staying true to its roots, Harley-Davidson recognized the importance of innovation and modernization in staying relevant in a rapidly changing market. The company introduced new technologies and designs that appealed to a broader audience without compromising its traditional values.

Engaging with the Community

A pivotal aspect of Harley-Davidson’s rebranding success was its focus on community engagement. By fostering a sense of belonging and camaraderie among its customers, the brand created a loyal following that extended beyond just owning a motorcycle.

Expanding the Product Line

To appeal to a wider demographic, Harley-Davidson expanded its product line to include a diverse range of motorcycles suited for various riding styles and preferences. This strategic move not only attracted new customers but also showcased the brand’s versatility and adaptability.

Harley-Davidson’s rebranding journey serves as a prime example of how a company can reinvent itself while staying true to its core values. By blending tradition with innovation and engaging with its community, the iconic motorcycle brand continues to thrive in an ever-changing market landscape.

GoDaddy Rebranding

GoDaddy, a known domain registrar and web hosting company, went through a significant rebranding process that transformed its image and message to appeal to a broader audience. Let’s delve into the details of how GoDaddy successfully reinvented itself through rebranding.

Understanding the Need for Change

Before delving into the rebranding journey of GoDaddy, it’s essential to understand the initial perception of the brand. GoDaddy was once known for its edgy and controversial advertising campaigns that garnered attention but also led to a polarizing image. Recognizing the need to evolve and move away from this image, GoDaddy decided to embark on a rebranding quest to reshape its identity and resonate better with customers.

Creating a New Brand Identity

During its rebranding process, GoDaddy aimed to shed its previous image and adopt a more customer-centric approach. The company shifted its focus towards empowering entrepreneurs and small businesses, emphasizing their success and growth. By leveraging a more inclusive and empowering narrative, GoDaddy sought to position itself as a valuable partner for individuals looking to establish their online presence.

Revamping Marketing Strategies

As part of the rebranding efforts, GoDaddy overhauled its marketing strategies to align with its new brand identity. The company ditched its provocative advertising tactics in favor of more informative and supportive content that highlighted the value it provides to customers. By embracing a more positive and uplifting tone in its marketing campaigns, GoDaddy aimed to connect with customers on a deeper level and showcase its commitment to their success.

Embracing a Fresh Visual Identity

Apart from refining its messaging and marketing approach, GoDaddy also underwent a visual overhaul to reflect its new brand positioning. The company introduced a modernized logo and brand aesthetic that conveyed a sense of professionalism and reliability. The updated visual identity served as a visual symbol of GoDaddy’s transformation and reinforced its commitment to helping businesses thrive in the digital landscape.

Building Trust and Credibility

Through its rebranding efforts, GoDaddy successfully rebuilt trust and credibility with its target audience. By communicating a clear and consistent brand message centered around empowerment and support, GoDaddy managed to resonate with customers on a more personal level. The renewed focus on customer success and growth not only attracted new users but also retained existing customers by showcasing GoDaddy as a trusted partner in their online journey.

Emphasizing Customer-Centricity

Overall, GoDaddy’s rebranding journey exemplifies the power of customer-centricity and strategic evolution in shaping a brand’s identity. By listening to its audience, understanding their needs, and aligning its messaging and visuals accordingly, GoDaddy managed to revitalize its brand image and secure a stronger position in the market. The successful rebranding of GoDaddy serves as a testament to the importance of staying relevant and resonant with customers in an ever-evolving digital landscape.

Mailchimp Rebranding

Mailchimp, the popular email marketing platform, underwent a significant rebranding effort that caught the attention of many marketers and users alike. Let’s delve into the key aspects of Mailchimp’s successful rebranding campaign to uncover the strategies and impact behind this transformation.

Evolution of the Mailchimp Brand

The Mailchimp rebranding journey began with a deep dive into understanding their audience and market positioning. By conducting thorough market research and gathering user feedback, Mailchimp gained invaluable insights that guided their rebranding decisions. This proactive approach ensured that the rebranding efforts were aligned with the evolving needs and expectations of their users.

Simplifying the Visual Identity

One of the most noticeable changes during Mailchimp’s rebranding was the overhaul of its visual identity. The brand opted for a more streamlined and modern logo, moving away from the intricate details of the previous design. This shift towards simplicity aimed to convey a sense of approachability and user-friendliness, resonating with Mailchimp’s core values.

In addition to visual changes, Mailchimp focused on enhancing the user experience across its platform. Through a series of updates and refinements, users were greeted with a more intuitive interface and enhanced functionalities. This seamless experience not only retained existing users but also attracted new ones looking for a user-centric email marketing solution.

Embracing Brand Personality

Mailchimp’s rebranding was not just about aesthetics; it was a strategic move to reinforce the brand’s unique personality. By infusing elements of fun, creativity, and quirkiness into their brand communication, Mailchimp created a more engaging and memorable brand experience. This shift towards a more human-centric approach helped Mailchimp connect with its audience on a deeper level.

Results and Impact

The success of Mailchimp’s rebranding campaign was evident in the positive reception from users and industry experts. The brand’s refreshed look and feel, coupled with improvements in user experience, solidified Mailchimp’s position as a leading email marketing platform. The rebranding efforts not only reinvigorated the brand but also set the stage for future growth and innovation.

In conclusion, Mailchimp’s rebranding journey serves as a testament to the importance of staying attuned to market trends, user feedback, and brand identity. By embracing change and evolution, Mailchimp was able to revitalize its brand and secure its position in the competitive landscape of email marketing.

McDonald’s Rebranding

McDonald’s, a global fast-food giant, has undergone several rebranding efforts over the years to adapt to changing consumer preferences and stay relevant in a competitive market. Let’s delve into the successful strategies they implemented to revamp their image and appeal to a new generation of customers.

Updating Ambiance and Design

McDonald’s recognized the importance of creating a modern and inviting atmosphere for customers. By revamping their store designs with contemporary aesthetics, comfortable seating options, and interactive touch-screen kiosks for ordering, they aimed to enhance the overall dining experience.

Menu Innovation and Healthier Choices

Acknowledging the shift towards healthier eating habits, McDonald’s diversified its menu offerings to include salads, fruit options, and healthier beverage choices. They also introduced customizable options to cater to individual dietary preferences, showcasing their commitment to providing a variety of options for their customers.

Embracing Technology and Convenience

In a digital age where convenience is key, McDonald’s invested in technological advancements such as mobile ordering, self-service kiosks, and delivery services to streamline the ordering process and cater to the on-the-go lifestyle of their customers. By embracing technology, they not only enhanced customer convenience but also positioned themselves as a forward-thinking brand.

Community Engagement and Sustainability Efforts

McDonald’s focused on building connections with local communities through initiatives like sponsorships, charity events, and eco-friendly practices. By emphasizing sustainability efforts such as recycling, waste reduction, and sourcing locally where possible, they aimed to portray themselves as a responsible corporate citizen committed to making a positive impact.

Through a strategic rebranding approach that prioritized modernization, menu diversification, technological integration, community engagement, and sustainability practices, McDonald’s successfully revitalized its brand image and maintained its position as a beloved fast-food chain in the hearts of consumers worldwide.

Burger King Rebranding

Burger King, the fast-food giant, underwent a significant rebranding campaign to redefine its image in the highly competitive fast-food industry. Let’s dive into the key elements of Burger King’s successful rebranding strategy:

Customer-Centric Approach

Burger King’s rebranding efforts focused on understanding and catering to the evolving preferences of their target audience. By conducting thorough market research and gathering customer feedback, Burger King was able to tailor its offerings to meet the changing needs of consumers.

Enhanced Brand Identity

As part of its rebranding strategy, Burger King revamped its visual identity to create a more modern and dynamic brand image. The introduction of a new logo, vibrant color palette, and contemporary packaging designs helped Burger King stand out in a crowded market.

Menu Innovation

In response to growing demand for healthier food options, Burger King expanded its menu to include a variety of plant-based and healthier alternatives. By offering a diverse range of choices, Burger King not only attracted new customers but also retained existing ones looking for more mindful dining options.

Seamless Digital Experience

Recognizing the shift towards digital platforms, Burger King invested in enhancing its online and mobile ordering systems. By providing a seamless digital experience, including easy-to-use interfaces and convenient payment options, Burger King ensured that customers could access their favorite meals with just a few clicks.

Collaborative Marketing Campaigns

To further elevate its brand visibility, Burger King forged strategic partnerships and collaborations with influencers and other brands. These joint marketing efforts not only increased Burger King’s reach but also solidified its position as an innovative and culturally relevant brand.

By implementing these key strategies, Burger King successfully rebranded itself, resonating with a new generation of consumers while maintaining its loyal customer base.

Dominos Rebranding

Dominos, a well-known pizza chain, embarked on a remarkable journey of rebranding that caught the attention of consumers worldwide. Let’s delve into how Dominos transformed its image and marketing strategies to revitalize its brand.

The Challenge

Several years ago, Dominos faced a wave of negative feedback regarding the quality of their pizzas. Many customers were dissatisfied with the taste and overall experience, leading to a decrease in sales and a tarnished reputation. Dominos needed to address these concerns and overhaul its brand perception.

Revamping the Menu

Dominos took a bold step by revamping its menu and improving the quality of their ingredients. They introduced new recipes, better sauces, and fresher toppings to enhance the taste of their pizzas. This strategic move aimed to address the core issue of customer dissatisfaction and set Dominos apart from competitors.

Transparency and Communication

In an effort to rebuild trust with customers, Dominos adopted a transparent communication strategy. They launched campaigns that openly acknowledged past shortcomings and promised a new and improved dining experience. By being honest and open about their challenges, Dominos was able to connect with consumers on a deeper level.

Embracing Technology

Dominos leveraged technology to streamline the ordering process and enhance customer convenience. They introduced innovative features like online ordering, pizza tracking, and mobile apps to cater to the evolving needs of consumers. This tech-savvy approach not only improved customer satisfaction but also positioned Dominos as a modern and customer-centric brand.

Results and Success

The rebranding efforts of Dominos paid off significantly. The company saw a substantial increase in sales, customer satisfaction levels soared, and Dominos successfully repositioned itself as a quality-driven and customer-focused pizza provider. This success story showcases the power of strategic rebranding in transforming a brand’s image and driving business growth.

Dominos’ rebranding journey serves as a prime example of how a company can overcome challenges, revamp its image, and regain consumer trust through strategic marketing initiatives. By focusing on quality, transparency, and innovation, Dominos not only turned the tide on negative perceptions but also emerged as a leading player in the competitive pizza industry.

Airbnb: Transformation through Rebranding

Airbnb’s journey through rebranding exemplifies a strategic shift that revolutionized its market presence. Delving into their successful transformation sheds light on the pivotal decisions that reshaped their brand narrative and positioned them as a game-changer in the travel industry.

Embracing Authenticity: A New Narrative Unfolds

Airbnb’s rebranding journey was not merely a cosmetic makeover but a deep dive into their core values. By crafting a narrative centered around authenticity, they invited travelers to embark on a quest for unique experiences rather than mundane stays. This shift in focus from mere accommodation to immersive travel experiences unraveled a whole new world of possibilities for both hosts and guests.

Designing a Seamless User Experience

One of the key pillars of Airbnb’s rebranding success was the seamless user experience they offered. The user interface underwent a significant overhaul, making it intuitive and user-friendly. Navigating through listings became a breeze, and the booking process was streamlined to enhance the overall customer journey. This fast-paced approach to user-centric design set Airbnb apart in a cluttered online booking landscape.

Building Community Connections: The Heart of Airbnb

Central to Airbnb’s rebranding strategy was the emphasis on building a global community. They leveraged their platform not just as a booking site but as a social network connecting hosts and guests worldwide. This shift from a transactional model to a community-led approach fostered resilience in the face of market challenges. Travelers were thrilled to be part of a larger narrative, making every trip a chance to connect with like-minded individuals.

In conclusion, Airbnb’s transformation through rebranding was a testament to the power of storytelling and user-centric design. By embracing authenticity, designing a seamless user experience, and nurturing a sense of community, Airbnb redefined the travel experience for millions worldwide. This evolution serves as a blueprint for companies looking to pivot and thrive in an ever-evolving market landscape.

Best Practices for a Successful Rebranding Campaign

Embarking on a rebranding journey requires meticulous planning and strategic execution to ensure success. Let’s delve into some essential best practices that can guide businesses towards a successful rebranding campaign.

Research and Planning

Thorough research and planning form the bedrock of any successful rebranding initiative. Before initiating any changes, it’s pivotal to conduct comprehensive market research to gain insights into industry trends, competitor strategies, and customer preferences. Understanding your target audience’s needs and expectations is paramount in shaping a rebranding strategy that resonates with them. Setting clear and measurable objectives for your rebranding effort will provide a roadmap for progress and success.

Consistent Brand Messaging

Maintaining consistent messaging across all touchpoints is crucial during a rebranding process. Your brand’s messaging should reflect its values, vision, and unique selling propositions cohesively. Whether it’s updating your website, social media profiles, or marketing materials, ensuring a seamless transition of messaging helps in reinforcing brand identity and building trust with customers. Consistency breeds familiarity, which is key to a successful rebranding campaign.

Engagement and Communication

Transparent communication is the cornerstone of effective rebranding. Engaging with stakeholders, employees, and customers throughout the rebranding journey fosters trust and builds excitement around the changes. Clearly communicate the reasons behind the rebrand, the intended outcomes, and how it aligns with the brand’s mission. Solicit feedback, address concerns, and keep all parties informed at every stage of the process. Engaging your audience in the rebranding process transforms them from passive observers to active participants, creating a sense of ownership and loyalty towards the brand.

By incorporating these best practices into your rebranding strategy, you can steer your brand towards a successful transformation that resonates with your audience and sets you apart in the market. Stay proactive, communicate openly, and align your brand messaging consistently to create a rebranding campaign that leaves a lasting impact.

Challenges in Rebranding

Navigating a rebranding journey presents numerous challenges that can either make or break a company’s image and perception. Let’s dive into two key hurdles that companies often face during the rebranding process:

Brand Equity Concerns

Preserving existing brand equity while embarking on a rebranding initiative is a delicate balance. There’s a looming risk of alienating loyal customers or diluting the strong market position achieved over the years. Strategies to mitigate these potential negative impacts involve thorough research and a phased approach.

One effective strategy is to conduct in-depth market analysis to understand the current brand perception and identify areas that resonate with customers. By aligning the rebranding efforts with the elements that customers value most, companies can safeguard their brand equity while infusing freshness into their image.

Internal Resistance and Alignment

Internal buy-in from employees is paramount for the success of any rebranding campaign. However, garnering support and ensuring alignment with the new brand vision can be a formidable challenge. Resistance may stem from attachment to the old brand, fear of change, or uncertainty about the future.

To address internal resistance, clear communication of the reasons behind the rebranding, along with transparent insights into the benefits it brings, is crucial. Involving employees in the rebranding process, seeking their feedback, and providing training to align their understanding with the new brand direction can help foster alignment and overcome resistance within the organization.

In conclusion, the challenges in rebranding, such as brand equity concerns and internal resistance, require a strategic and holistic approach. By addressing these obstacles proactively and fostering alignment at all levels, companies can navigate the turbulent waters of rebranding with confidence and emerge stronger on the other side.

Successful rebranding campaigns have the power to revitalize a business, attract new audiences, and drive growth. By showcasing real-world examples of rebranding success stories, we have seen how strategic changes in branding can lead to increased visibility, enhanced credibility, and ultimately, improved profitability. It is clear that rebranding is not just about a new logo or slogan; it is a strategic opportunity for businesses to evolve and stay ahead in a competitive market. As we wrap up our exploration of successful rebranding campaigns, let these case studies inspire you to consider rebranding as a powerful tool for growth and transformation in your own business journey.

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3 Memorable Rebranding Case Studies: Oatly, Mailchimp, Airbnb

February 23, 2023

We live in a fast-paced society and it feels like every other day there's a new trend that every business should simply start following. Not only we have to keep up with exterior changes but also the ones that come from within. You might think that the shiny lustre of your brand has worn off and you start to wonder if it still reflects who you are and most importantly, if will take you where you strive to go.

Staying fresh while true to your essence is quite challenging and even the biggest companies in the world have evolved their brand identity to keep up with it all. Some of them got it so right that it almost feels impossible to remember how they were before.

Here are 3 memorable rebranding case studies:

1. Mailchimp

Back in 2018, Mailchimp announced its rebrand done in partnership with US-based agency Collins. Claiming they didn't want to lose their heritage in the process, they set out to hold on to the essence of what Mailchimp has always been in its core, retaining the weird and lovable elements that made customers fell in love with them in the first place.

Before, the logo script and Freddie (the cute chimp, yes, it has a name) had hierarchy issues and were never used together, leading the icon to not always be recognisable on its own. That is no longer the issue with the new visual identity as they have built equity for both through an iteration and refinement process. The single colour treatment given to Freddie makes the logo more functional and modern.

Why we love it:

They dialed up the brand's essence and its lovely quirkiness. The brand still evokes the same feeling, but the whole visual identity feels very up to date and simply cool.

You probably don't even remember Airbnb's old logo, right? Quickly designed by one of the founders back in the day, it was the typical start-up logo. Once the company started to grow, the intention was to increase brand awareness with a logo that could perform well with mainstream audiences. In order to achieve that, the whole brand had to change. Behind the new positioning was the idea of belonging and the icon developed was an abstraction of four principles: people, places, love and Airbnb. Even the colour used was bespoke and named after the street it all begin, evoking the sense of emotion and passion through and though. Simplicity was key here, the logo itself is easy to recognise and reproduce, and completely time-proof.

They sure did not cut corners. All the elements were considered to perpetuate their emotional message and it has proven extremely effective as they are at the forefront of consumers’ minds due to their soulful essence, creating strong and emotional brand associations.

A Dutch oat milk brand that started on the 90's, Oatly has come a long way. When they decided they wanted a rebrand, they knew just changing the logo simply wouldn't cut it as the brand was simply invisible. By bringing new people along with no experience on the food industry whatsoever, the insight was that the product was great and it had the potential to be a brand that could actually weave into people's lives, provided they could find their voice. As they didn't have the budget to advertise, they invested on changing the package completely and it became their key marketing driver. It was a bold move, as it could have confused customers, but it completely paid off. Every side of the packaging offers something interesting to read, and they use smart and witty copy to bring out their narrative. The legal side? They call it ''the boring side''. They speak broadly about their beliefs, are not afraid to stand up on social media about race, gender inequality and everything that is wrong with the food farming system. No wonder they were successful in raising $200 million earlier this month, with Oprah as one of their investors.

Oatly was brave enough to completely re-invent themselves, or rather, create a new path for themselves, stay very authentic and true to their core beliefs. They understand the brand as something way deeper than simply a logo and invested largely on smart copywriting to get people's attention without feeling pushy.

Rebranding can not be taken lightly. It’s meant to help brands thrive and not just survive. Embrace the change and commit yourself to your culture, clients and bottom line. And if you need a hand, we are here for you.

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Popular Rebranding Case Studies for Inspiration

Category: Case Study blogs Redesign

Date: April 30, 2024

Popular Rebranding Case Studies for Inspiration

Establishing a compelling brand is pivotal for any business, and comprehending the intricacies of branding can be complex. It’s essential not only to understand your brand identity but also how customers perceive your products and services. Exploring brand case studies provides valuable insights, uncovering potential growth avenues based on the triumphs of other businesses. Leveraging the expertise of a reputable digital marketing company can further amplify your brand’s impact through strategic digital marketing services .

Did You Know?

It takes 5 to 7 impressions for people to remember a brand. And what if you were to rebrand the existing one?

Popular companies that were looking to rebrand often found it difficult because the old name was already established. The problem with this is when you are trying not only to establish your new brand but also live up the expectations of existing customers who have grown accustomed to buying from that particular business or industry category over time.

A lot goes down during this step: from researching companies’ history (both past successes/failures), coming up with new ideas about logo designs .

Here at ColorWhistle , we have curated a list of popular (non popular but useful ones too) rebranding case studies that you can refer to, when you are looking to rebrand your brand.

Inspirational Rebranding Case Studies

The rebranding process is a lot like an organism that evolves over time. The goal for any brand, whether they’re doing well or not so much in their market space, is to be able to find ways of improving on what’s already there and sometimes this means changing how you look from head-to toe!

As seen with many brands who’ve gone through major transformations such as Nike Inc., Redbull, Target etc.. Let’s have a look at some popular rebranding case studies to have a better vision of what worked and what was the thought process behind rebranding.

Animal Planet

The new logo and tagline for Animal Planet is “Bringing people up close in every way,” which really tells the channel’s story. The graphic reflects this mission statement with an elephant, just representing the mood of the brand!

Case Study Link

Animal Planet has been a much-loved brand around the world for more than 20 years and the time has never been more right to engage with mass audiences across every platform who are as passionate about animals as we are.

– Susanna Dinnage, Animal Planet’s Global President

Rebranding Case Study Inspirations (Evernote) - ColorWhistle

Rejuvenating a well-loved brand is no easy task. But it’s critical to ensure that the refreshed, revitalized product resonates with customers and speaks directly at their hearts in order for them not only stay loyal but increasingly come back again and recommend your business or organization to others.

Your products should reflect what you stand for as an organization so they can speak volumes about who are trying new things while still holding true on key values like quality, durability & affordability; also ensuring there’s room left over just because people want more than anything else truly meaningful when engaging digitally these days

Evernote’s brand rejuvenation is a clear example of well crafted rebranding strategy.

Throughout the process of evolving our brand, we have looked to our past for inspiration for our future. We started as a place to remember everything, and that will never go away. Our brand now reflects our broader purpose.

– Chris O’Neill, Evernote’s CEO

Mailchimp’s branding was a bit outdated and they needed a complete rebranding. They also wanted their website updated so customers could find them easily on different devices like tablets or smartphones instead of just desktop computers.

With this redesign, we set out to retain all the weird, lovable elements that endeared our earliest customers to Mailchimp, while creating space for the brand to grow and connect with even more small businesses. We didn’t want to lose our heritage in the process, so we focused on capturing the essence of what Mailchimp has always been.

– Mailchimp’s Blog

The Ruby Mills

Rebranding Case Study Inspirations (Ruby) - ColorWhistle

Ruby Mills teamed with a digital agency to rebrand itself and showcase it as a part of the new trending modern digital space. The logo was refurbished to reaffirm the legacy of the brand in a contemporary manner, and yet keeping the visual language flexible enough for digital (online) & offline media and product representation.

The brand name connoted preciousness and gave us a solid foundation to work with. The new identity was found completely aligned to the Ruby legacy and its progressive future.

– Elephant Design, Digital Agency

Rebranding Case Study Ideas (Slate) - ColorWhistle

Slate’s Logo needed a revamp as their logo was outdated and needed a refresh to match the new industry standards. The logo was reimagined and cleaned up for a more distinct look. The “A” is being revealed, uncovering its true form in an elegant manner that hints at all those who have come before it.

Our approach was to visualize Slate’s story-making process with a language that feels like sifting through the news, looking for hidden clues and cracking the code that blows open the case.

– Gretelny, Design Studio

Rebranding Case Study Inspirations (Uber) - ColorWhistle

Uber was famous for its inverted U in their logo and when they decided they needed a brand refresh, There were mixed responses and yet Uber’s logo refresh was a very significant one with more sophisticated typography and branding elements.

Molly Watson, the director of the verbal identity at Wolff Olins San Francisco, said the new logo was designed to represent Uber’s growth and security.

Rebranding Case Study Ideas (Dunkin) - ColorWhistle

The name dunkin itself reminds us of their bright colors and their fresh look in branding. While rebranding they took a big decision of letting go their second word which is donuts and made a more crispier logo that’s even more recognizable and carried their legacy.

The new branding, developed in partnership with new creative and branding agencies Jones Knowles Ritchie (JKR), BBDO New York and Arc Worldwide, is one part of Dunkin’s multi-faceted blueprint for growth, a plan designed to transform the company into the premier beverage-led, on-the-go brand.

– news.dunkindonuts.com

Rebranding Case Study Inspirations (Dropbox) - ColorWhistle

When you’re just starting out, it is enough to create a single image for your company. But as soon as growth starts happening at an impressive rate and new employees start calling in with questions about how things work or what their function might be within the organization, you need to be more aware of how the brand fits the industry. Dropbos decided on a revamp that didn’t change much but yet created an impact.

Our new illustration style picks up where our earliest style—loose, handmade, witty—left off,” write creative director Aaron Robbs and VP of Design Nicholas Jitkoff.

Rebranding Case Study Ideas (Slack) - ColorWhistle

Slack always had an eye of detail in their logo. The hash in their logo was very popular for the kind of brand it was. Yet slack decided to rebrand and give a fresh look to their logo to adapt more into the trend and industry. The new logo looked fresh and more adaptable to the brand statement of Slack

It uses a simpler color palette and, we believe, is more refined, but still contains the spirit of the original. It’s an evolution, and one that can scale easily, and work better, in many more places.

– Slack Team

Rebranding Case Study Inspirations (Intel) - ColorWhistle

Intel with the ring is what comes to mind when one thinks about the brand. Intel decided to give a brand refresh while continuing their brand vision and brand statement. They believed that this refresh will help them connect more to their customers and do something wonderful.

The new logo represents a dramatic simplification of the Intel brand identity. Crafted with an underlying geometry, the logo has a refined symmetry, balance, and proportion that is understated and iconic.

– Team Intel

Rebranding Case Study Ideas (Paypal) - ColorWhistle

PayPal is a digital payments company known for its bold and progressive innovations. With all the exciting changes in the industry, they considered creating an even more creative expression of PayPal—the original innovator that started it all!

“At PayPal, we always strive to lead as a revolutionary brand. With our rapidly changing environment, we must create based on the needs and changes in the marketplace,” said Christina Smedley, vice president, Global Brand and Communications, PayPal.

Looking for Website Redesign Services?

Seize and experience the transformative impact of Website Redesign Services & Solutions with ColorWhistle.

The importance of branding/rebranding case studies to understand the process cannot be overstated.

These case studies provide an excellent and detailed look at how different brands were able to successfully navigate their own unique challenges, which will ultimately translate into success for your business in various aspects ranging from digital marketing efforts through customer service interactions with clients or employees alike!

Looking for rebranding services? Contact Us

The rebranding process is a lot of work, but it’s worth the effort. Case studies show that when you take on this challenge and succeed in your goal to make an improved version of who we were before-only then will people see how great the new branding really does help to achieve better positioning within markets.

This is where website redesign packages come in. Our packages can help you create a website that seamlessly integrates your new branding, strengthens your customer experience, and drives results. The benefits extend beyond just business leaders – a well-designed website empowers your entire team with a clear and consistent brand message.

-Sankar, CEO at ColorWhistle

In quest of the Perfect Website Redesign Solutions Buddy?

Be unrestricted to click the other trendy writes under this title that suits your needs the best!

Website Redesign Journey of ColorWhistle – How We Achieved 100% Performance!
Web Application Redesign – Things to Consider Before Starting
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ColorWhistle's content team is a group of rockstar writers and curators who create killer content for clients across industries. From blog posts to social media campaigns, ColorWhistle's content team creates content that captivates audience with content that educates, entertains, and inspires. With a passion for creativity and expertise in digital marketing, the team has what it takes to make your brand stand out in a crowded online space. In short, they're the wordsmith wizards that you want on your side for content that on-brand and on-trend.

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Rebranding: What it is, Why it’s Important, Strategies, and Examples [2024]

Most entrepreneurs and business owners juggle many priorities when starting a new business. Branding often takes a back seat.

Unfortunately, most business owners learn that weak branding undermines their efforts to grow their businesses.

If this happens to you and your business, you are not alone.

You may need to rebrand .

What is rebranding?

Rebranding is a strategy that involves changing a company's corporate image or organization by developing a new name, symbol, logo, and related visual assets like marketing materials. The goal of rebranding is to create a new and differentiated brand identity in the minds of consumers, investors, prospects, competitors, employees, and the general public.

Over the past fifteen years, our team has helped thousands of entrepreneurs, small businesses, and agencies create and improve their branding and to rebrand and evolve their visual identities. We’ve keynoted numerous conferences and webinars on rebranding and frequently write and talk about branding and rebranding on our blog and at conferences.

This guide shares the actionable insights, tips, best practices, and expertise we’ve developed after helping over one hundred thousand of the world’s most successful brands.

Why is rebranding necessary?

Companies evolve, and often, to stay competitive, they must evolve their brand and branding . This happens for many reasons.

You might no longer love your company logo , or your brand aesthetic speaks to your company’s values and products.
You might be expanding your business scope and entering a new market, and your business name is too limiting.
Or, you might have realized that your brand isn’t doing a good enough job of differentiating you in the marketplace.

The truth is that many companies, including some of the most successful, rebrand.

We’ve seen this regularly with rebrands by Dunkin’ Donuts, Weight Watchers, Uber , Unilever, and many more companies.

Rebranding can work wonders for any business struggling to modernize, differentiate itself from its competition, or even escape a lackluster reputation, as was the case in Uber’s rebrand .

When should a company consider rebranding?

Rebranding can be complicated and does introduce some risks and costs. Although rebranding doesn’t require a complete brand overhaul (you don’t have to change your company name to rebrand, for example), you must make meaningful changes to build a new brand identity when you rebrand.

So assess carefully whether a rebrand is right for you and whether this is the right time to rebrand your business. The right rebranding strategy can put new energy into your business, but it needs to complement your overall business strategy and marketing strategy .

Companies should rebrand to differentiate themselves from competitors better

Young businesses often don’t understand branding’s importance and turn to generic templates or non-custom designs to build their initial brand.

A generic logo, like the one you get from an online logo generator or logo store, will hurt your business .

Generic branding is problematic because it leaves businesses competing against others with similar-sounding names and nearly identical logo designs. Brand recognition is difficult when many brands look the same.

It’s impossible to build brand loyalty if your customers and prospective customers can’t differentiate your brand from your competitors, especially if your product offerings are identical or similar.

Rebranding strategies are rarely included in business plans because entrepreneurs don’t anticipate they’ll need to rebrand.

But, too many businesses cut corners in building their initial brand identity and must rebrand to evolve and grow.

Following a smart rebranding strategy, rebranding can allow your business to stand out from your competition by showcasing to your target audience the things that make your company different and better. Rebranding lets you tell a stronger brand story .

For example, did you know that Google started with the name Backrub? Amoco started with the name Standard. Accenture started as Andersen Consulting.

It’s not unusual for a company to quickly outgrow its name, change its strategy, and look for a fresh, unique business name that can help grow its business and gain market share.

When should you rename your business?

While we strongly advise against changing your business name just because you’re in the mood for something new, there are times when it’s in your business’s best interest to take the plunge. Here are four reasons to consider renaming your business and 7 tips to help you pull it off successfully.

Companies should rebrand to give new life to outdated branding

Maybe your business has been around for a long time. If so, your 90s color palette may drag your brand down and make your business look outdated. And, maybe your branding isn’t a good fit with your modern company culture.

It can be tough to evolve your branding materials to keep up with rapidly shifting design and technology trends.

However, to compete in the modern business climate and avoid losing market share, one thing is clear: Businesses must adapt or get left behind.

Modernizing your brand image is important to turning your business around and accelerating growth. Every day you continue operating with an outdated brand identity sets you further behind your competitors.

This is especially true when competing on social media sites like Instagram with professionally designed brands that stand out among generic brands.

When your branding no longer fits your brand, you must develop a new strategy to evolve your brand. If this is the reason you’re rebranding, you’ll want to consider a complete brand overhaul and create a new, modern brand identity.

Even the most successful businesses rebrand, especially when brand recognition decreases, and their target audience favors competitors.

Smart companies rebrand because they know that good design can make or break your business .

Failing to evolve your business brand is a critical branding mistake that can hurt your business.

Companies should rebrand when they outgrow their original mission

Maybe your business started selling personalized t-shirts, but now you want to expand your market share and product offerings by adding customized coffee mugs and other products. If your branding and brand strategy revolves around t-shirts, your target audience probably won’t know they can look to you for mugs, too. That creates an identity crisis that you can easily solve.

So, regularly ask yourself whether your customer profile has changed, and when it has, rebrand to target a new customer profile.

This is a common problem; we advise clients to ensure their business name is not too narrow or literal. That way, you avoid limiting yourself to future growth opportunities.

Companies should rebrand to outgrow their poor reputation

We recently wrote about Uber’s successful rebranding efforts. Uber faced widespread backlash from their target audience about their toxic company culture and how it treated its drivers. It started conceding market share to Lyft, its main competitor.

Uber’s complete brand overhaul was necessary to break ties with its bad reputation, overcome an identity crisis, and visibly demonstrate a commitment to a new, improved culture. Uber’s new brand story focused on how its culture changed and its renewed focus on drivers and passengers.

If your business struggles to overcome a negative reputation, a rebrand can help consumers see you in a fresh new light and regrow brand loyalty. In this case, brand recognition might not be decreasing, but the rebrand would turn negative brand recognition into neutral or positive brand recognition.

But don’t assume you can simply change your company name, and your brand strategy will be complete. Rebranding involves much more than just changing the name of a company. Rebranding requires you to take a fresh look at your overall business strategy.

Companies should rebrand when their business evolves

Sometimes, a business is presented with an opportunity to expand or target a new market, expand its product offerings, and increase its market share.

When that happens, it’s important that your new customers and prospects can connect with your brand.

That’s what happened with Pabst Blue Ribbon.

Pabst Blue Ribbon brings to mind some things: frat guys and hipsters in the US.

It’s not exactly a sophisticated association.

Did you know China’s PBR version – the stately-sounding Pabst Blue Ribbon 1844 – sells for $44 a bottle?

Pabst saw a chance to re-market itself to the Chinese craft beer market – a market unaware of its budget reputation in the US.

By doing their homework, Pabst expanded into a new market demographic and significantly grew its market share.

Other reasons companies should consider rebranding

There are other major reasons you might consider a rebrand in your marketing strategy. These include:

Mergers and acquisitions. When two companies merge, they must decide whether to operate or join the brands. If they want to combine the brands, they can decide to operate under an existing brand identity or create a combined new brand identity to build trust, develop new brand recognition, and prevent confusion . Sometimes, a partial rebrand is good enough.
Market repositioning. If you reposition your business to go after a different market segment because you’ve changed pricing, the quality of your products, your product offerings, or target audience , you will need to consider a rebrand to gain market share. Market repositioning is a common reason to rebrand because your old marketing materials and visual design will be useless or much less effective if you reposition your brand.
New markets or locations. If you’re expanding to new geographic markets, especially international ones, you must consider whether your brand is a good fit for those new markets. Sometimes, you must create a new business name and logo to sell products or services in new markets.
New mission or vision for your business . If your mission , vision, or values have changed, you must reevaluate and modify your branding.
Overcome a public relations crisis. Although this is rarely a good idea, a rebrand can help you overcome a public relations identity crisis that tarnished your existing brand and diminished your market share. Comcast did this when it created the Xfinity brand to overcome an identity crisis with its original brand. Uber recently did this to overcome a ton of bad publicity about its management-operated business. When rebranding to overcome a public relations crisis, a partial rebrand is rarely enough.

Reasons companies should avoid rebranding

There are also many good reasons you should not rebrand:

Unwillingness to rebrand all your visual assets. If you just want a new business name and logo and are not prepared to update your company’s visual assets to the new brand, you will confuse your customers and prospective customers.
You get bored with your existing brand. Boredom is rarely a good reason to rebrand. Like Coca-Cola, some of the world’s most successful brands have maintained a consistent brand for decades. Consistency is one reason customers fall in love with a brand, so be careful to change things simply because you want to see something new.
New management wants to leave a mark. A new CEO or chief marketing officer might think rebranding is a quick solution to showing that the company is taking a new direction. But this is rarely helpful unless the rebrand is accompanied by big institutional changes that reflect this new direction.

How to rebrand:

Start by understanding your mission, vision, and values
Have a complete rebranding strategy that works with your existing branding
Consider your audience, the market, and your competition
Collaborate with your team
Rename your business
Rebuild your brand identity
Manage the rebrand carefully
Launch your rebrand and tell the world

1. Start by understanding your mission, vision, and values

Before you rebrand, it’s crucial that you clearly understand your company’s mission, vision, and values.

Consider and assess what makes your company special. Why does your company exist, and what values are essential?

What is your company’s brand voice? The words, tone, and voice you use for your brand must match your messaging.

These form the foundation that gives you a solid base to build your new brand.

No rebrand can be successful without this foundation.

2. Have a complete rebranding strategy that works with your existing branding

While things are more straightforward if you’re tossing everything out and starting from scratch, many companies don’t have the luxury of starting from a clean slate.

If you’re doing a partial rebrand, make sure to take the existing brand assets into account as you build your brand strategy. You want a rebrand that lives holistically with what already exists.

Be sure any new updates to your branding are consistent with the brand elements you’re keeping.

For example, if you have an existing product package design or package graphics , update those to reflect your new brand.

BrandExtract, a branding firm with over a century of experience, explains the importance of maintaining consistent branding:

A consistent brand helps increase the overall value of your company by reinforcing your position in the marketplace, attracting better quality customers with higher retention rates and raising the perceived value of your products or services….In contrast, erratic, inconsistent behavior quickly leads to confusion and mistrust.

3. Consider your brand’s audience, the market, and your competition

Before you rebrand, do your due diligence.

Research what your competition does. Determine how you stand apart from your competitors and what your true value proposition is.

Examine what’s hot (and what’s not) in brand fads. Be aware of what’s trendy, and ensure you adopt a trend that makes sense for your company.

Your new brand image must be fresh and relevant but not so of the moment that it ends up looking dated too quickly.

It’s too easy to make a mistake during rebranding and lose market share when you make mistakes in your rebranding strategy. Rebranding and brand recognition are part art and part science.

Consider, among other things, testing your rebranding assets with your customer base and your target audience through focus groups.

Want to avoid a rebranding failure?

Even smart companies run into rebranding failures. Read about 5 major rebranding failures and what you can learn from them.

4. Collaborate with your team

Your brand may be one of your most important company assets, but just as valuable are the people who help grow your business daily.

Your marketing strategy should account for those people.

Include voices from across your company: some of the best ideas and most valuable feedback are found in departments you might not expect.

It’s easier to rally your company behind a rebrand that was a true “team effort.” Give your employees a say. They will be the faces and voices representing your brand to your customers.

5. Rename your business during a rebrand

Here are some of the most common reasons to consider a name change and a new business name:

Trademark issues. Occasionally more than one company has the same name. Or, the names are so similar that they may as well be the same. When this occurs, there’s a good chance that one of those companies will get a cease-and-desist letter requesting that they stop using that name. And it’s no wonder why – your business will lose a lot of money if someone else operates under the same name as yours. You are disadvantaged if another business with your name is caught up in a scandal. The resulting reputation blow will affect your business as well! In such cases, a name change will solve the problem.
Your Business name no longer reflects your business. Businesses grow and change over time. Some business names are adaptable enough to survive this growth. Others are not. If your business has outgrown its name, it may be time to think about a name change.
Your business name is not unique. Your business name needs to stand out. Generic names like “Publishing Services” or “Professional Tax Accountants” don’t help differentiate you from the competition. And they certainly aren’t memorable. So, even if you deliver fantastic service, well-meaning customers may get your name wrong when asked for referrals. Or they may not remember it at all. Your word-of-mouth marketing will suffer. And so will your web marketing.
Your business name is confusing or hard to spell. If your business name is confusing or hard to spell, customers may not find you. It’s that simple. A business name that doesn’t make sense and confuses consumers won’t be remembered.

How to rename your business

A name change requires a lot of thought and work. Not just on your part but for your customers, too. They’ve gotten to know your old brand and are being asked to unlearn all of that and start over.

So, this time around, follow these tips to name or rename your business to help ensure that your new name serves your business well in the long run.

Here are a few other business name ideas.

Start with your brand

Your business name should be an extension and representation of your brand essence. It should embody the public identity you want your business to present. So, start by thinking about your brand.

What does your business do?
What does your business stand for?
How is your business different from your competition?
What is your brand’s personality? (Quirky, Solemn, Formal, Playful, Aggressive, Warm)
What is your unique value proposition ?

Take your time and seriously consider what your brand is now . You knew your old brand and may be tempted to blow through this process. Don’t.

If you’re changing your business name, enough has changed that you need to take the time to rediscover what your brand is today.

Make sure the new business name is easy to pronounce and spell

In the age of Google and the Internet of Things, your business must be easy to find online.

A business name that is easy to pronounce and spell will serve you well.

Don’t make it harder to find you with an unpronounceable name or a name even Rhodes Scholars can’t spell. As in all aspects of your business, make your name easy for your customers. Otherwise, brand recognition will suffer.

Avoid business names that are too narrow and too wide

Choose a unique but flexible name to allow your business room to grow.

Review your prospective names to ensure you avoid the following traps:

Names linked to specific technologies are likely to become outdated (remember Radio Shack?)
names with a focus so narrow that they preclude future evolution (i.e., “Just Cabinets”)
geographical references that may make your business seem irrelevant in a broader market
broad or generic names without personality that don’t tell consumers anything about your brand

Ideally, your new name should be specific and memorable and adaptable to all future business growth.

Don’t forget to differentiate your business name

Do you know who your competitors are?

You should because they’re the companies selling to your customers.

Your new business name must help your brand stand out from those competitors. So, get to know who they are. And then choose a name that can’t be confused with theirs.

Otherwise, you’ll return to this renaming rodeo again before you know it.

Get your logistical ducks in a row

Renaming your business isn’t just a creative branding endeavor – it’s also a practical one.

Here’s a quick list of logistical chores you’ll need to complete to ensure that you can legally operate under your new business name and protect that business name from competitors.

Ensure the name is trademarkable (Check the Trademark Electronic Search System (TESS) on the USPTO website ).
Check to see if an appropriate domain name is available. We recommend searching here .
Register the new name with your state and/or the Federal Trademark Commission. You can read up on the basics of trademarking here and research the requirements for your state here .
Update or amend any legal documents to reflect your new name.
Register as a Doing Business As (DBA) where required. We recommend checking DBA state requirements for all 50 U.S. states and territories.
Notify the IRS of your new name.

Also, consider revising your brand slogan or business tagline when you rename your business.

A tagline is supposed to communicate to your customers and potential customers what sets you apart from your competition and your brand’s focus. A business tagline is an important part of your company’s brand identity and helps you leverage marketing psychology to help people fall in love with your unique brand.

How to create a great business tagline

Need help crafting the perfect business tagline? Here's a look at the most influential and popular taglines from the past 50 years, plus 10 tips to help you craft a great tagline for your business or organization.

6. Rebuild your brand identity

When you rebrand, you might be tempted to retain old brand elements like your logo, color palette , etc.

Sometimes, this is appropriate. But a good brand strategy must fully assess the brand and decide whether those elements should be kept, tweaked, or discarded for stronger brand elements.

Let’s look at the key elements of your brand identity.

Company logo

A well-designed company logo is a critical component of any well-executed brand experience.

A logo is a small, symbolic artwork representing a business. The logo acts as the calling card and ‘avatar’ for your brand and is one of the most important elements of a brand’s identity.

But what makes for a well-designed logo?

As we explained previously:

At its most basic, a logo is a small, symbolic piece of artwork that represents a business. But, we’ve dug a bit deeper than that. When you set aside all the design trends and fancy fonts, at its core, a logo must: 1- Embody your brand. 2- Be instantly recognizable. 3- Be versatile. 4- Be timeless. Everything else is optional. In fact, I’ll go one step further. Every design choice in your logo should exist only to serve and strengthen the four items listed above. And, if you meet these four requirements, many other commonly cited logo must-haves, like simplicity and memorability, naturally follow.

Professionally designed logos don’t need to cost tens of thousands of dollars. Read this price guide on how much a logo design should cost to learn about different price points and pick a great logo designer or agency.

Need a memorable logo for your business?

This small business guide to creating a perfect logo covers all the important details and shares some useful examples.

Business website

Your business website is often the first place prospective customers visit to learn about your company.

And while many different things influence people’s buying decisions, a single common factor drives nearly every purchasing decision: can the customer trust your business?

75% of consumers judge the credibility and trustworthiness of your business solely from your web design.

Strong, modern website design is vital to your brand’s reputation, your bottom line, and your future.

Need a great business website?

Here is a great look at 16 crucial web design factors to help your small business or startup increase customers and profits.

Business cards

Business cards are tangible reminders of your business (you must be there to hand them out) and can’t be beaten for memorability.

Business cards are also a cheap and effective way to ensure people have accurate contact information.

More importantly, they serve as a physical reminder that you met someone. That can trigger reflection , often leading to more business or a renewed connection.

Or they can create a bad impression.

Want to impress with unique business cards?

Here is everything you need to know to design a card that gets noticed.

Professionally designed business cards don’t need to cost thousands of dollars. Read this price guide on how much a business card design should cost to learn about different price points and pick a great business card designer or agency.

Product packaging and package graphics

If you make physical products, ensure your product packaging reflects your brand.

With thousands of products on store shelves, good product packaging design (the packaging for your product) and package graphics design (the graphics/content on the product packaging) are critical to your company’s success.

Your product packaging should speak clearly for your product when you can’t be there to do it yourself.

Need eye-catching product packaging?

Here are four psychology-based design tips for eye-catching product packaging.

Illustration

Smart businesses leverage custom illustrations as part of their brand identity.

Illustrations are typically playful graphics that help your business appear friendly and communicate a message more organically.

Illustrations can persuade, inform, and influence your customers and prospects. They can enhance your brand messaging and can help your business express emotion.

Be sure, however, that the illustrations you use complement each other. Don’t use clashing styles, and don’t over-illustrate.

Consider how you’ll use illustration with the other visual elements of your brand identity.

How can custom illustration help your business?

Illustrations can persuade, inform, and influence your customers and prospects. They can enhance your brand messaging and can help your business express emotion. Here are ways that smart businesses use illustration to boost their marketing.

Email design

First impressions are important. And, in our digital age, we often make our first impressions via email.

For example, a welcome email is the first exchange between your business and a new customer or prospect.

There’s a reason why most business owners want their email addresses to come from their business domain – it helps to set proper expectations.

But the overall email design and content are even more important.

It sets the tone for future communications, encourages people to look closely at your company’s products or services, and provides helpful information.

Need to improve your email marketing game?

Here is how you can optimize your welcome messages to help your business make a good impression and set the stage for a lasting and profitable relationship with your customers and prospects.

Personality

Brand identity may change and evolve as time and trends pass, but a brand’s personality stays the same. Brand personalities typically include 3-5 key characteristics (like rebellious, empowering, and adventurous).

There are many different possibilities when deciding on a voice for your brand.

Image courtesy of Shopify

Here are some other questions to get you started down the discovery road:

What are your business’s main purpose and function?
How do people benefit from your business?
What is the current public perception of your business?
What is the most important part of customers’ experience with your business?
What kind of qualities do you want people to associate with your business?

Your answers to these questions will build the core of your brand. All of your future branding decisions should expand on these ideas.

Style guide

And don’t forget to create new brand guidelines (also known as a style guide).

Brand guidelines are rules to follow whenever a member of your organization wants to publish, present, or promote content for your brand or use branding on marketing materials, including on social media.

Brand guidelines answer questions like:

What font does your logo use? (no comic sans, please!)
What colors are approved?
When you need an image for a project, what tone and feel should it have?
Should writers use “ email, ” or does your organization prefer the hyphenated “ e-mail ?”

These seem like small details, but if not captured in brand guidelines or a style guide, your brand can quickly drift into an inconsistent customer and employee experience.

Consistent, strategic branding allows your business to grow strong brand equity .

How to create a style guide (brand guidelines)

Here are the six basic items that should be on your style guide:

Brand overview

What is your brand? What does it stand for? What are your goals and vision for your company?

These are all important things to define early, as they will serve as the guidepost for the overall flavor you want your brand to incorporate.

Your logo is the essential element in your guide. A logo represents the aesthetic of your company’s brand identity, is the first thing people notice, and is the piece they remember later. A logo should be consistent everywhere it’s used.

General rules for the logo include specifications about the size, placement, how much negative space is around it, and the places your company considers appropriate usage.

Color palette

Color is a powerful part of your brand .

Your style guide should have a detailed color palette to ensure your brand’s colors aren’t subjected to an over-zealous designer’s pastel or glow effect.

The style guide should clearly show what colors are permitted, where certain colors should (and shouldn’t) be used, and what colors should be avoided. This should include color values (RGB, CMYK, and even Pantone) to remove uncertainty when creating web, print, and other media collateral.

Your typeface and font are important, as are the rules you assign to them.

Headers, quotes, copy, and any fine print all need the right color choice , sizing, and style, with font choice of critical importance. Stop that new intern from replacing your carefully chosen typeface with the dreaded Comic Sans MS by detailing your brand’s typography in your guide.

Your style guide should include image guidelines: what’s allowed, what’s not, and when a specific image should be used. You can even include instructions on where images should be sourced from and, if you have a particular aesthetic, what form it takes.

Some companies prefer images with people in them; others standardize on sweeping landscapes and vistas. Whatever you decide for your business should be spelled out in your guide. And you should clarify whether the image rules differ for printed marketing materials versus your online marketing website.

Style guides aren’t just for visual elements. The lexicon your company chooses can help define your brand’s personality and can profoundly affect how your customers interact with you.

While you don’t need a weighty tome, capturing the general sound of your company’s “voice” can make the difference between an anything-goes approach and something more measured and unique.

Ultimately, style guides are not about crafting hard and fast rules for every little piece of your brand. They’re meant to be guidelines that create consistency and help your company project a unified presence.

7. Manage the rebrand carefully

A rebrand is often a complex and lengthy endeavor. Without a careful plan brand strategy, a well-managed process, and a strong marketing strategy covering all marketing channels, the rebrand can quickly go off the rails and negatively impact your market share and business.

Set deadlines and mitigate going down those pesky rabbit holes with a well-thought-out project plan.

8. Launch your rebrand and tell the world

Even the most incredible rebrand is wasted if you never actually launch it. Make sure you plan your rebrand launch and be prepared to explain why you rebranded.

Minimize the risk of customer confusion through a carefully planned launch that showcases the story behind the rebrand. Case studies could help here.

Give your customers a narrative they can follow to understand why you rebranded. This brings your customers along and strengthens brand recall and loyalty.

Successful rebranding examples

Chobani rebrand – standing out in a sea of competitors.

Within the past few years, Greek yogurt has represented about half of the entire yogurt space at grocery stores in the U.S. And that huge growth has been fueled, in large part, by Chobani, which, more than a decade ago, commanded only 1% of the yogurt market.

As the Greek yogurt space became more competitive, Chobani found that it didn’t stand out as much as it used to.

Every company offering Greek yogurt for sale used white plastic yogurt cups, foil covers, clean typography, and photos of fruit and other ingredients.

But instead of making its packaging brighter or futuristic, Chobani went in a different direction, picking a friendly serif font, an off-white background, and watercolor paintings of fruits rather than studio photographs favored by their competitors.

This created a softer, kinder, gentler design aesthetic and made both the products and the brand more approachable and warmer.

Strategy : If every brand and all industry products look the same, consider a different direction to make your brand and products stand out.

Mailchimp rebrand – The design is in the details

We tend to notice big redesigns and rebranding disasters, but sometimes small tweaks and restraints are more effective. Taking stock of what’s there, optimizing it, and then distilling it is often a better strategy than a complete overhaul.

Mailchimp is a web-based email marketing service that millions of people and businesses use worldwide. MailChimp subtly evolved its branding, as you can see above.

Designer Jessica Hische covered every little change in her post about the redesign .

They just wanted a facelift—one of those classy facelifts that make your friends ask you if you’ve been sleeping better lately or lost some weight because you look like a more vivacious version of yourself and not like a different person.

Those in the know did not miss the subtle evolution. Leading design website Brand New raved that it was “[A] Fantastic evolution that maintains the character of the original with enhanced performance,” and Design Taxi called it a “subtle but refreshing makeover.”

Strategy : If your current brand works for you, don’t mess with success. Consider improving and tweaking what you already have to make it clearer and more refined.

Kodak rebrand – Going backward can move you forward

Sometimes subtle changes are all you need.

But at other times, a dramatic reboot is in order.

After the lamentable death of film, Kodak almost completely disappeared from the consumer market, finding most of its success in large-scale printing systems and the enterprise market. Kodak rebranded to herald its return to selling directly to consumers.

Kodak sought to embrace its rich tradition with its logo redesign. It was a savvy strategy for Kodak to evoke its original branding in the redesign. By including their instantly recognizable color scheme into their rebrand, they were able to keep their company’s legacy at the forefront of their customer’s minds.

Strategy: Sometimes, looking to the past can help you update for the present. Using visual and design cues from your company’s history can help make your current brand more relevant.

Google rebrand – Be mobile, consistent, and cross-platform friendly

Updating for the present may be an important part of your goals, but thinking about the future and the longevity of your rebranding efforts is important, too.

When it was first released, Google’s redesign of its ubiquitous multicolored sans-serif logo was highly publicized and roundly criticized. The web was flooded with people carping about how terrible the logo redesign was.

The logo redesign capped off a year of transformation at Google, including introducing their Material Design system in their Android mobile operating system and across all of their apps.

Google has been reinventing itself to meet mobile devices’ challenges, and the logo redesign was part of this process. Google reaffirmed this in their original announcement of the redesigned logo, saying, “our brand should express the same simplicity and delight they expect from our homepage while fully embracing the opportunities offered by each new device and surface.”

“We think we’ve taken the best of Google (simple, uncluttered, colorful, friendly),” the brand’s leadership team writes, “and recast it not just for the Google of today, but for the Google of the future.”

Google’s redesign honored the character of their original logo and pushed it into the future; this was a notable success in incorporating existing history into your brand’s strategies for moving forward.

Strategy : Consider where this redesign fits your entire branding system, and consider cross-platform and future usage possibilities.

Airbnb rebrand – embrace your critics and roll with the punches

Airbnb’s original goals for the new logo were lofty :

It’s a symbol that, like us, can belong wherever it happens to be… It’s a symbol for people who want to welcome into their home new experiences, new cultures, and new conversations. We’re proud to introduce the Bélo: the universal symbol of belonging.

The reaction was swift, and as is the way with the internet, vicious, with Gizmodo ridiculing : “The “Bélo,” as Airbnb refers to the mark “internally,” is supposed to reflect the “hierarchy of decisions” that users make when booking a place to stay.

But for most of us, it just reflects genitalia.” The new icon trended on Twitter for eight hours and was mocked and parodied mercilessly, including the inevitable (and NSFW) Tumblr site filled with parodies.

Airbnb cleverly anticipated the new brand’s reaction, creating a microsite allowing people to create their versions of the Bélo called Create Airbnb .

Airbnb’s bold attempt to welcome mashups and personalization of their brand was not missed by many, including Andrew Leonard from Slate, proclaiming , “Who cares what it looks like? Airbnb’s new logo is pure genius.” He wrote, “If Airbnb’s goal was to get people talking about Airbnb, then this campaign is pure genius and can only be considered a massive success. The sheer velocity of the snarking is a sign that Airbnb, like Apple , plays an important role in our emerging culture.”

Brand Union’s creative director Sam Becker had a similar reaction to how Airbnb handled the launch of their rebrand: “So far, Airbnb has done an excellent job responding to these observations with light-hearted acknowledgment. They’ve also continued to back the brand with confidence. Showing any weakness at this point would be tantamount to giving up.” Knowing how to work criticism into your branding efforts with humor and grace is an excellent strategy for turning a potentially negative situation into a positive and memorable experience.

Strategy: Plan how you will respond to your rebranding efforts, and try to anticipate and integrate criticism and comments into the overall branding story you’ve created.

Mozilla rebrand – Open by default

Newton’s third law states, “for every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction.”

Newton was probably not talking about logos and design, but he might as well have been.

As every rebrand we’ve looked at here shows, the public response to a redesign can vary greatly. You can easily find opinions both for and against almost any redesign.

Web browser pioneer Mozilla’s recent rebranding didn’t just anticipate the inevitable criticism; their entire process was built on their community’s input and critiques. Kicked off in June of 2016 by Mozilla and London, UK-based brand consultancy Johnson Banks, the entire process of redesigning Mozilla’s brand was done publicly and in the open. The result of this unprecedented public collaboration was Mozilla’s new logo.

Many high-profile design thinkers thought it was a success, including ex-NYT’s creative director Khoi Vinh, who remarked ,

My first impression was that this is a bit of a groaner—the visual pun struck me as the tech/design equivalent of dad humor (as a dad myself, I should know). But it didn’t take me long to warm up to it. I’m a fan of its utter lack of pretension, and how unabashedly it embraces the organization’s geeky legacy. Overall, thumbs up.

Brand New’s Armin Vit had an equally effusive response :

Overall, it’s amazing that this open process that actively requested and implemented feedback from hundreds of people led to a logo that not only DOESN’T suck but one that has a strong idea, a fresh execution, a promising flexibility, and, that all of it together, sometimes subtly and sometimes overtly, manages to communicate what Mozilla is about. Power to the peop/e!

Strategy: While not every organization can do what Mozilla did, incorporating feedback from your target audience and customers is something every successful rebranding effort should do.

Examples of rebranding failures

We’ve also gathered a list of rebranding failures to help you avoid a similar fate.

Radio Shack’s rebrand failure

With the halcyon days of gathering around the family radio long past, Radio Shack is no longer a name that conjures images of cutting-edge technology. When Lee Applbaum stepped in as Radio Shack’s chief marketing officer in 2008, he sought to distance the brand from its more antiquated roots by rebranding as “The Shack.”

Tech reviewers panned the new nickname.

Despite a new focus on wireless technologies in their retail locations to accompany the new name (and a small profit bump immediately following the rebrand), Radio Shack continued declining, and “The Shack” was abandoned.

Radio Shack had established itself as a resource for DIY electronics enthusiasts, and that consumer niche had kept them aloft for years. When they rebranded as “The Shack,” they turned their back on those DIY hobbyists to pursue modern tech-savvy consumers. However, the broader tech competition proved too stiff, and Radio Shack filed for bankruptcy in 2015.

How to avoid this: Choose a new business name, company logo, and corporate identity that won’t alienate your most profitable audience. And, if you’re going fishing for a new audience, make sure it’s a fish you can catch.

Tropicana rebrand failure

In 2009, Tropicana revealed a new packaging design for their Pure Premium orange juice. Less than 60 days later, Tropicana announced that it would return to its original design.

What went wrong, and how did it happen so quickly?

The original Tropicana logo featured a unique, signature design— an orange punctured by a straw. The logo implied that Tropicana’s juice was fresh, undiluted, and direct from the orange.

The singularity and playfulness of the orange and straw visual made for a powerful brand image. It was instantly recognizable on the shelves and had had years to establish a relationship of trust with Tropicana’s consumers.

The new packaging design discarded the time-tested logo and font… and failed to replace them with much of anything.

Tropicana’s packaging’s new image depicted a large glass of orange juice, which unfortunately read as a flat, orange gradient. The traditional Tropicana font was traded for a more streamlined modern font, and every last bit of recognizable character was lost.

It’s possible that some consumers couldn’t even find Tropicana on the shelves because of how stark the differences in packaging were. Those who did find the newly packaged Tropicana strongly disapproved. Information Resource, Inc. reported that Tropicana’s sales dropped by 20% immediately following its brand relaunch.

How to avoid this: Aim for a signature look that says something about who your company is. If you already have one, abandoning your signature look for a nondescript design is a step in the wrong direction. Keep what works for you and discard what doesn’t.

PricewaterhouseCoopers rebrand failure

PricewaterhouseCoopers took the rebranding plunge in 2002 when they decided to sell off their business’s consulting branch. Bizarrely, they named their new consulting offshoot after a day of the week: Monday. The strangely vague and unrelated new name was met with immediate ridicule and was abandoned within a year.

There are two valuable lessons to be learned from this rebranding flop.

The first lesson is purely common sense— a business name that has nothing to do with your business tells your audience nothing about your business; and, consequently, nothing about why they should care.

The second lesson is all about search engine optimization.

Keeping the same business and domain name ensures that consumers can find you after you’ve unveiled your new brand identity. It’s not a great idea to change your website’s domain name and select a new name so ubiquitous that your business will never be found in a Google search again.

“Monday” was not specifically related to PwC’s financial consulting business, nor was it unique enough to make a useful search engine term. Potential clients would be forced to comb through pages and pages of “Monday” results before they finally stumbled upon the Monday they were looking for. They would most likely give up long before then.

How to avoid this: Uniqueness and Specificity are key. Select a business name that will allow your audience to find you in the online crowd. And, if changing your name is part of your rebranding plans, choose a name that reflects who your company is and what you do.

Hershey’s rebrand failure

Hershey’s is a company well-known for its sweet chocolate confections. Sadly, their 2009 rebrand drew lots of attention; but the reason wasn’t sweet.

Hershey’s goal for its rebrand was to embrace its past while preparing for its future with a new, more modern logo design.

Hershey’s original logo featured a 3-dimensional design depicting their name and a dainty, silver-wrapped Hershey’s Kiss at the far right side. While utilizing a flat, modern style and font, their new logo remains reminiscent of the previous, well-known logo. However, the reworked Kiss resembles a brown, stylized steaming pile of poo. This did not go unnoticed.

How to avoid this: Apply a critical eye to potential rebranding visuals for inappropriate faux pas. In a world dominated by social media, consumer opinion travels at the speed of light, making it even more important than ever to ensure that the face your business puts forward will not invite outright mockery or scorn.

Are you ready to rebrand?

A rebrand is a declaration of your company’s commitment to upward growth. It allows you to revamp and refresh the primary touchpoint between you and your customers.

Change is never easy, but sometimes, as the song goes, a change will do you good.

Whether you rename your business, redesign the logo, or do a complete rebrand, you’re ready to consider the best strategy to move forward after reading this rebranding guide.

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How to Build a Brand Strategy That Works

Having a concrete brand strategy allows you to strengthen your brand. Learn how to build a brand marketing strategy and set your business up for success.

A brand strategy is a plan that guides your business or personal brand development. It's important to develop a strategy because it can help you achieve your goals, connect with your target audience, and create a consistent identity for your brand.

There are many benefits of having a brand strategy, such as increased revenue and improved customer loyalty .

If you're looking to build a successful brand, then you need to develop a comprehensive brand strategy. This blog post will walk you through the steps involved in building a successful strategy. We'll cover everything from developing your internal brand to finding your target audience to creating a consistent identity for your brand.

What is a brand strategy?

A brand strategy is a plan or approach that a company takes to create and maintain a unique, recognizable position for its brand in the marketplace. A well-defined and executed brand strategy can help a company achieve business goals such as increasing sales, building customer loyalty, and attracting new customers.

What are the components of a brand strategy?

There are many different elements that go into a brand strategy, but some of the most important include developing a unique selling proposition or USP, creating a recognizable and consistent brand identity, and crafting a strategic marketing plan.

Unique selling proposition

Developing a USP is all about understanding what makes your brand different from your competitors and then communicating that to your target audience. Your USP is what will make your brand stand out in the minds of consumers and help you attract new customers.

Consistent brand identity

Creating a consistent brand identity is also essential to a successful brand strategy. This includes developing a catchy and recognizable name, logo, and tagline, as well as using consistent colors, fonts, and imagery across all marketing materials.

Strategic marketing plan

Finally, crafting a strategic marketing plan is essential to putting your brand strategy into action. This plan should include goals, target markets, and specific marketing tactics that you will use to achieve your objectives.

Why is it important to develop a brand strategy?

There are many benefits of having a brand strategy:

A brand strategy helps businesses to create a unique and differentiated brand identity that can be used to compete in the market.
A well-defined brand strategy can help businesses to build customer loyalty and trust, as well as increase brand awareness.
A clear brand strategy makes it easier to manage your company's reputation and protect your brand equity.

Build a brand strategy that sells

How do you develop a brand marketing strategy? There's no one-size-fits-all answer to this question, as the best answer will vary depending on your business, your products or services, your target market, and a number of other factors. However, there are some basic steps you can take to build an effective brand marketing strategy.

Define your brand

A brand is more than just a logo or catchy slogan . It's the sum of a company's values, its history, and the way it treats its customers.

To define your brand, take a step back and think about your value proposition and core values. What makes your company unique? Why should customers choose you over your competitors?

Identify your target market

Who is most likely to buy your products or services? To identify your target market, you need to consider factors like age, income, location, and interests. Once you know who your target market is, you can develop messaging and campaigns that are designed to appeal to them. This will help you attract more customers and grow your business.

Research customer demographics

As a business owner, it's essential that you take the time to research your target market and understand its demographics. This information will help you make key decisions about your marketing strategy, product development, and overall business direction.

There are a number of ways to gather data about your ideal customers, including online surveys, customer interviews, and market research reports. Once you have this information, you can start to develop a profile of your ideal customer, including their age, location, income, education level, and so on. This gives you the information you need for audience segmentation and creating customer profiles.

Create 3-5 customer profiles (buyer personas)

Creating a customer profile begins with understanding who your ideal customer is. This is where you will use the demographic information you just collected. Once you have a good understanding of who your target customer is, you can then create a buyer persona.

A buyer persona is a semi-fictional representation of your ideal customer. It takes into account the data you've gathered about your target customer and fleshes it out with additional details like name, occupation, and goals.

Creating a buyer persona is an important step in creating your brand identity, but it's also important to remember that your customer profile is always evolving. As you learn more about your target audience, you may find that your buyer persona needs to be updated.

How do you build a brand strategy from scratch?

At this point, you may be wondering how this applies to a company just getting started. It's hard to find information on customers that don't exist yet. For inspiration, read about How StringJoy built an incredible Instagram following from scratch .

If you don't have customers yet, then you can still do market research. What problem does your business solve? Who has that problem? Start by brainstorming a list of people who might buy your product or service, then narrow it down to about five. Next, Google demographics for the customers on the list. From this, you can start to build your buyer personas. Don't worry if it isn't perfect. Get started and refine your customer profiles as you learn more.

Determine your brand positioning

Your brand positioning is how you choose to communicate your brand to your customers and prospects. It should be based on a deep understanding of what your brand stands for and what your customers need and want.

Creating a brand positioning statement is one of the most important things you can do for your brand. It will help you develop a content strategy that will build trust and credibility, differentiate yourself from your competitors, and make it easier for customers to understand what you do and why they should buy from you.

Define your brand's core values. These are the principles that will help you make decisions about your brand communications.
How do your core values appeal to each of your customer profiles?
Write a brand positioning statement that articulates your brand's unique position in the for each customer profile.

Keep in mind that your brand positioning should be adaptable as your brand grows and changes over time. As your business evolves, your brand positioning should be reviewed and updated regularly to ensure that it still accurately reflects your brand and resonates with your audience.

Create and execute a brand marketing plan

Finally, you need to create a plan for executing your marketing strategy . What channels will you use to reach your target market? What kind of budget do you have to work with? How often will you be releasing new content or campaigns? By answering these questions, you can start to put together a roadmap for success.

Evaluate your plan execution and keep updating

Measuring campaign impact is essential to know how well your brand strategy is working. With the right tools and tactics, you can analyze how your marketing campaigns are working and make adjustments to ensure that you're getting the most return possible.

Brand awareness

Use surveys or social media monitoring to gauge how well your target audience knows about your brand . You can also track metrics like web traffic or brand mentions to get an idea of reach.

ROI on marketing

Keep track of how much you're spending on your brand campaign and compare it to the results you're seeing. This will help you calculate your return on investment and make sure that your marketing budget is being well spent.

Audience engagement

Use analytics to track how people are interacting with your brand campaign. This includes things like website visits, social media engagement, and click-through rates.

These are just a few ways to measure the impact of your brand campaign. By tracking these metrics, you can get a better understanding of what's working and what isn't.

Don’t rush the brand strategy process

Building a brand marketing strategy can be a complex process, but by taking the time to define your brand and your target market, you can set yourself up for success. By creating a plan and executing it effectively, you can reach your goals and grow your business.

Mailchimp has several tools to help build your marketing strategy. Check out our marketing plan template and marketing library . We are always happy to share resources to make our customers more successful.

5 Rebranding Case Studies And What We Can Learn From Them

Jul 17, 2023 • 5 min read

What you'll learn:

There comes a time in many a company's lives when they need to make a change. Here are 5 successful and unsuccessful rebranding case studies.

Are you considering rebranding your business? Or maybe you’re just interested in the impact a new brand can have on a company. Either way, looking at past case studies, both good and bad, is fascinating.

In our divisive world fuelled by social media and cancel culture, getting your message across correctly is essential. In the age of visual content, brand identity plays a huge role in conveying your mission to the right audience.

But what if it goes wrong? Or what if people lose interest ? This is when companies begin to consider a rebranding strategy . This can involve a new logo, a redesign, a name change, and even new typography. Anything that can help reboot their visual identity. We’re going to be exploring 5 case studies and deciding whether they were a rebranding success or a damaging flop.

5 Rebranding case studies

We’ve chosen the following case studies for various reasons . Some rebranded with the goal of staying up-to-date; others tried to cover up past mistakes. And a few made a concerted effort to claw back into the industry.

Let’s have a look at where things went right or where they went terribly wrong.

In 2003, Lego was $800 million in debt and facing bankruptcy. Hard to believe, right? They seem like such an iconic toy – a quintessential part of the majority of our childhoods.

Despite having maintained a strong brand identity since 1932, things started to slip in the late 1990s and early 2000s. The turn of the 21st century saw a rise in electronics, and it seemed as though people would potentially turn away from regular, physical toys in favor of their shinier, more interactive counterparts.

For a time, Lego managed to mitigate this issue by licensing intellectual property – a genius marketing move that started in 1999 in collaboration with Star Wars in preparation for The Phantom Menace . However, their expansion into physical theme parks across the world, overproduction of bricks, and general mismanagement of marketing strategies served to dilute their lovable branding to a nearly irredeemable degree.

So, what changed?

Lego was in the unfortunate position where they had to walk a fine line between staying true to their older, authentic selves and modernizing for a new age. Deals with blockbuster films that led to the release of new brick sets and games (Lego Star Wars in 2005) certainly helped keep things afloat for a while, but more had to be done at the core of the company.

The CEO at that time, Jørgen Vig Knudstorp, began dramatic changes. This included:

Cutting jobs
Reducing expenditures
Moving production to developing countries
Selling Legoland theme parks
Paying closer attention to older Lego fans, as well as conducting research into the likes and dislikes of a new generation of children
Bringing focus back to what made Lego unique and iconic in the first place

And it worked. Within only a few years, Lego was starting to see a major increase in profits, brand deals, and overall consumer satisfaction. Now, with a plethora of games, films (including four theatrical releases), and a current market share of 7.6% , they are the largest toy brand in the world.

Our verdict? Yes, a very successful rebranding, indeed.

This is an incredibly controversial rebranding case study due to the devastating events surrounding it.

In 2001, following widespread public criticism of their safety standards, BP spent over $200 million on a rebrand, which not only included a new logo, but also a new name. British Petroleum became Beyond Petroleum.

The premise was clear. BP seemed to be heading in a direction away from fossil fuels and towards greener, more sustainable energy. But it was a promise they were never able to fully keep.

In 2006, 200,000 gallons of oil spilt from a BP pipeline in Alaska.

In 2009, they sold their wind farms in India.

Then, in April 2010, the oil rig Deepwater Horizon, drilling in the Gulf of Mexico, suffered a devastating blowout. This explosion claimed the lives of 11 crew members and caused the largest marine oil spill in history.

The rig, although owned by Transocean, was operated by BP. Due to the extreme negligence and lack of safety compliance, BP were made to pay a total of $65 billion towards the Clean Water Act (CWA), in fines and penalties, and in compensation towards the families of those who lost their lives.

Facing severe financial pressure, BP even sold their solar panels in 2011.

Now they are undergoing another rebranding, hoping to develop a new identity that sets them apart from their past. By 2030, they aim to have invested up to $60 billion in renewable energy, and have already increased their production of renewable energy sources such as offshore wind farms and biofuels.

Ultimately, only time will tell if they can actually turn things around and make good on their word. For now, our verdict is that this was a majorly unsuccessful branding case study.

Oatly’s story is significantly more positive. Their revamp shows that even small brands can make it big with the right ingenuity.

Oatly is a Swedish company owned by Rickard and Bjorn Oeste, who made the first ever oat milk in the early 1990s. Due to the size of the company and limited availability of budget, it took some creative thinking to start gathering more attention.

In the early 2010s, under the guidance of their new CEO, Toni Petersson, Oatly changed their packaging design to something bold, instantly recognizable, and far more in keeping with their brand values. They adopted a more informal, chatty tone and incorporated this wittiness into their products. Every side of the milk cartons had something engaging or interesting to read about and used accessible jargon to make sure everyone was included. Even their name on the packaging, ‘Oatly!’, seemed exuberant and full of energy.

This coincided with efforts to push for greater sustainability, which led to a huge increase in brand awareness, giving them global recognition.

So, is it a successful rebranding? We’d definitely say so.

PayPal is an example of an already successful brand looking to redesign themselves for a modern audience. They partnered with the design studio Gretel to achieve these results.

The rebranding process started with an update to the old logo. The simple two-tone ‘P’ was simplified even further, becoming just a silhouette. The shades of blue were separated more, shadowing one another more clearly. A splash of vibrant gold was added to many of the backgrounds as a nice contrast and to build a sense of ‘delight’ , as Gretel puts it.

Then the marketing campaigns and updated advertisements added a greater sense of diversity – something which PayPal has begun to strive for a lot more with their “people first” approach. This article notes that PayPal’s logo now even adheres to the standards set by the ADA (Americans with Disabilities Act) accessible design, which could potentially open their branding up for even more customers.

However, despite their best efforts, PayPal’s stock price has continued to steadily drop. Despite doing exceptionally well during the Covid-19 pandemic, this growth just hasn’t continued since.

Now they’re pushing for greater integration of renewable energy, striving to go completely green in terms of powering their data centers by the end of 2023.

Were they successful in their rebrand? We’d give it a solid ‘meh’. The designs are nice, visually appealing, and more inclusive, but it didn’t promote any real revenue growth or actionable change.

Better luck next time?

5. Mailchimp

Mailchimp started out within the niche of email marketing. However, after multiple customer surveys , they realized they could break out of this pigeonhole and offer more to their clients. To do this, they needed a rebrand.

Another one of Mailchimp’s issues was the irregularity between their logo and their mascot. They knew they needed to refresh the brand identity, so they decided to kill two birds with one stone in a complete revamp.

However, they didn’t part with their fun and quirky brand personality. Instead, they leaned into it more. This is because the business developed a great relationship with its customers over the years, so to remain loyal and accessible to them, they kept the heart of the brand. Including the mascot, Freddie. This was also clear in their new typeface of Cooper Light and their color palette of bright yellow. Everything about the rebrand screamed fun, excitable, and accessible.

The new logo, whilst remaining true to the mascot, felt more authoritative and professional. The simplicity of the design and the jet black against the yellow, along with the bold typeface, meant it was also attractive to new customers.

Ultimately, this revamp allowed Mailchimp to offer more products, solutions, and services. It saw them break through the constraints of email communication and access the wider industry of general marketing.

We give two thumbs up. A successful branding campaign all around!

Time for a makeover

The success of your rebrand has a lot to do with the digital marketing campaign that goes alongside it. Even Oatly made use of this to a certain degree, with their wacky, left-right scrolling on their website rather than the conventional up-down we’re all used to. It definitely serves to set them apart!

If you want your product to stick in your consumers’ minds, you need to find clever ways to be unique, especially if you’re a small startup company. It’s okay to change your brand strategy over time – in fact, it’s very much encouraged! You can’t expect one thing to work forever, as nice as that would be. Even Lego had to change it up eventually.

But don’t worry, there’s always going to be someone there to help. Whether you take on the challenge yourself with a dedicated team or decide to enlist the help of a branding agency to put you back on the right track, a rebrand will help freshen up stagnant areas and brush off the dust.

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Rebrand Case Study
The systems, frameworks and tools inside this comprehensive program are all you need to level up. Learn More. Be inspired and discover journey of rebranding with Mailchimp Rebrand Case Study. Learn the reposition staregy being used to uncover huge opportunities over the years. Leading to a fun and quirky brand with personality and a voice.
Brand Strategy Case Study [Mailchimp Rebrand]
In this brand strategy case study, we break down the Mailchimp rebrand to give you a success rebranding example. FREE PRO BRAND STRATEGY BLUEPRINT: https:...
Rebrand Case Study Mailchimp
Guest Post. Today we have the pleasure of featuring a guest post by Stephen Houraghan from the Brand Master Academy who has written this amazing case study on Mailchimp and how they have repositioned and rebranded the company since they began back in 2002. Looking at how successful brands have changed over the years is fascinating.
Brand Strategy Case Study
Brand Strategy Case Study Mailchimp Rebrand. Exploring Mailchimp's Successful Rebranding Understanding the Need for Rebranding. Mailchimp began as a humble email marketing platform targeting small businesses. With an intuitive interface and affordable pricing, they filled a critical gap for entrepreneurs on tight budgets. As co-founders Ben ...
5 Branding and Rebranding Case Studies to Learn From
5 Branding and Rebranding Case Studies. In this rebrand compilation, we review some of the most iconic and impressive rebrands in recent history, including the 2003 LEGO rebrand and the Old Spice rebrand, and how these strategies brought these organizations back into the mainstream market. Blog Post. 10 minute read. Mar 28, 2024.
Mailchimp with Mark DiCristina
The Mailchimp rebrand, led by Collins in 2018, made headlines for brave and bold choices, but did the much-loved tech unicorn almost choose a different path? In this debut episode, we interview Mailchimp's VP of Brand to get the inside scoop on this change of brand from changing their email-only perceptions to the design concepts they considered.
Mailchimp Rebrand: First Impressions
In case you haven't heard, MailChimp is now Mailchimp.That's right, it's #rebrand season! Get an overview of what's new on Fast Company and dive in a little deeper at Mailchimp Design.. This article was inspired by a thread in Designers Guild, a Facebook community that I help moderate.Designers Guild consists of 10,000+ designers committed to discussing, learning, and growing together.
Mailchimp Design and Brand Identity
Our co-founders, Ben and Dan, started Mailchimp as a side project alongside their web design agency to help their smaller clients with email marketing. Since then, Mailchimp has expanded beyond email and become a leading marketing platform for small businesses. Today, we help millions of customers around the world grow their own way.
Rebranding Your Business in 2023
Rebranding is creating a new identity for your business in the minds of your customers, your competitors, your prospects, your investors, your employees, and at large. Experienced marketers know that everything visual about your company, the totality of your brand identity, is essential to your success. First impressions are very important.
Mailchimp 2018 Rebrand Case Study on Vimeo
Mailchimp Brand Positioning Case Study MIRANDA, John David S. MMEBRND OAMA1 Images: Mailchimp Website Unsplash.com Underconsideration.com Collins R/GA Bloomberg Kinsta Chimp… Mailchimp 2018 Rebrand Case Study on Vimeo
Case Studies: 11 Successful Rebranding Campaigns
Joern Martin March 12, 2024. Successful rebranding campaigns have the power to transform a company's trajectory, breathing new life into its image, driving customer engagement, and boosting revenue. In today's competitive market, the ability to evolve and stay relevant is crucial for businesses looking to thrive.
Case Studies
How Yuool's Success Manager Leveled Up Their Marketing Strategy. Learn how Mailchimp's Customer Success team delivers strategic guidance and a personalized plan for growth. With the help of Mailchimp's Marketing API, the Greater London Authority's civic engagement platform automated the way Londoners receive surveys about the future of ...
3 Memorable Rebranding Case Studies: Oatly, Mailchimp, Airbnb
Here are 3 memorable rebranding case studies: 1. Mailchimp. Back in 2018, Mailchimp announced its rebrand done in partnership with US-based agency Collins. Claiming they didn't want to lose their heritage in the process, they set out to hold on to the essence of what Mailchimp has always been in its core, retaining the weird and lovable ...
Popular Rebranding Case Studies for Inspiration
Yet slack decided to rebrand and give a fresh look to their logo to adapt more into the trend and industry. The new logo looked fresh and more adaptable to the brand statement of Slack. Case Study Link. It uses a simpler color palette and, we believe, is more refined, but still contains the spirit of the original.
7 Interesting Rebrand Case Studies to Learn From
In this brand strategy case study, Ollie, like many small businesses in the pet industry, recognized the need to evolve its brand positioning to keep pace with a dynamic market. As a top DTC pet brand, Ollie's market presence was strong, but the transition to physical retail necessitated a strategic rebrand to maintain and grow its market share.
Solved Brand Strategy Case Study (Mailchimp Rebrand):
Brand Strategy Case Study (Mailchimp Rebrand): describe what it means to re-brand, the reason for re-branding, and also contrast and compare it with other brands of your choice. Your solution's ready to go! Our expert help has broken down your problem into an easy-to-learn solution you can count on.
10 Inspiring Rebranding Case Studies
4. Mailchimp. Mailchimp, a successful marketing company, announced a rebranding that stands out while staying true to the essence of the company. Detailed Case study. 5. Ogilvy. While we know that change is an integral part of life, David Ogilvy strived to make his company, "Ogilvy", better and prepared for the future, by seeking certain changes.
Mailchimp Has a New Look
How we got here. Mailchimp started out as an email marketing company, but we've expanded beyond email and become a leading marketing platform for small businesses. Today, we help millions of customers around the world grow their own way. As our customers' needs have evolved, our business and products have evolved right along with them.
Rebranding: What it is, Why it's Important, Strategies, and Examples
The goal of rebranding is to create a new and differentiated brand identity in the minds of consumers, investors, prospects, competitors, employees, and the general public. Over the past fifteen years, our team has helped thousands of entrepreneurs, small businesses, and agencies create and improve their branding and to rebrand and evolve their ...
New Quirky Rebranding for Mailchimp!
Collins, a New-York based strategy and design company, did the exact opposite with the rebranding for Mailchimp, and that's what makes it interesting. Instead of reflecting the 17 years of success and experience the company has seen, the rebranding demonstrates a child-like personality, with rough and sketchy illustrations and a 1920's typeface.
How to Build a Brand Strategy—Tips & Essentials
A brand strategy is a plan or approach that a company takes to create and maintain a unique, recognizable position for its brand in the marketplace. A well-defined and executed brand strategy can help a company achieve business goals such as increasing sales, building customer loyalty, and attracting new customers.
5 Rebranding Case Studies And What We Can Learn From Them
We've chosen the following case studies for various reasons. Some rebranded with the goal of staying up-to-date; others tried to cover up past mistakes. And a few made a concerted effort to claw back into the industry. Let's have a look at where things went right or where they went terribly wrong. 1. Lego.
SOLVED: Brand Strategy Case Study (Mailchimp Rebrand): Describe what it
Brand Strategy Case Study (Mailchimp Rebrand): Describe what it means to rebrand, the reasons for rebranding, and also contrast and compare it with other brands of your choice. ... expanding target audience, or outdated brand image. Comparing Mailchimp's rebrand with Airbnb and Uber highlights the different objectives and strategies behind each ...

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The Brand History

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Case Study: Repositioning Strategy

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Case Study: Adjusting The Brand Message

Brand Communication For The Bigger Picture

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Case Study: Brand Personality & Voice

A Tone Of Voice With A Joke

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Case Study: A Quirky Brand Identity

The Identity Rebrand: The Logo & Wordmark

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Rebrand Case Study Mailchimp

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