Most brand owners love to live by the book especially when it comes to brand matters. But what happens when your brand remains struggling even when you live by that book? Well, that’s your cue, as a brand owner, to rebrand.

Rebranding is when a business changes its tagline, vision, mission, name, logo, target audience or market, so as to make a new brand identity that speaks to its new customers, competitors and partners. This might either be through a brand merger, brand refresh or it could take on full rebranding, where the whole brand is rebuilt from the start. The reasons why you should consider rebranding include:

To attract new customers.
As a smile is a person’s logo, so is a brand logo to a business. A brand’s trademark, logo, tagline, design and other elements of a brand, are all susceptible to change especially if they prove to be detrimental or unhelpful to the brand. Customers are always quick to tell when a particular brand no longer serves their needs or when a business has lost it. And so, one by one, they start to drift away. In times like these, that’s when you, as a brand owner, needs to go back to the drawing board and figure out what aspect of your brand needs changing. Remember, customers are valuable to the brand and so pleasing them must almost be a non-negotiable, especially the loyal ones.

To improve brand awareness.
What is a brand that is not known by the people supposed to know it? Nothing! This brand awareness is a constant aspect that requires daily and close monitoring because the statistics keep changing. Co-founder of Intuit, Scott Cook says, “A brand is no longer what we tell the consumer it is- it is what consumers tell each other it is.” Now if consumers don’t even know the existence of your brand or have just a scanty idea about what your brand is, then it is time to rebrand and ensure that the new brand is in tandem with your vision, mission and that above all else, this new brand is known by the consumer for exactly what you intend the consumer to know about it.

To stay relevant and stand out.
Brands expire. So when it does expire, you need to get a new branding strategy that will survive the times while not compromising the brand’s values, and certainly not straying from the vision. The new brand should aim at staying relevant to the potential customers and standing out. It ought to have its own niche curved out clearly, so that a consumer can easily differentiate it from another brand. That is why it is important to have unique and simple designs of the brand’s logo, catchy taglines that will market the brand.
Consistency is key but don’t get stuck trying to be consistent with a failing brand model. Keep reinventing your brand. Allow yourself to reinvent it, so as to match the current demands and economic status quo. And when you successfully create the new brand, watch it closely until it finally cuts through.

Blog Post by Golda Abesiga (On behalf of Nymy Media)