With the rise of social media in the business world, maintaining brand relevancy is more important than ever. On many occasions, brands require slight updates or even complete makeovers to keep up with this fast-paced world.
The term “rebrand” is often used for this process, but in many cases, “brand refresh” is more accurate. Wondering what's different about these two terms? I’ve got you covered:
Rebrand
A rebrand is defined as "to change the way that an organisation is seen by the public". This means changing things like the name, goals, message or culture of an already established brand. If your brand is no longer in alignment with your business, this calls for a rebrand. There are many reasons as to why a company may decide to rebrand, including:
To connect with customers
Merging with another company
Bad reputation
Repositioning
New CEO
Internationalisation
There are however some drawbacks of rebranding. A poor rebrand can confuse your audience or even alienate them. Customers can sometimes feel betrayed if not taken into consideration. If not done well it can clutter your brand instead of streamlining it. Finally, employees may not resonate with the rebranding strategy and may leave.
Examples of a rebrand:
Dunkin' Donuts rebranded to Dunkin' in 2018 ditching "Donuts" from their name to be on a first name basis with customers. This trended on twitter when they rebranded with over 3 billion impressions! Their aim was to reposition into the beverage market and modernise.
Brand Refresh
If there is nothing wrong with your current positioning and message, your brand strategy is strong, you're not looking to enter new markets, and it’s mostly the design system that is slacking along with consistency, you have a good case for simply clarifying and re-focusing your brand image through a refresh.
A refresh includes:
Updating branding to make it more appealing to the current audience
Address current market conditions
Becoming more connected with your brand
Resonating with the branding more through different colours/fonts
When undergoing a brand refresh, it is important to avoid being too trendy and to keep the roots of your brand there. Create messaging that is clearer and more focused. Lastly, build on brand equities you own and resonate strongly with customers.
Example of a refresh:
Before After
And there you have it! That is the difference between a rebrand and a brand refresh. Enjoy this little taster of my refresh coming to my instagram grid now!
As always, thanks for reading and I hope you learned more about rebranding.
Amber x