8 Reasons to Rebrand
Rebranding. It’s a big word—and an even bigger decision. Change is always hard, especially when it affects every aspect of your livelihood and hits your bottom line. But whether your brand’s been chugging along for one year or 100, there are times when a brand-new brand is not only helpful, but necessary.
At Big, branding is what we do (and we’ve spent decades doing it). Over the years, we’ve spotted some situaitons and symptoms that almost always point to the need for a rebrand. If you’re thinking about taking the leap toward a new brand identity, read through this series. If any of these points hit a little too close to home, you know who to call. (Hint: It’s us. Call us. Obviously.)
Now, you may not think your organization is in bad shape, but let us offer some symptoms for what we’re talking about. Do you have inconsistent use of graphic elements, like your logo, color palette or typography? Have you noticed your imagery or photography differ drastically from one tactic to another? Does your messaging drift in tone, voice, content or format? Are you chasing trends or telling stories based on personal preference and experience instead of brand attributes? Is there a lack of brand architecture, meaning your lead brands and sub-brands are all messed up? Is there no oversight and field offices, reps or franchisees are taking over? Well, if you answered yes to any of these questions, then yeah, you have a bit of a dumpster fire on your hands.
What it really means is there’s a breakdown in the brand. This loss of control costs your company money, because every inconsistency is a point of friction in the customer journey. When you have multiple divisions or departments without “connective tissue,” you’re missing out on the power of a collective brand voice—and you’re losing opportunities to cross-sell and expand your reach.
But external perceptions may not be the only problem on your hands. If it’s been several years since you examined your brand, you might find that what was once a unified, consistent identity has become a hodge-podge—an eclectic collection of elements cobbled together over the years, both out of necessity and because of a lack of oversight. We’ve seen dozens of internal teams create an unintentional “wild west” of branding elements serving as Band-aids for an aging brand.
If your organization has reached this point, then there’s a real missed opportunity as well: your brand should be driving business strategy. If your assets aren’t actively propelling your strategy forward, then more than likely they’re constantly playing catch up. And that’s not a formula for any type of momentum that will get you to the next stage of growth.
But no brand is a lost cause. No matter how hopeless it may feel to reunite your org, it can be done—and we’ve done it. Going through a rebranding will allow you to sift through all the elements to see what’s working and what’s not, realign all the parts that have become separated, and get that train back on track.
Client Case Study
The Navigators
Sometimes a scrambled brand is an indicator that things are working…in a sense. That was the case with The Navigators. This faith-based not-for-profit had been advancing its mission for almost a century and had experienced tremendous expansion within the organization. But because of that growth, the branding got muddled—meaning the messaging was nowhere near as effective it could have been.
We helped them clean house by creating a solid brand architecture that still allowed each location, subgroup and chapter to have some autonomy within that framework. And the stakeholders noticed something interesting and maybe even a little counterintuitive: reining in those disparate entities didn’t restrict the subgroups. It actually gave them more freedom and the confidence to do their best work.
