Set Your Rebrand Up for Long-Term Triumph

Remember getting dressed for the first day of school? Every year was an opportunity for reinvention, to showcase the new you that was totally different from who you had left behind in the previous grade a summer ago.

That punk phase you tried out in 7th grade may have not been your mom’s favorite. But hey, you wouldn’t be who you are today if you didn’t know for certain that spiky blue hair didn’t work with your hair type, or that chunky combat boots were too heavy for your morning commute. 

Everyone has a take, but you know yourself best.

When kicking off a new rebranding project, clients often wonder who exactly they should involve in the Brand Workshop process. This is the first of many conversations we often have with clients about who has a say in their brand’s trajectory, all boiling down to the same question:

Whose opinion matters?

The simple answer is, it isn’t about opinions. Rebranding your company is a big, trajectory-altering decision. It’s important to ensure everyone on your branding team is bought into your long-term vision and fully prepared for the journey ahead, wherever it may lead. 

With such a massive change, revealing the outcome feels like showing up to 7th grade with a colorful mohawk. It’s vulnerable, uncomfortable, scary, yet exciting. Your mind races about what’s going on in everyone else’s. You just made this massive investment of time and money, what if everyone hates it? 

Tips for a Successful Rebranding Process

• Keep your circle small. Like anything else in life, a successful rebrand is not about pleasing everyone. While her intentions are good, Ann in accounting may not know the full myriad of long-term goals, business objectives, and decisions that led you to choose one brand name, brand story, or identity design over another. Getting caught up in everyone’s opinions is a surefire way to derail your rebrand, to the detriment of your brand goals, and ultimately, your business.
• Tell the whole story. While it’s important that every component of your brand stands tall on its own, brands rarely show up in the world that way. Every decision made in the rebranding process builds off of each other, all driven by an overarching strategy to accomplish a set of business objectives. If you’re going to give stakeholders a peek behind the curtain, don’t sell your brand strategy short. Doing so risks prompting reaction (based on personal taste), not reasoning.
• Focus on the long game. Don’t sacrifice long-term leaps for short-term solace. Change is uncomfortable. Whether from external audiences or internal stakeholders, adapting to your brand’s new era may take some adjusting. 

It’s easy to confuse external validation with success, but at the end of the day, the reaction that matters most is your consumer’s. There’s a reason we call it a brand identity. 

Every element of your brand becomes a reflection of not only your brand’s essence but the identity your consumer takes on by associating with your brand. 

Rather than zeroing in on more topical metrics like engagement, new inquiries, and click rates, focus your efforts on creating a brand that authentically resonates with your target audiences’ shared values. Going deeper helps you transcend the next transaction in favor of creating lifelong ambassadors, genuinely invested in (and therefore contributing to) your brand’s long-term success.

An effective rebrand requires putting the right people in place, your branding partner included. Working with a brand identity specialist equips your team with the strategic and design expertise to build a brand that transcends time.