6 Telltale Signs It’s Time to Rebrand

Your brand tells your customers what your business is all about. It is indicative of all your ideals, your characteristics, the personality, and the values that your company represents.

However, most brands don’t stand the test of time. Sometimes, they go through crises. Other times, they fail to connect with their audience the way they used to.

Most of the time, their brand just ages. And it doesn’t age gracefully.

You suddenly think that rebranding is a good idea. But there are several factors to consider. Should you do an overhaul? Or do you just update your current brand? Are you rebranding at the perfect time, or do you wait?

Well, first thing to know is rebranding isn’t easy. Remember when Gap unveiled a new logo? Yeah… trust us. You wouldn’t want to be them.

Source: Medium

You’re definitely going to have questions on your mind … and luckily, we have the answers for you.

Here are the 6 telltale signs to determine whether you need to rebrand or not:

1. Your image is already obsolete

You may need to rebrand simply because your image isn’t modern enough – and what we mean by modern is that it no longer adheres to today’s design trends. Fonts, colors, or other design elements that you may have used 5, 10, or 20 years ago may no longer be useable (or can probably even be laughed at) today.

A great example of this is the Comic Sans font. No serious professional or graphic artist would be caught using Comic Sans for their project… unless they’re working on a parody. Or memes. It even sparked a “Ban Comic Sans” movement in the early 2000s.

Take a look at your design, brand bible, or even just your logo to see if it still “feels” relevant today.

Source: Visual Capitalist  

2. You want to rake in a new audience 

When you started out with your business and worked on your brand, you probably had a target demographic in mind. However, if you’re going to go for another segment of the market, then it might be a good idea to rebrand as well.

That rugged, muted, and masculine logo for instance, probably wouldn’t work too well with Gen Z kids nowadays, who prefer a lot of colorful, bright, and contrasting color schemes.

Adaptability becomes extremely important as you keep up with the times and make your brand more relevant to a wider audience.

3. Your values no longer represent you

Everyone knows McDonalds. They’re the fast-food king, not only in America, but around the world.

But McDonalds once had a very bad reputation when it came to serving healthy food. Remember “Super Size Me”? Thanks to that award-winning documentary, McDonalds was prompted to rebrand and serve more healthy meal options.

Today, even their stores are undergoing some overhauls, now looking like cafes more than fast-food restaurants.

If you want a shift in values, pay attention to what the public is saying and adapt with your products and brand accordingly.

4. You need to overcome a crisis

You might not remember this, but Uber actually faced massive backlash for their toxic company culture and the way they treated their drivers.

Because of this, they thought of doing a brand overhaul.

Source: Prasid Pathak 

The reason why you no longer remember that backlash as much as you do today is thanks to their visibly better branding and improved work culture.

If you’re facing some serious backlash or trying to overcome a negative reputation, you might consider a rebrand (and an improvement in service of course) so that you can allow your customers to see you in a fresher light.

Everyone deserves a second chance, right?

5. Your business is evolving to something else

If you see your business shifting to something else it’s originally not, then a rebrand is most likely in order.

What your brand image looks like now may not necessarily be appropriate for the direction your business is going to take.

This is also applicable to mergers, acquisitions and demergers. When companies undergo this, the need for a rebrand is almost immediate.

Source: Visme 

6. You need to step up and above the competition

Finally, if you want to differentiate yourself from your current competition, you should rebrand.

This happens a lot, especially in the small-to-medium sized enterprise level, where they make use of generic logo generators for their brand.

Okay, one: don’t do that.

And two: you should definitely invest on a brand workshop or call an agency to help you out.

A lot of businesses would try to cut corners in the beginning to build an initial brand identity. But those initial steps are crucial to building a first impression. And you know what they say about first impressions, right? They last.

So, to stand out from the crowd, you should build a unique brand off the bat. Learn how to differentiate yourself and take a corner of the market!

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Take note though: some brands would be able to stay consistent for decades – while others evolve quickly.

There’s really no solid, one-size-fits-all answer to rebranding. What matters most is that you understand your capabilities, your audience, and your position in the market before you do anything drastic such as a rebrand.

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