Sometimes, when I’m consulting with businesses, they feel this urge to rebrand.

But until they’ve actually thought about the reason behind them going ahead with it, it doesn’t happen.

So, with that in mind, I’m going to give you 5 signs its time for a rebrand!

Sign 1 #

As mentioned above, the first sign is the urge to refresh the business.

This desire can often be caused by competition. One industry I can think of is automobiles.

As of late, its similar to a domino effect watching these brands change and update their visuals.

Once companies such as Mini, Nissan, Peugeot, and Renault changed, the rest followed suit.

Ultimately if your competitors are changing up their game, its time for you to do the same.

Sign 2#

New competitors are often a great sign for change.

For over 200 years, the U.K had an established set of national banks. Once the financial crisis of 2008 hit, the government encouraged more competition for banks so that nobody had a monopoly.

Banks such as Metro, Atom, Monzo, Starling etc. entered the market and frankly they’ve changed the game.

A while ago I had a chat with David Brier (a great advocate for branding, you can check his channel out here).

He mentioned the idea of ‘The bar of good’.

What he was explaining through this was the expectations and status quo when it came to banking.

That was until the challenger banks appeared on the horizon.

If you notice an influx of new faces into your industry (taking market share)…It’s a sign to update.

Change.

Refresh.

You need to reposition yourself around the shifting nature of your market. .  

Sign 3#

You’re new to a company as a leader.

When you find yourself at the steering wheel of a company, you wish to shake things up.

• A new set of values
• A new vision for the business.
• New ideas around products.

So, you’ve got to ask yourself…What’s the next logical move?

Rebranding.

This will allow you to align your newly acquired business with your own goals and vision.

Let’s take a rather famous example.

Steve Jobs comes on board for Apple.

Immediately, changes take place, and one of them was branding.

Gone was the colourful Macintosh apple of the past, and here was this simplified silver logo.

The general reaction to this was one of innovation.

Alongside the logo, the ‘think different’ slogan surfaced and for the rest of his life, Steve embodied that wholeheartedly.

When you join an enterprise in a leadership role, don’t expect to change the hearts and minds of those within the business without a strong brand/mission/story to validate your position.

Sign 4 # 

Mergers and acquisitions.

I’ve mentioned this before on social media, but its wonderful to see the rebrand for the merging of Dixons, Carphone warehouse and Curry’s into…

Curry’s.

It can take a lengthy amount of time to get a merge/acquisition completed, especially for larger companies.

But this can be a more efficient process for smaller businesses.

So, if you find yourself on the edge/midst of this decision, you need to think on rebranding much sooner.

At this point, a solid rebrand can really showcase the aligned values and mission that the new company proudly holds.

It’s simply critical to businesses when merging takes place that there’s a uniform brand that everyone can get behind.  

Sign 5 #

And finally, the fifth sign for rebranding is if you start your company with an M.V.P. (minimum viable product).

We work with a plethora of start-ups at Danny&co.

We’ve noticed that when start-ups get going, they usually go through processes like

 accelerator programs or focusing on operations, excluding branding.

They create an M.V.P which (once produced) will provide them with an understanding on the functions of their market.

They then rebrand accordingly, dependent on the needs of their target audience.

For example, in the early days of Airbnb, they began as an enterprise focused on houses being used for renting when the owners were away.

Over time, they came to a conclusion.

Most of their clientele’s properties were holiday homes.  

So, they rebranded accordingly.

Now they were a holiday home letting/tourism business.

The bubbly font used on their logo was changed to a solid, reliable cyclic symbol representing the heart and the destination that they provided.

So, there you have it!

5 signs you need to rebrand.

Because I’m feeling generous today, I’ll let you in on a tip…

Make sure you’re aware of the problem you’re solving for your customers before going into the rebranding process.  

If you wish to measure the power of your brand, I’d highly recommend you check out our brand confidence scorecard. (you can look into it here!) .