What is rebranding and what are its principles?

Rebranding means reconstructing the brand image in the customer’s mind with the aim of getting better or preventing it from getting worse to Increase your brand. In rebranding, by changing the elements of visual identity (name, color, logo, design) and the messages we give to the audience (brand strategy, values, mission, vision, goal, tagline), we reconstruct the image created in people’s minds as we want.

Why businesses do rebranding?

There are two main factors for rebranding in businesses such as;

1. Rebranding due to internal changes or poor initial branding: Most businesses or startups do not pay much attention to branding at the outset. The reason is clear; Because compared to more important tasks such as finding an investor and delivering a product or service to early customers, no one wastes time designing and choosing a logo or paying attention to the brand strategy. In such a situation, it is possible for the business to grow larger than they expected, change direction, change the mindsets of customers to what they originally wanted, and anything else that they did not initially think would happen. Usually, any business that grows from small to medium and large is forced to recreate the brand.
2. Rebranding due to changing external conditions and competitors: Many companies undertake partial rebranding (visual identity only) just to make them more attractive, on par with competitors, and in line with current trends in design and advertising. For example, it is possible that circumstances will change and the competitive advantage on which the business slogan was based will no longer be a competitive advantage. Or with the arrival of competitors who have something new to say, we need to make changes and raise our level. In today’s world, brands, no matter how strong and authoritative, are forced to peel at some point. Without rebranding at the right time, the brand will either weaken or be in the ideal position.

Some examples of right and wrong

1. McDonald’s: McDonald’s restaurant chains have undergone several general and minor rebranding since 1940. The reasons for McDonald’s constant rebranding over the years have been the opening of new branches in different countries, the change in strategy in the products offered and the change in the range of target customers. During these rebrandings, McDonald sought to expand its market and add a range of families and children to customers; But on the other side of the story were critics who, as McDonald’s branches expanded to other countries, criticized it mostly for selling unhealthy and cheap food. What did McDonald’s do for this criticism? McDonald’s was constantly changing its strategy with rebranding with best ads services and in recent years they have created children’s play space in some branches and added fruit, salads, fish and smoothies to their restaurants’ menu. McDonald’s was not entirely successful in all of these rebrandings, but they did prevent the situation from getting worse by reacting quickly to the feedback they received. An interesting example of a mistake in McDonald’s rebranding was the introduction of a puppet propaganda character called Happy to attract children. McDonald’s was quickly ridiculed, and everyone said that the character was more scary than attractive to children. Although McDonald removed the doll from the brand’s visual identity, the introduction was enough to create online subjects.
2. Burberry rebranding with the aim of reforming the target market: In the 1990s, the famous British clothing manufacturer “Burberry” offered a range of lower-priced products that were more welcomed by a special group of the community known as Chav. Shav is a term used to describe the street youth of the poorer sections of society with special personality traits in England. The group reduced sales by wearing cheap hats, pants and T-shirts. Burberry had to do some ways to increase the brand or they would lose his main customers. Eventually, Barbary brand managers marginalized this image by changing products, targeted advertising, and hiring new models, and then by changing the logo in 2018, they were able to do a successful rebranding and Ad Branding.