10 reasons your business needs a rebrand.

There are lots of reasons you may decide your business needs a rebrand. Whether it’s because you’re expanding, you need to stand out from the crowd or your brand is looking a little dated, a rebrand can help revitalise your business. While it does come at a cost of time and resource, a rebrand can often be the difference in reaching the next level of your business’ growth and development.

We’ve put together a complete list of reasons why your business might be ready for a rebrand. Enjoy!

For any business undertaking a rebrand, the first thing you need to do is get to the core of your brand and understand its DNA. What is your vision and mission? What are the values you stand for?

In some unfortunate cases, this vital work isn’t carried out at the start of a branding project, which hampers any business. In other cases, the established brand DNA may have evolved or changed over time.

If your core brand DNA isn’t aligned with your existing brand identity, it’s definitely time for a change. 

Rebranding your business becomes crucial when there is a shift in your company’s strategic direction. This can happen when altering your business model or modifying your product or service offerings.

It doesn’t take a genius to know if your business’ name or visual identity highlights a product or service that is no longer part of your offering, or if your brand fails to align with the strategic direction of your business, it’s time to rebrand. 

What worked for you and your business when you initially started may no longer work if you’ve been in business for a long time. As your business grows, you must make sure your brand isn’t left behind. 

Local business names such as “Manchester Fitness” or “Wakey Wines” might be a good idea when you’re starting up and focusing on your immediate locality, but as your business grows, a name like this can hinder you if you want to venture out to new locations.

While conveying an image of being small and local can work to build a loyal customer base in a particular area, it will 100% limit you if and when you decide to branch out further afield. 

You may not need to rebrand if you’re staying in a specific region, but if you’re looking to go national or even international and you still have a very localised name, a rebrand should definitely be on the cards.

It can be incredibly hard, if not impossible, to stand out from the crowd if you look and sound like everyone else.

In the same breath, it can be quite easy to fall into a trap of copying your competitors if they’re doing such a good job communicating their brand.

In any case, the more your brand blends into other businesses, like Homer Simpson blending into the hedge, the harder it’ll be for you to differentiate yourself, which can lead to longer term issues for your business. 

Are your customers looking for something slightly different or newer from your business? Have they grown tired of your offering? If you feel the need and have time and budget to diversify your products and services, you should. Take a look at your competitors, are they doing the same? If so, a rebrand is a must, especially when operating in a dynamic or fast-moving industry. 

It’s so important you consider a rebrand when your brand fails to effectively connect with or reach your intended target audiences. For example, your brand might be too niche to one specific demographic and you want to become more universal. What may have been successful with male audiences may not resonate with female audiences.

This was the case with our client The 55 – a fitness brand that had fallen guilty of attracting a predominantly male audience. We were brought on board to change that and open them up to a wider audience. Check out the full case study here.

Conducting thorough customer research becomes paramount in order to understand if you’re targeting the right audiences and if you want to expand your customer base. 

Avoid making branding changes based solely on a gut feeling. Instead, make well-informed decisions supported by extensive research. This way, you can build a brand that effectively communicates to all your target audiences.

To command premium prices, you need to deliver an incredibly strong and consistent brand experience. The use of appropriate colours, fonts and imagery can effectively convey that your business provides a premium product or service, which will make it so much easier to justify price increases.

Perhaps one of the most common reasons businesses decide to rebrand is due to a tired, outdated brand. With more and more accessible communication channels, it’s so important to have a clear and modern identity that works across all of them.

Does your brand work on social media platforms as well as it does on a huge billboard? Can it work inside a QR code? Is it compatible in VR and AR? New technologies will always keep brands on their toes and your brand needs to adapt and change if you’re going to succeed. 

Over the last few years especially, many businesses have been re-examining whether their brand could be considered offensive or harmful. In 2022, the NFL side Washington Commanders underwent a rebrand to move away from the ongoing Native American mascot controversy that is heavily linked to racism. If your brand name or logo uses outdated or offensive language or stereotypes, a rebrand is definitely essential.

It’s normal to have bad press from time to time. A bad word or negative review can be a hard pill to swallow, but it shouldn’t affect your business too much if it’s infrequent.

Problems start to arise when negative comments persist and your brand is suddenly attached to a certain stigma or engulfed in controversy.

Just look at Hermes Delivery. They rebranded to EVRI last year to try and counteract the bad reviews and escape the stigma that surrounded the brand.

Obviously, a rebrand can only help so much when your brand image is already poor. If you don’t fix the problems on the inside, your brand will always appear the same on the outside, no matter how nice your name or logo looks. Has EVRI’s service got better since? We’ll let you be the judge.

Decided you need a rebrand?

Whether you need to craft a comprehensive brand strategy, come up with a new name or create a visual identity that makes you stand out from your competitors, we can help.

Get in touch to start your rebranding journey with us today.