“We need a rebrand.”
It’s an exciting sentence. It suggests change, progress, new beginnings and, almost inevitably, several meetings devoted to discussing slightly different shades of blue. But what if the brand isn’t actually the problem?
In this episode of Marketing, Properly!, Sean Makin looks at one of the most common assumptions growing businesses make: that changing the logo, colours, website and visual identity will somehow solve a much deeper commercial problem.
Because a genuine rebrand isn’t simply a new logo. It’s about how customers understand your business, what they think you’re good at, who they believe you’re for and, ultimately, why they should choose you.
We explore when a rebrand genuinely makes sense, perhaps because the business has grown, entered new markets or simply outgrown the way it presents itself, and when the real issue may be positioning, pricing, customer experience, sales, service or an unclear proposition.
There’s also the danger of throwing away valuable brand recognition simply because the leadership team has become bored with it. Sometimes evolution is considerably smarter than revolution.
And before commissioning the new website, rewriting the brand guidelines and ordering 3,000 mugs with the new logo on them, there’s one important question to ask:
What are we actually trying to fix?
Because if the problem is deeper than the brand, changing the wrapping won’t solve it.
It will simply give you a much more attractive version of the same problem.
And that’s not rebranding.
That’s redecorating.
Marketing, Properly! – practical marketing thinking for business leaders who want better decisions, clearer strategy and considerably less marketing theatre.
Produced in Scotland.
