From getting team buy-in, through retaining the trust of existing customers and investors, to ensuring consistent execution — rebranding is full of challenges.
You have built a business that works. You’ve taken care of almost everything needed to grow it. Still, there is a hidden force pulling it back. You believe it’s your brand. But before you crack on with the rebrand, learn about the mistakes that could hinder your success.
Why do rebrands fail?
Why should you care about the pitfalls of rebranding? Missed red flags often lead to complete rebrand failures. What’s a rebrand failure? It’s different for every business, but here are some common ones:
- Nothing really changed but you have a fancy new logo? That’s a FAIL.
- Do your existing customers seem baffled or repulsed by your new brand? FAIL.
- Does your new brand need more explaining than the previous? FAIL.
- Some obscure company is suing you for trademark infringement? FAIL.
- Is your team still using the old assets? FAIL.
All of the above could have been avoided with clear thinking, consistent execution, attention to detail, and of course being aware of some typical rebranding pitfalls.
1. Rebranding when it’s not necessary
Misidentifying or not having a genuine rebranding trigger is the first significant mistake you can make. Before you rebrand you must take an honest account of your challenges and assess whether rebranding is the right approach. If you can answer yes to any of these questions, you’re on the right track:
- Is there a business model or strategy change?
- Is there new ownership or changing brand architecture?
- Is there a specific competitive pressure or market shift?
- Is your audience confused or have the wrong perception of your brand?
I’ve read many briefs over the years and way too often the focus is on surface level issues: an outdated logo, a poorly designed website, glaring visual inconsistencies, and so on. Sometimes the new leadership wants to make their own mark on the brand. These rarely warrant a massive overhaul.
2. Ignoring other voices
Sometimes you must get other people’s approval for a rebrand, other times you might not have to, but still should.
If you need budget sign-off from finance, you should build a strong case for the project. Identify the issues and get real about how the rebrand will address them. Your potential branding partner should support you on this.
You should also try to smooth out objections from your wider team. Don’t be tempted by making a rebrand a top-down imposition. The development process could end up running more smoothly with less cooks in the kitchen, but putting the brand into daily use will be harder without your team feeling ownership over it.
The simple rule is: if the rebrand affects a person’s livelihood directly, they should have a say on it.
3. Alienating audiences
Your audience includes everyone from your staff and customers, through partners and suppliers, to investors and regulators. Confusing them through a rebrand is the worst thing you can do.
You must engage them through the rebranding process. Understand how they see you now and how they perceive your brand. Have answers ready to the questions they might ask. Having an audience-focused lens on throughout the process is a sure way to keep them on your side.
Educate your audiences on why the rebrand is necessary and how it will benefit them. If you don’t have honest answers to their questions, rethink your approach.
Does alienating audiences ever make sense?
Sometimes but not very often. A failing business might make a drastic move to completely reinvent itself. They might cast aside their positioning and their existing customers along with it. They do this in the hope of attracting a bigger audience. Most brands won’t benefit from such a radical approach and are better off appealing better to their existing audiences.
4. Not asking the difficult questions
When rebranding doesn’t probe the dogma of a business, it ends up only scratching the surface.
People have a tendency to avoid open disagreements and just nod along. Team members might have different opinions on who the target audience is or which direction the brand should go. It’s vital to ask the difficult questions and create alignment within the organisation. A thorough rebranding exercise should untangle your brand’s deep seated beliefs and long-established practices.
If your instinct tells you something isn’t right, don’t brush over it. Work at the difficult areas until the path becomes clear.
The rebranding process must be systematic and daring: it must look at all facets of the brand and business, and ask the difficult questions.
5. Not doing thorough checks
Before someone on your team gets carried away with a new logo, it’s best to check trademark availability. If the trademark databases are clear, you should look around carefully in your industry, adjacent sectors and beyond to avoid resembling any other existing business.
The same applies to a new brand name. This is not something you should ever rush. Have foresight and consider future expansion like new product or service launches, or entering new territories too. Make sure you get the legal go ahead but don’t rely solely on others. Do you own checks, do look at competitors and existing brands that could come into conflict with your future brand.
6. Not going all the way
If you consider the finish line to be a list of creative assets, some design templates or brand guidelines, the rebranding project is almost certainly incomplete.
Firstly, most organisations don't know how to implement their own brand consistently across all touchpoints. Beyond the visuals and written messaging, day-to-day operations, customer experiences and your products/ services will all need an upgrade. You can have the clearest, most creative strategy in place but it’s toothless if it’s not paired with consistent execution.
Secondly, you almost certainly needed the rebrand in the first place because something you were doing wasn’t right. To avoid making the same mistakes again, you need to go a step further than simply replacing the signage over your door. You need to consider brand governance:
- How are you going to maintain the brand across the organisation?
- Who is the brand guardian keeping everything on-brand going to be?
- How are you going to make decisions on brand questions not in the guidelines?
- Who is going to be maintaining and updating the brand guidelines?
- How are you going to keep files and brand assets organised?
7. Expecting change overnight
Rebranding is a significant milestone but there’s one final trap you must avoid falling into: expecting overnight success.
Rebuilding a brand and shifting customer perceptions takes time. Open communication is extremely important — between you and your team, your brand and its customers. Strive towards clarity, execute the brand consistently, and avoid the pitfalls to achieve rebranding success in time.
+1 Picking the wrong rebranding partner
Your rebrand could all go wrong if you picked the wrong partner. As rebranding specialists, we’re obviously biased, but here is what we would look for when selecting a new rebranding partner:
- A systematic process: runaway creativity must be paired with a rigorous, structured process that leaves no stones unturned.
- Audience focus: your rebranding partner must prioritise your customers. Their job is not to meet your expectations but rather to find what your audience will resonate with the most.
- Thinking in systems: your collaborator must see rebranding as a holistic, organisation-wide exercise.
- Attention to detail: many creatives do creativity and big picture thinking well but brush over the details. Try to pick someone who can do both.
