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Every eminent brand requires occasional rebranding. But determining the right moment to rebrand is questionable. There are probably justified reasons that made you believe that maybe it’s time for rebranding; however, you still have doubts. As experts in this domain, Alpha Efficiency will remove those doubts and disclose surefire signs that suggest your brand is ripe for rebranding.
Branding express the brand’s identity, style, mission, culture, and overall image. These attributes may change over time as the brand evolve so does the urge for rebranding. Approximately brand is fresh and relevant only for five to ten years.
Before we start to elaborate on the signs that state the need for rebranding, let’s overview what rebranding entails. Therefore, rebranding implies a brand name, logo, colors, graphics, fonts, the overall brand’s visual impression and identity, and a renewed company culture. The symptoms or the necessitated brand upgradings are:
1. The brand has gone to merging or acquisition.
The fusion of two brands requires reinventing or creating a fresh image for the newly acquired brand and businesses. Even if both entities operate in the same industry sphere qualities of twain brands have to encounter in the new image. Therefore, unifying the narrative of the brands is an important aspect when creating a business image composed of two brands.
2. The similarity of your brand with competitors.
Standing out from the competition and being unique is an important part of the business. If your brand’s image doesn’t stick out from the crowd, looks too similar to others, it’s uninspiring, unauthentic, and outdated, that is definitely a sign to rebrand. Refreshing brands’ look and sense while perceiving brand DNA, can intact or even elevate brands’ position on the market. In addition, determining the brand’s key differentiators will help you in projecting superior features of your brand among the competition.
3. Your current branding is established within budget.
Although it’s natural to feel attached and sentimental to the brand created at the beginning of its constitution, improvements in brads image are necessary and must follow its growth and progression. Significant brand advancement is a sure indication to align and orient the brand’s image to its current state.
4. The brand is not attracting its target audience.
This is another curtain signal that your brand needs changes. If a brand is failing to captivate the right audience and misses its opportunities with the customers, you should consider reviewing the branding, website, voice, and language type. Changing the elements that don’t correspond appropriately with users is a way to attract the right audience and reactivate the brand.
5. Brand fails to attract a new audience
With every generation that emerges, so does the new peer group that is able to commerce and consume. Every money-spending generation that appears in the marketplace provides opportunities to profit. Promoting brand loyalty by ensuring that your brand is relevant to their demands creates the association of a new audience with the brand. Brand tracking allows you to monitor and survey existing and new customers’ behavior, needs, motivations, and affinities. Rebranding can help you connect with a new target audience while maintaining correspondence with existing ones.
6. Website, business cards, ads, and other branding material within the budget
If you are not pleased with brands matters, it’s clearly a time to do something about it. Think about things that frustrate you the most. Identification of such aspects will point you to necessitate changes. Determine the features that are not good enough or don’t suit your business, and look for successful brands in your industry for inspiration.
Overgrowth of business over the initial brand is the desired state. When that time occurs, rebranding to accommodate your growth is requisite. Distinguishing the weak and strongest attributes of the existing brand can help you strengthen the parts in which your brand shines while reducing its weakness.
7. The current brand no longer reflects the brand strategy and model
When your business undertakes changes, so should your brand. The business model and strategy should reflect in the brand. If a brand changes its mission, purpose, values, vision, or any other significant property, solidification of the brand’s policy with the image is necessary.
8. The brand’s name doesn’t reflect the brand’s vision any longer
A suboptimal brand name that was an excellent choice fifteen or twenty years ago no longer keeps pace with changes within brand and business. This means that the brand’s name is dated and doesn’t well represent the brand anymore. Usually, a brand’s name is considered an immutable aspect of a successful brand but it doesn’t always have to be so. A strong and effective name is the best foundation for a brand’s story. Therefore, changing and reinventing the brand name is part of a rebranding strategy. A valuable brand name is unique, different, and memorable.
9. Overly complicated brand.
Sustaining brand focus over time is demanding, especially for brands that have been through unification, large companies that operate with partners with divergent interests, unverified growth, and mishandled brands. Unguided and unfocused brands often work by copying the competition and providing an assortment of offerings. Lack of brand focus leaves the depression of unreliable, weak, irrelevant, and undefined. The complexity of the brand confuses customers. Rebranding is a way to change a brand’s perspective by simplifying it, and making it more understandable and focused.
10. When moving or expanding your business
Displacement of expansion of the brand requires appropriate rebranding. These occurrences requests meeting the new customers’ needs. Understanding the behavior and habits of residents in new territory takes research to define inhabitants’ predispositions. Rebranding must take into account and revolve around newly surrounding circumstances.
11. Facing negative perception of your brand
Negative perception might occur due to various reasons. Whatever the reason, the negative brand connotation is a certain sign of a need for rebranding. Transforming negative brand images into positive ones often regards rebranding as the only way for neutralization.
Final Thoughts
We hope that we have pointed out signals that you may haven’t noticed or have suspicions about, but which indicate that your brand needs rebranding actions. The process of reshaping the perception and presentation of your company is a principal factor in attracting customers. Consider the listed signs to make changes and reposition the brand, following customers’ affinities and market preferences to seize the opportunities for a further successful business.
You may also like: How to Know When It’s Time to Rebrand Your Business
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