Rebranding a business means a lot of things. It can be as simple as choosing a new name for the business or product, or as complicated as changing the entire marketing plan or organizational structure.
What’s more interesting about this whole process of rebranding is the business should run as usual even when it is shedding its old self and branding a new avatar.
The business should still cater to the clients and customers even when it is rebranding. In the trade and commerce world, a lot of things happen in the blink of an eye, and you do not want that happen to you so you should always be seeking and reaching to your clients and customers even when you have decided to rebrand your business or products.
Does this sound easy? Or do you think it is very complicated? In order to understand what it takes to do a rebranding, you have to divulge into the whole process involved in rebranding your business or products.
Know Why You Are Rebranding
Do you know why you are rebranding? Rebranding is not something like you dislike the color of your room so you are giving it a new paint. You should always have the answer to the question: Why you want to rebrand your company or product?
You should also be clear about what your clients and customers will think about your rebranded business or products. Doing a survey beforehand might be a good idea.
Understand the Process Involved Before You Begin
Let say you are slicing an onion. While slicing an onion, it is very common to experience a burning sensation in the eyes. Slicing an onion brings tears.
Rebranding is somewhat similar, you should know what you should be doing during the process of rebranding. Let say you are rebranding your business, you might have to think about a new name, a new logo, the theme color to reflect your business, etc.
Or perhaps, you are rebranding your products. You will have to redesign the product, give a new name, new packaging etc. In both cases, you will also have to plan a marketing strategy. Rebranding is almost like lunching the business or a new product. Even when the business or the product has already been in the market for a while, when you are rebranding, you will have to start all over again.
This all needs a thorough discussion, not only among the executives and board members but also among the staff. Rebranding can never be done without discussing with your designing staff, marketing staff, even the general staff. Rebranding might even require a survey in the market among the previous customers and target customers.
Connecting with Existing Customers and Target Customers
Even though you are rebranding, your business and products were already known to a lot of people. Since rebranding is changing the business model, revising existing products, or even upgrading the business, you will have to talk to a certain segment of the customers and see their reaction.
Do they like the new concept, if they did not like it, what are the reasons for their dislikes? Also, you should give them a proper reason for rebranding. You should talk to your existing customers and give them the reasons in 1-2-3.
Some customers are already connecting with your business and products on an emotional level. In that case, make sure you don’t break their hearts. Give them a strong reason why the business or product needs rebranding. Also, tell them what they can expect after rebranding.
Marketing and Promoting the Rebranded Business or Product
Pitching your products or business that you are rebranding is very important. After doing a general survey among your existing customers and potential customers, you will have to come up with a new marketing strategy.
Marketing is a very important step when rebranding. Since rebranding is almost like introducing a new product or a business model, you will have to come up with a novel marketing and promotional idea. And, you have to do all this at an aggressive level
Don’t Break the Heart of Existing Customers
Rebranding does not just mean you are creating a new thing for new customers, rebranding also means you are giving something new and interesting to your existing customers.
Therefore, when rebranding you will always have to consider your existing customers. If you break the hearts of the existing customers, your rebranded business or product may never succeed as it is difficult to reach out to new people as the market is very competitive.
Business Rebranding Examples
Rebranding is a long ongoing process. Take Unilever’s Product for example. The company has rebranded its cream “Fair and Lovely” to “Glow and Lovely” because in recent times the company has been criticized for promoting “fair skin” in India where the majority of people are dark skin.
The reason the company gave to the customers was quite convincing because just by changing one word in the product, i.e changing fair into the glow, it has taken one step further to save itself from the charges of promoting racism.
Since the product is the same, the company did not lose customers. However, now that the product changed its “racist” name, new people are getting attached to the product.
Daraz is another good example of rebranding. Daraz, an ecommerce business operating in the Indian subcontinent (India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nepal) was once called kayamu.
When the company was acquired by Alibaba group, it was rebranded as Daraz. When the business was called kayamu, the general public did not trust the shopping site much. However, after the rebranding, Daraz is not understood as home grown business even though it is still a foreign company in the country where it operates.
That’s because the change of name from kayamu to Daraz gave the company a new meaning. While kayamu was nonsensical word in the countries where it operated, Daraz means drawer/cupboard/wardrob in the countries where it is popular. People are now easily associating the ecommerce company as their own personal wardrobe.
Last but not least rebranding is not a story of one sleepless night, you might have to spend a lot of sleepless nights.
