Decide if you need a rebrand or a just a refresh
Before jumping the gun with your company’s new rebrand, decide if you absolutely need one. Just last month, SurveyMonkey announced its relaunch as Momentive in order to redefine itself as an agile experience management company – not just a survey tool. In these types of situations, SurveyMonkey outgrew its name and wanted to ignite a change in purpose. A great way to signal a change, growth or expansion is through a rebrand campaign.
Doug says: “If you’re not being invited to the right rooms, or, more specifically, you’re getting into the wrong rooms, that’s a sign you might need a rebrand. A sales and marketing headwind as well can be a sign. A tailwind is when you’re working for a brand and it’s great, and you’re on the same page. A headwind is when you always have to explain in a sales meeting why you’re not just surveys [for example]. If you’re spending a lot of time undoing some perceptions, that can definitely be a sign that a rebrand is called for.”
However, it may not be a rebrand, but a soft launch you need. Sometimes, your company is simply evolving with B2B trends and it all depends on your reasons for rebranding.
However, be careful when you change. In 2009, for instance, the orange juice brand Tropicana decided to change its entire packaging to the point where customers found the brand to be unrecognisable. As a result, sales dropped by 20% and Tropicana was forced to revert back to its original design after much criticism.
Another reason not to rebrand is just because a new crop of people have entered the company. For example, if a CEO enters a company, you’ll often see a new agency and new logo appear to signal change, but this shouldn’t be a reason in itself. There must be a genuine reason to do so, with evidence to support the decision.
Doug continues: “The thing a CMO will love to do is do a refresh very publicly to say ‘Hey, you can see my impact. You can see it right?’, and I don’t think that’s a good enough reason. I think great CMOs are confident enough to step into a brand and know whether it really needs that or not.”
Get stakeholders alignment
If you decide that a rebrand is the right move, then the number one factor you’ll need to have is stakeholder alignment through and through. Getting your ducks in a row is crucial.
Very early on, you’ll want to take the different stakeholders into account to surface any early misalignment. The criteria you can break down depends on your rebrand. Early on, it’s about what kind of associations and what decisions you want to make around the rebrand.
Doug says that, at Velocity, they typically do a branding and renaming workshop, where they show the spectrum the new brand can range from. So, do they want the new name to be evocative or descriptive? Emotional or scientific? Startup or enterprise? These are the associations you’ll want to debate with your stakeholders upfront, otherwise, it’ll come up in later stages when it’ll be more difficult to backtrack.
Doug says: “We don’t tell people they necessarily have to put a dot on the spectrum and then you have to live with that tiny spot. If your company feels comfortable with a big wide range, then there’s nothing wrong with that. We don’t mind where it falls on this. We shouldn’t be on the extreme on either side. The whole point of it is to narrow it down completely. So we need to align.”
You’ll also ask questions such as:
- What are the goals?
- Who is the primary audience?
- Who are ideal prospects?
He continues: “If people have the same idea about the ideal prospects, you’re going to hit it. You’re talking about these super conservative enterprises, and then you’re also talking about disruptors? You’re not going to appeal to both, so let’s figure this thing out.”
These are all aspects to the rebrand that are very subjective. With so many strong opinions, hammering out all these key questions and associations will allow your company to focus more on executing the rebrand, instead of wrapping your head around what it means to other groups.
Plan and research meticulously
The bigger the change, the more that you should be doing upfront, including qualitative research. You can talk to your existing customers, your internal staff, the market, and talk about the perceptions of your current brand and how that can transform.
Then, once there is alignment, you can create a timeline. In terms of a hard deadline, it might be beneficial from a PR perspective to plan based on a big event or conference. Not only would it make for a more suitable announcement than a press release, but it’ll also set the tone for your brand moving forward. What better way than gathering most of your prospects and customers in one setting?
That being said, don’t rush it. There’s so much at stake and, if you do mess up or need to backtrack eight months later, it won’t be nearly as impactful. So, make sure you give your company enough time to transition into the rebrand.
Aside from the rebrand announcement, you also need to have a communication plan to make sure your customers are informed of any big changes. Doug recommends creating concentric circles so you have plans around your management teams, colleagues, partners, customers, prospects and even your freemium audiences.
He says: “It goes out and out and out. And each of those should have a mini plan and those plans might overlap. Communication may hit all of them, but each needs to have a mini plan, particularly customer facing ones, and you really need to go through the reasons and then think about the new brand so you can answer questions and get ahead of that.”
In addition, you’ll be able to have one-on-one conversations with your existing customers, which gives them the opportunity to be a part of your rebrand and feel valued by your company.
