Earlier this week, I sat down to a significant purchasing dilemma. The Brand Union needs two new high performance and expensive printers. We specialise in branding and design so I’m not talking entry-level inkjets. This is a decision that will affect the quality of our output and will speak volumes about the level of pride and care we put into our work. Do I care about saving a few quid because one brand offers a £20 discount and a free toaster? Not really. Do I go with a brand that is innovative, claims to have more brightly coloured (in CMYK, of course) bells and whistles than most, but not widely known in my peer group? Hmmm, I might need convincing. Is the brand important? Absolutely. I need a brand of unquestioning performance, reliability and with a service back-up that is not a promise but a reality.
B2B is different to the consumer market where the repercussions of purchasing decisions might not reach any further than today’s breakfast. My printer purchase isn’t just an office buy. It is a career decision. I am a discerning prospect who wants every touchpoint of my work to be clothed in first class quality. That’s not to say business purchases are more important than consumer buys – just that B2B brands should not only pay attention to what their brand says about them, but also about their audience and their audience’s customers.
Recently, we’ve seen a few business brands acknowledge the importance of brand by changing theirs. Xerox unveiled a new identity earlier this year, Parceline announced it was changing its name to DPD in line with its European identity, and a raft of technology brands have undergone rebranding exercises ranging from subtle applications of lip gloss to significant makeovers. But why do business brands rebrand? And how do you get it right to ensure it isn’t just lip service?
Why rebrand?
Rebranding a business identity isn’t cosmetic surgery. The process is rarely down to a simple change of heart on the part of the brand. More often than not, a rebrand occurs because a B2B brand needs to keep up. Technology brands want to keep up with a market that renders their new product yesterday’s news in seconds. Every B2B brand must keep up with a raft of competitors vying to make the world’s biggest businesses their customers.
A rebrand should make a difference to the product and service delivery and not just cover the cracks. As much faith as I have in the power of design, a rebrand has to have substance. A rebrand can help a business say something new, shift old perceptions and depict itself as dynamic and innovative. But it can also backfire.
Pitfalls to avoid
So, as informed individuals, your existing and potential customers probably won’t be wooed by a set of romantic ideals about what your brand now stands for. They want to see what that means in terms of your product or service. They want to see what difference that makes to their working day and their business’s success.
When Xerox rebranded, the official line was that since dropping the ‘rank’, the brand had suffered a lack of resonance in the European market where it was seen as distant. The new branding was created to depict the company as dynamic and friendly. Xerox’s challenge is ensuring it can deliver on these claims.
And never stray from the truth. Honesty is a powerful tool, and the world’s best business brands are built upon the nuts and bolts of what they actually do – Deloitte and Google are two examples. Integrity and fact must be at the heart of your rebrand, or the businesses you work with and want to work with will see very quickly that you can talk the talk, but fail to walk the walk.
How to do it
1. Know your audience. Your customers and prospects will be informed, knowledgeable and aware that choosing the right supplier could be the difference between success and failure. Don’t rebrand for the sake of rebranding – do it because your audience wants it. Remember, it is sometimes procurement, not management, that makes decisions, so there are different audiences to target in one company.
2. Understand the personality you are trying to create. Understand that when a customer signs up to your brand, it is signing up to the same values, and accepting that those values will in turn be delivered to their customer. Get it right or pay the price.
3. Make sure your brand can deliver on its new brand promise. Parceline says that changing to DPD means it can now offer all domestic and international services under one brand. Sounds good. But if customers find the promise doesn’t stand up, the rebrand will look like a waste of time and money. Make sure your product or service does as it promises or a rebrand will look like a print job gone horribly wrong.
