INSIGHTS
- Northwell Health advises breaking the rebranding project into a development phase and execution phase.
- According to BrandMatters, companies looking to rebrand themselves should weigh resources, know their timeline, and assess the risk of not rebranding.
- Pulse Marketing Agency advises companies to determine which components to salvage during a rebranding project.
OVERVIEW
The short version is that I have gathered and prepared a list of best practices for company rebranding below. Below you will find a deep dive of my methodology and findings.
METHODOLOGY
To complete your request, I researched relevant resources such as case studies, trusted business media sites, and branding consultancies/agencies. I did not look for a packaged set of best practices but spread my research across different sources. For this reason I chose to present my findings by source instead of as major points, as I felt this format would better deliver the perspective of each voice more realistically instead of divorcing them from their context. In order to identify which practices can be defined as the "best practices" I have selected those that were most frequently mentioned throughout my research. These examples presented themselves as the most credible and successful practices due to the frequency of their use. Please note that as there were no defining metrics to measure best practices, my selection serves as an approximate ranking. To see the results of my research, please continue below.
■ NORTHWELL HEALTH
Northwell Health's journey of rebranding had been discussed in a previous request, however here I present their list of best practices. In the same interview by True North Custom, Northwell Health SVP Ramon Soto shared "a few standout best practices for promoting a hospital or health system rebrand":
"I’d probably break that into the development phase and the execution phase. On the development side, I think if you treat it from a change management standpoint—it’s not just a branding exercise. ... I treated it almost as a political campaign, understanding our constituents, what their needs were, personally selling to them and giving them confidence that this was going to be done well. And then on the execution side, for us you get one time to do it and you don’t want to screw it up, so the selling process to make sure we received that funding was incredibly important."
He added, "So we have to develop this dialog and relationship well before the need arises, like any good brand. Last thing in terms of execution was that we didn’t want to use the same old playbook that everybody else did—I didn’t want to sell hope through fear. I really wanted to have this optimistic approach to health care, and there are so many ways to tap into emotion. Why follow when you can actually lead in the marketplace and do things very differently? And that formula worked incredibly well for us."
■ CHICAGO NOW — THE MARKET STRATEGIST
Chicago Now discussed the rebranding of a French food services company which involved axing one letter off its name. Sodexho changed its name to Sodexo, explaining "“The letter ‘h’ has been deleted from the name to support the Group's strategic transformation into a Services company. Because the ‘h’ is often associated with the hotel and food services business, particularly in Europe, the change emphasizes the Group's accelerating development in Facilities Management services. In addition to increasing the brand's scope and impact, the simpler, more dynamic name has been found to be easier to pronounce and spell for people around the world.”"
Chicago Now observed that Sodexo passed its naming standards which states that business names should:
• Be easy to pronounce
• Appeal to important audiences like customers, employees, shareholders
• Convey meaningful benefits consistent with the company strategy
■ BRANDMATTERS
Brand strategy consultancy BrandMatters shares the following general best practices for a company rebranding:
• Weigh your resources: "Provide a realistic view of the people and man-hours required to complete the project successfully, as well as the financial investment required. It’s also helpful to outline the type of support and involvement that will be required from the leadership team and third party suppliers."
• Know the timeline: "Outline the proposed start and finish dates, along with key milestones along the way."
■ INC
• Put the Compelling Story Into the Visuals — Inc told the story of a company rebranding project that involved a logo change and a new tagline to better represent its story. "With the customer central to everything the company does, it makes sense for it to tell a compelling story that reflects that positioning."
•Keep It Simple and Consistent — On the other hand, "Whatever you do, don't complicate the new visuals with too many components as if you need to explain every aspect of why it's different. Let your audience figure out some of it, and stick to a basic visual display of the symbolic attributes it represents."
• Create a Brand Guidebook — Inc also advises that companies develop a brand guidebook (which can be duplicated as a digital guidebook) to keep the team on one page.
• Go Beyond Textual Identity — Inc advises companies to go beyond textual content and use other media such as video to give the new brand a chance of life. "It's pictures, color, and moving images that can truly resonate and make the new version of your brand stick in the minds of your target audience."
• Share the New Brand Everywhere and Often — Inc encourages companies to use the rebranding campaign as a chance to catch new customers that may have passed the old brand by.
■ HEALTH WORKS COLLECTIVE
Trusted media site Health Works Collective gives a list of best practices for rebranding a medical service practice, that would also be applicable for service companies:
• Legal Issues — "In order to avoid legal issues down the road, you should check other registered trademarks that have similarities to your own chosen branding."
• Negative Publicity — "If your reputation isn’t healthy, then you should first, fix the root cause of the problem. And preferably tackle your reputation issues from the ground up. Simply renaming the company and coming out with a new logo and website in my opinion is a shady way to get out from under that negative press."
• Consistency — Aside from webpage and social account updates, "It will also be essential to update your local citations (Yelp, Citysearch, Google+, etc.) and wherever else your business may appear if you want to remain relevant in Google Local search."
■ PULSE MARKETING AGENCY
Pulse Marketing Agency shares 5 best practices for a rebranding project. However, as most of the points have been pointed out by the previous sources above, below is a unique best practice to consider:
• Determine which components to salvage — "A rebrand doesn’t mean that your company has to start from the ground up. Many successful rebrands involve the company using recognizable pieces from their old logo. (Remember Apple’s rebrand in the late ‘90s?) This might be as simple as using the same color or font from the old logo and somehow incorporating it in the new brand."
CONCLUSION
To wrap it up, a list of sources detailing their best practices for company rebranding have been prepared above. In each example, I have endeavored to include direct quotations and statistical information in support of my insights.