Talking Points: Rebranding – why do it?


Nicky Young, owner of Why Design, discusses the issues surrounding rebranding in a series of case studies and says that, however it’s achieved, it’s all about business...


FX

Words by Nicky Young

When should a company think about a rebrand? 'Best of all before it really needs to,' says Ewan Ferrier, creative director at brand consultancy Brand Union. Companies need to rebrand so that they can effectively engage with their customers, whether new ones or existing ones, he says. Whether your company undertakes a brand refresh or a root-and-branch complete overhaul, those concerned with the bottom line will be reassured to know that there are financial statistics that allow analysis of the value a rebrand can bring to a balance sheet: 'There are ways and means of evaluating the success of a rebrand, such as research companies that can measure increased brand awareness, and even accurately map purchase patterns,' says Ferrier. That said, in our brand-conscious age, it's fair to say 'we kind of intuitively know if something works'. In short, inside the industry and outside, we as consumers can all pick out brands that we think are good and ones that are less so.

Says Ferrier: 'We are a creative industry first and foremost, though commercially aware. Our job is to position brands where they should be and watch out for pitfalls to avoid. Relevancy is key -- you might be targeting a really flamboyant and eccentric group of people, for instance, in which case you're going to need a really flamboyant and eccentric brand. Or the converse if you are targeting a really sober group of people with a really serious business product. The brand needs to reflect that.'

Case study BW, Anthony Brown, Sales and Marketing Director

I came on board in March of this year, and the company was then known as BWI, as in BW Interiors, and had been for a long time.

A rebrand was top of my list as we have ambitious plans for growth. A compelling story and narrative that was consistent with how we viewed ourselves and how we wanted to be viewed by others was key.

We wanted something strong and firm that sent out a clear message, and so BW: Workplace Experts said simply but solidly what we are about. Part of our thinking was that the word 'interiors' had become very devalued through overuse, so this gave us a new focus.

I saw a rebranding exercise as very much an important part of our future growth.

We commissioned independent research among 175 of our clients and former clients, who told us the things that they saw as underpinning the business, and it was out of that research that we arrived at 'Built With', a useful phrase that allowed us to team it with other values that came from the research -- Built With: Precision, Built With: Passion and so on. We have one single instance where we say 'Built Without', and that is 'Built Without: Defects'.

The feedback we have had from both staff and clients has been overwhelmingly positive.

Case study AAID, Stuart Allen, co-owner

Allen Architecture & Interior Design was a company that had been around a good while, and after we acquired it, we wanted to preserve the legacy of what had gone before while at the same time growing it into something new. As the old company had been called Artillery Architecture & Interior Design, it meant we already had the acronym AAID, but we moved Interior Design to Allen Architecture Interiors Design so that it makes the point that we cover architecture, interiors and design, rather than that rather nothing phrase 'interior design'.

So, the rebrand was about saying, look, we are still here, we are moving on and we have a vision for the future. The rebrand needed to address the takeover, project how we wanted to be perceived and still be relevant in the future when we are doing things that we are not even yet doing.

Although we are designers and in that sense probably our own worst enemies in terms of wanting to do everything ourselves, we felt it right to get a graphics design professional in. We found a freelancer who was happy to sit with us as we tried to explain our story and our journey, and in that sense rebranding is a great opportunity for you to learn about yourselves. So, having a third party bringing objectivity to the process was enormously beneficial, both for us and for him.

Case study BDG Architecture + Design, Gill Parker, Managing Director

We were relocating as a company, and that coincided with a feeling of having made it through the recession, as well as restructuring the company, so that a number of elements conspired. We wanted to send out a message to say that, yes, we were fundamentally the same company but that, actually, we'd also changed and wanted people to take another look at us. The previous brand had been around for the best part of 20 years, a tweak or two notwithstanding.

This was a light rebranding in the sense that the name was staying the same, albeit with a new logo -- it's not as though we were becoming a new company that wanted a break with what had gone before. Quite the opposite we are very proud of our heritage. But, yes, we also wanted to look to the future and say to the market, hey, take a look at us now -- we're the same but we're also really contemporary.

Despite being designers ourselves, we used outside consultants for two reasons. The first is that while we are designers, we're not graphic designers, which I think is important. And secondly, sometimes it is good to give a brief to someone who doesn't know you and have them think about it independently and objectively. We used a San Francisco firm called Manual Creatives.

Providing the brief was a useful exercise for us as it makes you think about what are the elements that you want to preserve and keep, what has changed, and where you want to be in the future.

Prior to the rebrand, we were about 25 employees and we're now up to about 40, so the rebranding has coincided with a period of growth for us. What is fantastic about it is that it has allowed us to renew conversations with people who thought they knew us, but are now having to look again. And, at the same time, we seem to have caught the eye of people we didn't know.








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