Are Rebrands Really “Job Killers” Or Leadership Tests?

Recently we attended a fascinating panel discussion run by the Financial Services Forum the topic being “Do rebrands matter in the long term”. It was one of the most thought provoking events of this kind I have been to – but not in all that positive a way.

I came away with the distinct impression that rebrands should be avoided at all costs, that they only create risk; one person went so far as to call them “job killers”. It was said slightly in jest but captured the mood. Given the panel was primarily client side it felt like a worrying potential insight into broader industry attitudes to building brands.

As I reflected on the discussion what was clear is that focus had been on reasons the rebrands being discussed had had to happen. And more often than not these were negative or at best neutral or corporate action led and so unwanted. There was almost no discussion of the unique opportunity that a rebrand gives a marketer. How it gives you a chance to bring together disparate parts of the business and align them around a common goal, reinvigorating your business. Yes, stakeholder management is difficult and stressful but treated positively it can have a huge impact. In the end all those on the panel seemed to have experienced the same with a positive outcome but focused in the session on the challenge rather than the reward.

A rebrand is the ultimate tool marketers have to influence how a business is perceived, potentially for a very long time, if they get it right. All the communications that come after should be beholden to what comes out of that exercise, if you don’t get to do a rebrand you are really the custodian of a pre-exisitng brand. If you do a rebrand you are the architect. I’ve watched enough Grand Designs to know building your own house can be extremely difficult and stressful but at the end you get a result that is better and perfect for you. The same applies to businesses and their brands.

That is what felt missing from the discussion – the optimism that should drive any rebrand. Yes, the reason its happening might not be good but the outcome most certainly should be. But you have to enter into it with that belief, that this is a rare and unique opportunity that will make a fundamental difference to everything the business does here on in. 

Then again, we do rather a lot of rebrands (sometimes without setting out to!). And they seem to have had an amazing impact and the clients may even have said they enjoyed the process, so maybe I have been spoilt. I hope if some of our clients had been on the panel there would have been a little more optimism in the room. 

Check out a recent rebrand case study of ours here