Is it Time for a Rebrand? Part 2: Internal Factors Will Say So

Rebranding is part of the natural cycle for brands, but how do you know when it’s time? Sometimes, you don’t have to look any further than within your business for a sign.

From shifts in strategy, to updates in your product offerings, changes due to internal factors like these can affect brand performance, even within your own organization.

As we mentioned in Part 1, rebranding is more than just changing a logo, typeface and color palette. That’s not to say that isn’t part of the process, but a full rebrand includes things like re-examining your strategy and positioning, updating your mission and reimagining the overall vision you have for your business.

While a rebrand is a great way to help your brand stay relevant in a changing marketplace, you may be wondering what brings on the need for one in the first place. Here are a few internal signals we recognize when helping businesses.

Changing Direction
If you’re planning to change your company’s mission, vision, product offerings, business model or strategy, it will no longer reflect what employees have come to know of your brand or what it once stood for. With this many internal brand updates happening, a rebrand will help you develop a new value proposition that your employees can rally around.

Negative Perceptions
On occasion, target audiences and employees can develop a negative association with a brand. This could happen for a number of reasons, but internal factors like a scandal, social faux pas, policy change or failed initiative could be difficult for the brand to bounce back from. In this type of situation, it’s good to hit pause and assess the potential benefits of the rebranding process to create a clear path forward out of the turmoil. 

Acquisitions and Mergers
Acquisitions and mergers bring their own set of complexity by having to blend the operational aspects of 2 or more different entities (operations, HR, finance, products). It’s just as difficult for the brand. Sorting out the hierarchical changes of which brand leads, whether they’ll combine or evolve to an entirely new brand are all internal factors that affect company culture. Giving newly combined employees a shared starting point is where your brand becomes an invaluable tool for managing change.

Not attracting Top Talent
Some businesses exude an incredible level of expertise, creating brands that thrive and become icons in culture. Opportunities to work on brands of this caliber are highly sought after as showcase destinations on resumes. But when (because it’s misunderstood, outdated or just not creating the excitement it once did), it could become invisible to top talent looking to grow their career and build equity with a distinguished brand in the process. Rebranding not only redefines your brand for consumers, it also gets prospective talent interested in contributing to the next stage of growth for your business.

The big takeaway—it isn’t a question of if, but when you’ll need to rebrand, and if you find yourself contending with internal factors like these, the time may be right to evaluate the powerful effects a new brand perspective can have.

We know it’s a big decision to make, but in the long run, a smart one—as we said, it’s part of a natural progression that successful brands make every 4-6 years. Taking the time to look internally allows you to identify what’s working for your brand, what isn’t and assess which changes to make. It could be just the thing to help dust off your brand, re-energize employees and create renewed excitement internally while making new consumers sit up and take notice.

Which leads us to the big, important questions:

Are you looking at your brand with an objective eye, or could you use an outside perspective to help identify internal factors that might affect your brand and culture? Are you planning on updating your strategy, mission or vision? What about your brand? Are candidates knocking down your door or passing up the opportunity to join your business? And finally, when was your last rebrand? If it’s been a while and big internal changes are on the horizon or have already occurred, don’t let your brand get left behind.