Moving house or rebranding?

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I'm moving house. Not just house, but city. Not just city, but country. A perfect excuse to spring clean and tackle those chores that have been on the bottom of the 'to do' list for years. Will this change be enough to transform my thinking and turn me into a marketing goddess overnight? Probably not.

I've recently been working with a client who's rebranding. Rebranding is all about change. People will take another look if things are different enough, but like moving house if the people and products and processes remain the same, a new name will not be enough to increase visibility or radically impact sales.

Rebrands often fail because expectations are too high. Management levels want to embrace the new look and feel, but ultimately it's changing what you do rather than how you look, that truly moves a company forward.

If you're contemplating a rebrand make sure

1. your focus is on positioning your companies offering against best alternatives in the market
2. all stakeholders are bought into the vision behind the new name/logo and not just the design
3. realistic expectations are set across your company with supporting internal marketing

Rebrands are generally expensive and time consuming projects, which in my experience, promise more than they deliver.

Perhaps you just need a relaunch, but that's a whole other blogpost.