The Branding-Rebranding Spectrum: Exploring Two Sides

Branding involves designing and promoting a business along with its products and services. It includes creating a logo and labelling it on products and packaging for customers to recognize. 

On the other hand, when a company changes its message or updates its parts, it’s called rebranding. Rebranding means adjusting an already-known brand per the company’s new vision, trends, or target audience. 

Understanding what a company is looking for is essential to grasp the difference between branding and rebranding. While the strategies used in both processes are similar, they happen at different stages in brand management. Also Read-  Best Branding Inspiration Brand Name.

To understand this spectrum in more detail let’s start from the basics.

What is the Difference Between Branding and Rebranding

Branding

A branding strategy is creating, organising, and supervising various activities to ensure the company’s desired brand image is communicated to consumers. The entire design process, from the logo to the corporate image, is covered by branding. Companies incorporate different market tactics that guarantee the coherence between the brand’s vision and its communication style.

Rebranding

In contrast, the situation is different when it comes to rebranding. Rebranding is the technique brands use to alter the impression of their products in consumers’ minds. Hence, rebranding is done to adapt the brand to customers’ changing needs and keep up with the times.

When to consider a brand refresh (rebranding)

Here is a short and simple test. Visit your website and social media (Instagram and Facebook accounts). Do you notice a consistent flow in visual language? If not, your brand identity might need some improvement.

Not Consistent

Remember, whether someone is reading your blog or browsing your product website, your objective is to provide a consistent experience.

Not Aligning with your Ideals.

A business’s purpose, vision, mission, and values—are the foundation of a successful brand. It’s critical to reevaluate whether your brand appropriately represents your identity.

Brand Expansion

Your brand identity should be considered when modifying your strategy, whether it’s for a whole new product line launch or a new target market.

Example of Rebranding

When you hear the word Dunkin, you immediately think of donuts and coffee. Despite this being a symbol of solid brand awareness, the company decided to drop the O representing “donuts” in its rebranding strategy to modernise the customer experience. They redesigned their stores, got a new logo, and updated their brand messaging.

Maintaining Brand Continuity Vs. Creating a New Identity

Customers expect consistency in their brand interactions. If there is none, they will be perplexed and likely irritated. Hence, maintaining brand continuity fosters trust, loyalty, brand equity, and employee morale, all of which are critical to the success of your business.

Maintaining Customer Retention

Customers are more likely to stay with their current brand if they believe it fulfils all their criteria. Brand continuity provides the company with a consistent identity across all communication channels.

Maintaining the Quality of your Brand

Brand continuity is an essential component of brand management because it helps reduce costs, improve efficiency, and provide a consistent customer experience. It also boosts customers’ morale and loyalty, which is a critical point to any company’s success in today’s market.

Creating a New Identity

• Lay Strong Foundation: Always remember that the visual aspect of brand identity should be the last thing to tackle when building a brand. A brand is similar to a house and should be made on a solid foundation. Hence, you can only design a robust visual identity if built on a solid foundation.
• Identify the Brand: Answer questions like What should be its personality? What are the important USPs? What are its goals? How will the business set its voice? These core elements will help you create a new identity for your brand.
• Examine the Current Identity: Communication is the heart of good branding. You must have an intimate understanding of your brand to ensure that your visual output aligns with your brand values, reflects your personality, and communicates your overall brand story.
• Do Competitor Analysis: A competitor audit allows you to compare your brand to each competitor, which can reveal some surprising insights.
• Concentrate on a Visual Direction: Now that you’ve examined your current identity as well as the identities of your competitors, it’s time to get a team on board for designing.

Remember! Designing is highly subjective. Colours that convey power and strength to one person may not be perceived the same way by another. People can interpret the terminology in their own terms. So, it’s better to get help from market experts like agencies who can help you build one visual direction under proper brand guidelines. 

Create Brand Guidelines

Nothing more heartbreaking than a poorly designed brand identity is that it is never used or misused. If appropriately crafted, a brand style guide can save the day. 

Create a Logo

A brand identity is a complex design system. Each element impacts the others, but it all starts with your logo. A strong logo captures the brand’s essence, allowing you to make your mark in the market. 

Client Example

Hue Pad: Premium Mousepads Branding: Hue Pad approached our agency to rebrand its visuals and logo. To make it happen, we looked closely at how people viewed their brand in the market. After finding areas to improve, we updated their brand to reflect their values as a market leader. This involved refining brand guidelines, changing visual styles, and creating a new logo.

Work With Vowels

Building a strong brand requires consistency and time to resonate with the audience. A business cannot just launch a new brand identity and expect the audience to accept it immediately. With creative graphic design agency like Vowels, we can help solve design challenges, whether it’s creating a brand for a startup or rebranding an established organisation. Our expertise covers a wide range of branding needs to ensure your brand stands out effectively.

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FAQs

Q. What is the distinction between branding refreshing and rebranding?

Ans. A brand refresh may or may not affect all aspects of a company’s identity, like the core values and the mission statement. On the other hand, a rebrand may entail a more detailed overhaul of the company’s identity or even a completely new identity, changing everything from the logo to the messaging to the core values.

Q. What is included in the branding package?

Ans. A branding package is a collection of assets that establishes consistency for your brand. The package includes a colour palette, typography, messaging, graphic elements, style guides, and a series of responsive logo variations. Through consistency, these assets connect a style and an ideology.

Q. How to get Vowels Branding Services?

Ans. Vowels is always available to work with new clients from all around the world. We offer Branding and design services to different companies across various sectors. Interested to know more? Feel free to check our Portfolio. Click here to contact our expert.