Earlier this year we decided to look inward and take a deep dive into what our brand name meant for us and our vision.
Reimagining your brand from scratch when done right can be a celebration; with new features and products introduced under one umbrella, we reassessed, reworked, and redesigned to create a brand-new identity. Needless to say, it was an exciting and arduous process, but the final outcome made it worthwhile. Working through your brand messages and what you want them to convey can be incredibly energising and help bring into focus everything you have achieved so far and what you want the future to look like.
Why rebrand?
Why now? Is it the right time? What is missing with the current name? Does it capture our vision? Does it do equal justice to all products? We asked ourselves all these questions and more before embarking on this journey. There were team brainstorming sessions, passionate arguments, and differences of opinions. In the end, we were all aligned on going ahead and creating a fresh brand identity that would stand on its own in a world that is fast evolving towards Web3.0, NFTs and the likes. The one thing I knew from the beginning is that the buy-in of the senior team was critical to making the rebranding exercise a success.
With the influx of new clientele from new geographies and growing our product offering further into the B2B and B2C markets, it was befitting to consider an identity change and a new persona that was universal in its appeal.
One of our motivations was accepting that a brand is not a static thing, it is very much a dynamic personality that needs to evolve with time and space.
Think back to 2011, when Hero Moto Corp underwent a complete overhaul in terms of slogan and logo. AR Rehman was roped in to create a new song for their ad ‘Hum mein hai Hero’. The black and red logo denoted solidarity, premium product and service and the feeling of zeal, passion, and confidence. The campaign went viral, and experts have concluded that organisations that have chosen to rebrand after concentrating on functional attributes of the product and how they can be appropriated in the customers’ daily lives, always have a positive impact. The methodology and brand strategy behind rebranding is a major contributor to earning a share in the marketplace.
What is in a name?
A name change is a crucial step in a brand’s lifecycle and is never taken lightly. There must be a strong reason to do so. Very often companies find the current name no longer matches the vision or scope of its product or the company has outgrown what it started as.
Last year Meta, the new identity for Facebook, was the talk of the industry but did you know that Instagram started as Burbn and Backrub was how Google was launched in 1996, and later adopted a play on the word “googol” (a mathematically large number) to change to Google and convey their ambition of being the unlimited source of information.
Back to your roots
Gucci is a great example of rebranding to keep up with changing demographics while remaining true to your core strengths. In 2015 Marco Bizarre took over as CEO along with new Creative Director Alessandro Michele of Gucci. The brand needed to re-strategize as a new generation of fashion buyers did not have a connection with the brand. They reintroduced a zealous contemporary repositioned strategy based on their Italian roots that was gender fluid and had an invigorated logo along with a modern style of communication. This repositioned Gucci as a front runner with their evolved target audience.
Keep it simple
Technology is constantly evolving and brings about exponential change. However, it is equally pivotal for the brand to remain rooted to its core brand personality while exhibiting newness. Rebranding reflects a brand’s evolution that attracts its customers who always return for both new products and services. Steve Jobs rebranded Apple Computers Inc to Apple Inc. in 1997 with a new logo, giving a fresh look that was both sophisticated and modern. It enabled Apple to introduce new products and services like the iPhone, iPad, and AppleWatch that kept loyal Apple users coming back to the brand year after year.
A personal favourite and great example of a close to home brand that revamped itself is the Indian Post. They gave the organisation a facelift by positioning themselves as being energetic and modern as opposed to the perception of a bureaucratic laid back and slow organisation. The logo was replaced with bird wings that was later led by a simple yet powerful punchline “giving wings to your dreams.”
As an epilogue, I would like to add that choosing to rebrand is a collective decision that brings not only the product but also the team together on what the brand and the organisation mean to each of them. As the CEO of a technology start-up, there have been crossroads at times and straight paths at others, but the lessons have always varied and stayed with me. A remark by Dalton Dorne sums up my thoughts, “ A rebrand is an opportunity to honour a company’s roots while positioning it for the future.” It is a simultaneous time to celebrate and appreciate the past, recognize the present and endeavour to create the future.
Views expressed are personal.
