Even if your company has been operating successfully for many years, the way it's perceived can shift. Over time, contemporary brands become classics, start to look dated, or update themselves to match their audience's needs now. Younger brands change too — to attract new customers, move into a different price segment, or work their way out of a reputational crisis.
In these situations and others, rebranding can help. But for it to succeed, you need to be clear about why you're doing it and what it will actually involve. In this article, we'll look at what rebranding is and what it entails, how to run one successfully, and which mistakes to avoid.
What Is Rebranding?
Rebranding is a strategic, considered transformation of a brand and its market positioning. It primarily involves visual changes — updating the logo, colours, typefaces and so on — but it often extends to how the company communicates, sometimes to its philosophy, and occasionally to its name.
The core purpose of rebranding is to help companies stay relevant in the market, align with the values of their current audience, or attract a new one. According to research, 75% of international companies have rebranded at least once since 2020. That's a striking illustration of how quickly you need to work with positioning and audience perception.
A successful rebrand directly affects customer trust and brand loyalty.
The Key Elements of Rebranding
Rebranding has several layers, and it usually combines a few elements at once:
Refreshing the Identity
This is the most visible part of a rebrand: redesigning the logo, choosing a new colour palette, replacing typefaces. Its main job is to make the visual identity feel more current and better suited to digital formats — for example, by adapting to different screen sizes.
Sometimes brands limit themselves to small or barely noticeable changes. Puma’s logo, for instance, is updated periodically but never changed completely, because the business risks heavy losses if it gives up its recognisability.
Changes in Brand Communication
A rebrand can also mean rewriting the company's narrative: changing its tone of voice, its unique selling proposition (USP), or even how emotional it allows itself to be. A new communication strategy is developed either to open a dialogue with a new audience or to keep pace with cultural change.
Old Spice, for example, moved away from its "classic masculinity" concept over time and made its communication more ironic and charismatic instead, in order to reach a younger audience. That helped the brand compete with more contemporary, less conservative products.
A Full Strategic Transformation
This kind of rebrand can involve changing the company's name or its structure. One of the best-known examples is Facebook's rebranding as Meta to signal a shift in strategic vision.
When Does a Company Need to Rebrand?
Rebranding shouldn't be a spontaneous decision. A company needs to understand whether it genuinely needs one, and what it expects to achieve through it.
Among the most common reasons for rebranding are the following.
Losing Relevance in the Market
Dated visuals, or communication that sounds disconnected from current or local realities, can do a brand real damage.
In the late 1990s, when Netflix was still a little-known video rental service, it decided not to charge customers late fees for returning tapes, and even started delivering chosen films to their homes. That helped it become more popular than the market giant of the time, Blockbuster — a better-known company, but a far less customer-focused one.
A Change or Expansion of the Target Audience
If your company wants to reach a new audience, sound relevant to new generations (by introducing gamification, say), expand internationally or account for new behavioural patterns, you need new communication. A successful example of this is Levi's, which managed to win over a young audience despite being seen as a heritage brand.
A Reputational Crisis
Rebranding can help a company put right the mistakes of the past. In 2015, Volkswagen found itself at the centre of a scandal over falsified emissions tests. The company then worked on its reputation, focusing on electric mobility and a conscious approach to the environment, which helped it win back customer trust.
Strategic Change
This can mean:
- Restructuring, expansion or a merger. Here, a rebrand can help keep the situation clear for both employees and customers, explaining the company's new structure and how its different business lines relate to one another.
- A lack of growth. When a company stops growing, the product isn't always the reason. Sometimes the brand has simply lost its relevance. Competitors update their offers, and customer expectations shift, so what used to set the brand apart may stop working. A rebrand can help restore the emotional connection with the audience, draw a clearer line between you and your competitors, and make your positioning feel current again.
How to Rebrand Properly
Rebranding is above all a business project, and if it fails, it can do serious financial damage. Elon Musk's decision to rename Twitter as X, for instance, cost him an estimated $4 to $20 billion in losses, because he didn't take the typical customer profile into account.
Here's how to approach it strategically.
1. Elaborate Why You're Rebranding
Before you change a colour or a logo, you need to understand what it's for. Perhaps your brand no longer reflects what you actually do? Or you're entering a new market, or the leadership team has simply grown tired of the existing brand image? A great deal depends on the reason: a company that wants to attract a new audience needs a completely different approach from one recovering from a reputational crisis.
2. Measure Success Against Clear Goals
Once you've identified your reasons for rebranding, you need to work out what success will look like. It might be higher brand awareness, positive customer sentiment, conversion rates, or internal consistency metrics. Whatever the case, goals are essential if you want to know whether the rebrand worked.
3. Do the Research
Start with a brand audit that covers a SWOT analysis, competitor research, and customer surveys. At this stage, you need to identify the weak points in your positioning and communication, so you can see the gap between how you want the brand to be seen and how it's actually perceived. You'll also learn which brand elements are working hardest for you, and be able to determine exactly what to change and what to leave alone.
4. Align Brand Identity with Business Strategy
A rebrand should reflect where the company is now and where it's heading. If you're planning to move the brand upmarket over time, for example, your new visual identity, tone of communication and positioning all need to signal that shift.
5. Plan the Rollout Carefully
Two things matter here. First, a rebrand has to be consistent: if your social media profiles already show the new logo while your invoices still carry the old one, that creates confusion. Second, it's important to tell your customers what has changed and why. Frame it as a story of growth or evolution, so your audience doesn't come away with the impression that the old brand was somehow wrong.
6. Be Ready for Some Pushback
Even when your rebranding story is interesting and well told, some customers still won't like it. People tend to resist change, so you need to watch your audience's reaction closely after launch. Resistance usually fades within a few months, provided the rebrand was done properly and you explain the reasons behind it.
Examples of Successful Rebranding
Despite the risks, refreshing a brand can help companies reach a new level. Here are some examples of those who managed it.
Instagram first launched in 2010, and back then its Polaroid-style logo made a lot of sense. It reflected the app's core purpose: taking instant photos.
Six years later, though, the platform had become something far bigger — a global social network with over 400 million users. The dated logo was replaced with a more minimalist one: the same camera, but as an outline against a bright gradient. The rebrand also brought Instagram together with the company's other apps (Layout and Boomerang), making the platform easier to use.
Many users reacted negatively at first, but this didn't translate into any major loss of audience or long-term failure. Instagram remains one of the most popular social networks to this day.
Lego
In the early 2000s, Lego reallocated its resources and started losing money. The brand began creating more complex product lines, building theme parks and releasing clothing — and lost its focus as a result.
So when Jørgen Vig Knudstorp took over as CEO in 2004, he set about simplifying the strategy. That included changing the business model: cutting the underperforming lines and returning the focus to what had made Lego popular in the first place — construction sets. The company also began working actively on attracting an adult audience.
Visually, the brand didn't change, but the strategic transformation worked: Lego restored its profitability and within six years had become the world's largest toy manufacturer by revenue.
Domino's
In 2009, customers weren't particularly fond of Domino's pizza and often left harsh reviews. Company CEO Patrick Doyle decided not to hide this and instead publicly acknowledged the shortcomings in the "Pizza Turnaround" campaign. The brand didn't just tweak a few things in its recipes — it reworked them entirely, taking customer feedback into account.
The company's honesty impressed its audience and prompted people to try the new pizza. As a result, Domino's sales in the first quarter of 2010 grew 14.3% from the previous quarter, driven by these changes.
How Not to Rebrand
Not every rebrand ends in that kind of success, of course. When changes come too fast or aren't thought through carefully enough, the result can be disappointing — as with Twitter's move to X.
Here are a few pointers to help you avoid the most common mistakes.
Don't Forget to Communicate with Your Audience
In 2010, clothing brand Gap replaced its iconic logo with a more neutral one, without any explanation at all. Customers didn't like it: the company met fierce criticism and brought the old logo back within a week.
So even when the changes are small or feel entirely justified from where you're sitting, remember to communicate them to your audience.
Don't Change What Makes the Product Recognisable
In 2009, Tropicana updated its juice packaging, removing the straw and making the design more minimalist. Sales dropped because customers stopped recognising the juice on the shelf.
In 2024, the same brand made a similar mistake by changing the bottle design. This update made the product less distinctive and triggered another wave of dissatisfaction. The new bottle was smaller, and although the brand advised retailers to price the updated juice lower, not all stores followed that recommendation. Customers were unimpressed, and sales fell.
Remember: sometimes what looks like a trivial detail is in fact an important part of the brand.
Don't Stop at Design or Communication If the Problem Runs Deeper
RadioShack updated its logo and positioning several times to appear more modern and better meet the needs of a new market. But looking the part isn't the same as being it. With each relaunch, the company failed to listen to what its audience now needed and left its outdated business model untouched. That led to RadioShack ceasing operations.
If customers are complaining about your product or your service, a cosmetic rebrand won't help. In that case, what matters is focusing on strategic change.
Every rebrand needs a purpose and a strategy. It has to be grounded in an understanding of the audience and reflect real changes inside the company.
How to Strengthen a Rebrand with Omnichannel Campaigns
An omnichannel approach helps you make sure your rebrand doesn't go unnoticed or misunderstood. Customers get the same impression of the brand wherever they encounter it: in web push notifications, in your app, over SMS or on social media.
Here's how to do it.
Use Different Channels for Different Jobs
Social media, for example, works well for gathering the audience's first reaction. Email is good for explaining in detail what has changed and why. PR and the media are for presenting the rebrand to a wider audience.
Measure Performance Channel by Channel
An omnichannel launch gives you the chance to see where the rebrand is landing well and where it isn't. Your Instagram reaction may be positive, for instance, while you start losing email subscribers. That can be a sign that the message in your emails is poorly framed and needs improving.
Try Segmenting Your Communication
Not all of your customers will take the changes the same way. Loyal buyers who have used your product for years are more attached to the brand and may react differently from people hearing about it for the first time. This is exactly why systems like Yespo let you divide your audience into segments and speak to each of them differently. That kind of differentiation makes your communication more effective and reduces the risk of resistance to the rebrand.
Conclusions
Rebranding helps companies stay relevant and communicate their values in a world that never stops changing. The most successful examples — Lego, Domino's, Instagram — have one thing in common: the changes they introduced were well-founded, consistent and clear to their audience. These brands took their customers' pain points and needs into account, met them halfway, and earned their loyalty.
For a rebrand to succeed, be clear about why you need it. Do the research, set clear goals, and don't neglect open communication with your audience. An omnichannel approach will help you with that last part.
Get in touch with Yespo to bring your brand's new meaning to every audience segment — through email, SMS, web push, and other channels simultaneously.