Why should we Rebrand?
Recently I met with an 30+ year old organization going through drastic changes. Change in leadership. Change in staff. Change in values. Change in vision of the future.
Whenever I hear of an organization going through something like this, I always default to thinking about what changes are needed in an organization's brand identity.
The question always arises, "Why do we need to rebrand?" It's a great question and one that can be answered by looking back into history.
The best example of a collective identity is a country flag. And throughout history, whenever there is a change in leadership, values, and most importantly vision, a "country rebrand" is always quick to follow.
Could the Germans have decided that they were going to keep the Swastika and over time have it stand for something positive instead of evil? Sure, they could have tried. Would it have worked? I seriously doubt it. It was much more effective to develop a symbol that could bring people together around new values and a new vision of what the future could be.
6 Comments
"Great thoughts here. Love the visual. Really makes the point clear!"
- Daniel Decker
":: BRILLIANT :: Exactly what our team is building concerning re-branding Church/Jesus :: Looking fwd to future thought spells."
- iHateChurch
"Great example of rebranding. It brings to mind all that Georgia has gone through in the past few years changing its flag. We went from something that was incredibly divisive, to a flag that was designed for compromise (and ending up just ticking everyone off -- and it looked horrible), to finally a flag that we have now. In fact I heard that it is the number 1 reason Sonny Purdue won the first time... he promised to change the flag."
- Mike Davis
"[...] of rebranding. The need for rebranding can come for several different reasons, one of which I wrote about a little while ago. Sometimes though, people feel they need to take their company the rebranding process when there [...]"
- Matchstic Blog » Blog Archive » Don’t Rebrand: Part 1
"Sweet rebranding story. I could not have thought of a better example. The "south" could take a lesson. Good job!"
- Jerry Suhrstedt
"[...] I posted a somewhat controversial blog on this topic a little over two years ago, read here for more thoughts. [...]"
- The importance of knowing why you’re rebranding | Branding Blog | Thoughts From A Brand Identity House | Matchstic