We recently embarked on a full rebrand of our company – change of name, logo, mission and vision. It was no mean feat!
We navigated the process independently and we believe, successfully. Here are a few things that we learned from the process that may be helpful for anyone considering rebranding:
Have a strong rationale and ensure the change links to the strategic aims of your company. Changing your company identity is a transformational change that will affect everyone linked to your organisation – staff, customers, partners. Consider the benefits of the change against the risks. You could use tools like a forcefield analysis to help – https://www.mindtools.com/pages/article/newTED_06.htm.
Only go ahead when you are sure it is the right decision and the right time.
Be clear from the beginning where decisions will be made. Will it be the leader of the organisation? Directors? Management team? Collective decision? As we felt this was potentially a subjective decision, we were clear that the management team would make the final decision. This was communicated clearly to the rest of the team from the outset. Our team members knew that their input, their thoughts and their participation in the process were important and meaningful but they would not be responsible for the final decision.
Talk to people! Involve as many people as possible actively in the process. Consult at the start, in the middle and just before the end. Hold workshops, launch surveys, have discussions. Gather lots of data that you can use to inform decision-making by identifying themes. Through our consultation we gained greater clarity on our USP and purpose. Through researching other brands and processes we created parameters that we wanted our name to fit.
This learning and identifying of themes in data were key in informing the final decision that we made – it made a subjective decision quite objective.
It is also worth noting here, that the final company name came from a member of team!
It feels like the natural question to ask – do you like this? What do you think about this?
In many ways it isn’t about what people like. We all like different things, different shapes, different colours. Your company brand isn’t looking to win a popularity contest, it is looking to reflect your organisation and what you do. Your brand needs to connect people to your organisation, to it’s why, it’s purpose and it’s values.
Ask people questions like, what does this brand say about us? See if the responses correlate to your values and purpose from your research/consultation.
There will be times when you feel lost, when you feel it isn’t coming together, you aren’t going to make it, it isn’t going as well as planned, you can’t see the end. That can be referred to as the fog of uncertainty. Breathe it in, stay there, it is where the magic eventually happens.
In fact, we delayed our timelines at one point to stay in the fog a little longer!
As mentioned before, rebranding is a transformational change that affects everyone connected to your company. Keeping people informed of the steps taken, completed, the next steps, the reasons behind certain decisions or elements will keep them on board, interested and even excited – depending on how you present it. Be passionate when you communicate – it can be infectious.
The two videos posted below give an example of how we communicated our rebrand to our external stakeholders.
Any process is much better when you have fun with it, right? Rebranding is a creative process and it gives you a lot of opportunities to have some fun and spark some creative thinking. You can do this with your team through the activities you plan for workshops you may hold. You can do this with external partners/customers too. Here are a few fun activities we used:
Force fitting – present a random object/picture, write 10 words linked to that object/picture, create brand names linked to those words.
Object retrieval – find 3 objects around your house that link to your company’s why. Present them and explain them.
What would xxxx name our company? – Insert different well-known people into the question.
The purpose of some of these activities is to disrupt your thinking and bring about new perspectives, ideas or possibilities. You will find more information about these activities and many more practical tools and techniques for creativity and innovation in the Idea Time book by Dr Jo North – https://bigbangpartnership.co.uk/idea-time-book-one/
For more information on this blog contact: sarahprice@go-well.org
Chilton Academy, Chilton, Ferryhill, County Durham, DL17 0PT
