Branding: Is it time for a rebrand?
I’ve been involved in a few rebrands in my time – most notably two come to mind:
The time at Barclays in preparation for the London Olympics in 2012, where we appointed an agency to review the Barclays logo and its presence in London. A few rounded edges to the eagle, a bolder blue and a significant amount of money later, and we had something that so closely resembled the original that no one noticed.
A more significant branding exercise took place while I was working as part of the ‘newco’ project at Orange and T-Mobile merged to form Everything Everywhere (no, not the movie!) , and then quickly became EE. It was a significant amount of work! The initiative went from two well known and respected mobile phone brands, to something brand new and fit for the new age of phones being used for their internet usage, rather than their ability to make calls. I left the company soon after the new company was formed but it’s fair to say the rebrand played a big part in the company’s success after BT paid £12.5bn to purchase EE in 2016!
The question that’s often asked is whether to rebrand at all – and if so to what extent; small tweaks as with Barclays – or a complete rebrand like EE.
This has become a significant discussion point again this month with the news that Toblerone will be making changes to their branding and packaging following a decision by Mondelez to re-locate some of their manufacturing outside of Switzerland and therefore having to forego the specific assets linked to the country due to Swiss Laws.
Mondelez have decided to take the opportunity to make some additional changes in what is described as 'other changes to the packaging also reflect Toblerone's heritage,' the company says. 'The font and brand logo are inspired by the Toblerone archives and include the signature of our founder Tobler’.
There are a lot of differing opinions around whether the rebrand will have a negative impact (see Raconteurs response here) or whether anyone will even really notice (See Mark Ritsons response here). I’m much more on the side of Mark Ritson on this one, and additionally with the extra PR they have gained with articles everywhere from the BBC to the Wall Street Journal I expect they will come out of it ok!
If your company is thinking about what is next for your brand and need help with where to start or which agencies will be best placed to involve, then do reach out to us at Proctimise.
