Avoiding crucial mistakes with your rebrand

What makes a good rebrand?

Deciding it’s time for a rebrand can be a decision that comes naturally – your old look is showing its age and is no longer a satisfactory representation of your business. Rebranding occasionally is a natural business progression, however, it’s not as simple as just knocking up a new logo.

There are many aspects of a rebrand you should consider if you want to get it right. Missing the mark on a rebrand can risk the reputation of your company, so we’re going to run through what we think makes a rebrand fantastic, what we advise you to avoid, and what, in our opinion, some of the world’s biggest companies have got right and wrong.

Reflecting your values

It’s important that your brand image captures your missions and values as a company. If you have a more professional approach to your operations and communication, your brand image needs to be created from a sleek and sharp standpoint. If your business is more casual with a fun approach, a warm, friendly visual foundation is a better place to begin. The right combination of words, shapes and colours can deliver a wide range of connotations, so making the right branding decisions will change how your business is perceived.

Appealing to your audience

Once you decide on how you want to be reflected as a company, you need to make sure your choices are relevant for your industry and market. Does it appeal to your target audience and follow current design trends? Standing out using brand visuals is always great, but it only works if you're standing out for the right reasons.
 
Staying ahead of current design trends is crucial. By maintaining a modern look, you’ll more effectively appeal to audiences. If you use dated design practices to rebrand, the public perception of your branding won’t be as strong. Current design principles help you stand out and look the part, impressing audiences that recognise how your branding pushes modern boundaries.

Being distinctive

When rebranding, you need to be distinctive whilst still driving home your identity. By doing something a little bit different and being one of a kind will make your brand more recognisable in a saturated market of competitors. Having a unique look that reflects the values of your company whilst appealing to your target audience will provide you with positive individuality.

Staying consistent

Once you feel like these boxes have been ticked, you need to make sure your new brand is used in a consistent manner across every channel. Eliminating every aspect of your old brand and avoiding confusion is important when revealing a new identity. Having new brand guidelines and assets will enforce a change and increase attention on your new appearance.

Common mistakes during a full rebrand

After talking about what’s important to get right, it’s time to touch on what needs to be avoided. If you feel like your current brand is falling behind your competitors, a reactionary decision to rebrand mustn’t result in a copy of competitors’ brands. This eliminates any aspect of uniqueness and immediately works against any opportunity that you can take advantage of to stand out.
 
When further exploring your initial decision for a rebrand, you always need a plan. Rushing into a rebrand without a clear plan can often end up in things going wrong. You need to know what direction you want to explore, what you want to look like, and what audience you want to target.

If your rebrand doesn’t resonate with the audience you’re trying to reach, it can quickly become a costly mistake. Forgetting to take customers into account can lead to a negative impact in brand reputation and possibly effect brand loyalty. When you decide it’s time for a rebrand, making sure you appeal to your target audience is key to receiving a positive response.
 
Your brand is the largest visual representation of your business. Attempting a rebrand yourself can be difficult, but by finding help externally, you can gain different viewpoints on your brand DNA and identity. Whilst you’ll be experts in who you are and how you help, it takes strategic thought and planning to directly translate that into new branding. This is why it’s crucial to get the input of a graphic design team.

Learning from recent rebrands

Eurostar

If you were wondering what an effective rebrand looks like, turn your head to Eurostar.

Their rebrand focused on the heritage of the company, whilst understanding the position they play in the lives of their consumers. Centring their rebrand on the focus of ‘connecting people’, their striking new look, which includes a 90s typeface, intends to ‘spark’ new journeys for their customers.

Including a star in their rejuvenated logo is not only a nod to their name but it also acts as a symbolic north star guiding travellers on their journeys.

Not only do they look great and have understood their target audience, but they’ve also incorporated this new look across all different platforms.

X/Twitter

X, or Twitter, hasn’t exactly been a golden example of how to rebrand one of the strongest identities in the world. In fact, according to CivicScience, 72% of people still call the platform by its former name, Twitter.
 
X have failed to consider, or purposefully ignored, response from users. Whilst X is a platform with a monumental number of users, new ownership may not be focused on short-term impact in favour of plans for long-term transition and growth. Regardless, it’s a vocal opinion that the majority of users have taken a disliking to the new title.
 
This is also a perfect lesson in how to destroy brand identity. Sporting the blue bird logo since 2006, the phrases ‘tweets’ and ‘tweeting’ have become synonymous with users. In fact, they’re still referred to today. You can’t particularly say you’ve being spending some time X-ing, can you?

Visa Cash App RB Formula One Team

For you Formula One fanatics, Visa Cash App RB Formula One Team have demonstrated how to conjure up the worst name possible for a Formula One team.
 
Firstly, it’s not exactly straight-forward to say. The lack of emotional connection in the new name only widens the gap between the team and its fans. This highlights the importance of connection that consumers feel with a brand, and how corporate interest can get in the way of that.
 
Fans want to connect with teams, not brands. The reset of brand identity has had an adverse effect, paying no attention to heritage and the DNA of the team.
 
It seems they learned from their mistakes and changed identity to “Racing Bulls” for the 2025 season. We prefer Minardi, though.