Do you know the former name of the well-known Malaysian minimarket chain 99 Speedmart?
Before its massive growth across Malaysia, 99 Speedmart was once known as Pasar Mini 99. It was only in 2000 that the chain was rebranded as 99 Speedmart to achieve the expansion goal.
Rebranding is a powerful tool for businesses and organisations, as 99 Speedmart has demonstrated.
It helps freshen up the image, re-engage customers, or break into new markets. However, rebranding isn’t something you can jump into without careful planning.
Nevertheless, a rebranding checklist will help ensure your efforts are well thought out and successful.
The following 10 items should appear on your rebranding checklist:
1. Analysis of your current brand and identity
Analysing your current brand and identity is a critical part of rebranding.
It’s important to understand what your current brand stands for, how it looks, whom it appeals to, and what customer needs it fulfils. This knowledge will be essential for creating an effective rebranding plan.
Besides, it would be best if you researched industry trends. This analysis will help you stay one step ahead of the competition and ensure your rebranding efforts aren’t lost in the shuffle.
Before rebranding, reviewing customer feedback regarding your current brand identity is also essential.
Knowing your customers’ opinions of your product or service will help you tailor a rebrand that best meets their needs and expectations. It’s also a great way to gain insights into how they perceive your brand.
From their feedback, you can easily identify any changes that need to be made.
For example, Grab used to be branded as MyTeksi, whose service is solely taxi-hailing. When new opportunities and demands for services other than taxi-hailing arose, it rebranded to Grab.
2. Rebranding goals and objectives
Defining rebranding goals and objectives is also important in your rebranding checklist. These goals should be based on the analysis of your current brand, customer feedback, and research into industry trends.
Your rebranding objectives should focus on creating a new or improved brand identity that appeals to current and potential customers.
To define rebranding goals and objectives, start by asking yourself key questions such as:
- What are our main goals for rebranding?
- How can we improve our current offering?
- What value do we bring to customers?
Once you’ve identified your rebranding objectives, use them to define measurable goals for success. For example, if you aim to increase customer engagement, your goal may be triple customer interactions in one year.
3. Competitive research
Your rebranding strategy will work better with detailed information about your competitors.
Analysing the competition and understanding what they are doing differently is essential. It can help you uncover unique opportunities and provide valuable insights that will inform your rebranding efforts.
Begin your competitive research by analysing their current branding.
What are their visuals, fonts, colour scheme, and messaging? Besides, review the pricing structures and any special offers or promotions your competitor offers.
Additionally, investigate the customer feedback they’ve received. This information can provide valuable insights into what customers find important during the decision-making process.
4. Ideas for visual rebranding
After researching your competition and understanding their rebranding efforts, it’s time to create a rebranded visual identity.
Visual rebranding is the process of redesigning a company’s image to create a new look and feels that better reflects its message and brand identity. Brands often use visual rebranding to update their image while staying true to their core mission and values.
Some of the important considerations for visual rebranding are colour schemes, fonts, logos, and design motifs.
Proton, for example, has undergone 6 visual rebrandings. Each visual rebranding serves certain purposes
At its inception, Proton’s logo has a yellow moon and star, signifying Malaysian Muslim symbols.
Such is the case because its target audience was comprised of only Malaysians.
The yellow moon and star remained intact till Proton’s expansion to the West. The major visual rebranding replaced the yellow moon and star with a tiger, Malaysia’s national animal, to represent Malaysia internationally.
As you can see, Proton’s visual rebrandings all serve to update the brand identity and image without compromising its core values.
5. Rebranding Timeline with Key Milestones
You will need to keep track of progress and ensure that all elements of the rebrand are completed on time.
Your timeline should include several key milestones. These include the rebranding research and brainstorming, visuals finalisation, and rebranded product or service launch.
These milestones help you stay organised and ensure that your rebrand stays on track. Additionally, setting realistic deadlines for each milestone is important, so you don’t fall behind.
6. Rebranding Budget
Next on the rebranding checklist is the rebranding budget. Developing a rebranding budget is essential to ensure that rebranding efforts are both successful and financially feasible.
To create an effective rebranding budget, start by estimating the costs associated with rebranding. These costs include research, design work, printing materials, and any additional services you may need.
Furthermore, be sure to factor in the cost of any rebranding campaigns or promotions you plan to launch.
Once you’ve tallied the estimated costs, create a realistic rebranding budget for unexpected expenses.
7. Effective Messaging Strategy for Stakeholders
Your rebranding efforts will only succeed if customers and stakeholders know your rebranded products or services. Moreover, establishing an effective messaging strategy ensures key audiences understand the rebrand and its value proposition.
When crafting your messaging strategy, start by identifying which channels you plan to use for rebranding communication.
Consider leveraging traditional and digital channels such as social media, email campaigns, or website rebranding pages. Further, create clear and concise messaging, so the rebranding is easy for customers to understand.
If necessary, conduct a press conference to announce your new brand. For instance, prominent brands in Malaysia, such as Lotus and Giant, resorted to news media for their messaging strategy.
Finally, review your rebranding materials to ensure accurate information is communicated and all rebranded elements are present.
8. The Execution Plan for Content Updates
To ensure customers and stakeholders are aware of your rebranded product or service, it’s essential to refresh content across different channels.
Start by creating rebranding guidelines that will inform how content should be updated. Consider employing rebranded visuals such as logos, fonts, a new colour palette, and updated copy.
Plus, review content across all channels and ensure that rebranding elements are incorporated appropriately.
After all, you would not want your social media platforms and website to have different logos with different brand names. This occurrence will only further confuse your stakeholders.
9. Test out the new branding
Before you rebrand, it’s essential to test out the rebranded product or service to ensure its success.
Launch a pilot program that exposes customers and stakeholders to rebranded elements such as new logos, visuals, copy, and messaging. Collect feedback from these audiences and adjust rebranding elements if necessary.
10. Monitor customer feedback after launching
Your rebranding checklist continues beyond the launch of your rebranding campaign. Be prepared to monitor feedback and sentiments after the launch.
Gather data from surveys, focus groups, and other platforms where customers can provide feedback. Also, review rebranding campaigns for effectiveness and adjust rebranding elements if necessary.
Rebranding is a major undertaking and requires careful planning to ensure success.
Following the rebranding checklist outlined here, you can create rebranding efforts that resonate with customers and stakeholders. From setting an effective rebranding budget to monitoring customer feedback after launch, these steps are essential for rebranding success.
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