by Name
Posted on Dec 10, 2020
Just as products have lifecycle and need to be
updated with due consideration to time, consumer preference, market trends,
competition and company’s own mission, a brand also has a lifecycle and needs
revamping of identity. Also called identity rebranding or refreshing brand
identity, it is a proven repositioning strategy that businesses around the
world turn to when they are looking for more growth.
Revamping brand identity is more than just a
tweak in business name, logo, or tagline. Its purpose is to address actual
business agendas and provide solutions to critical business problems. While the
extent of identity rebranding exercise depends upon case to case basis, its
effect is felt on more than just the business card, the business itself. Typically
revamping brand identity creates a ripple effect with deeper connotations
across brand positioning, personality, strategy and marketing. You may need to
change your website, social media content, marketing material – in short your
every brand interaction with consumer shall mirror your new identity in order
for rebranding to be successful as well as to avoid chaos of mixed identity.
Let’s consider when and why revamping brand
identity is crucial.
Today, from food to fashion and technology to
entertainment, everything is changing in the bat of an eyelid. In such a scenario,
your brand may become outdated or obsolete sooner than you realize. For
example, Fair & Lovely, one of the most popular and successful beauty
brands in the Indian market, changed its name to Glow & Lovely some time
ago. This change was necessary to capture the essence of shift in perception of
beauty. While in 90s, looking fair meant looking beautiful, in today’s time,
meaning of beauty has evolved to more than just skin tone. Fair & Lovely,
being a beauty brand, had to account for such a fundamental change in consumer
behaviour, in order to stay relevant to the time.
You may have started out with one business
line, but as your business grows, heft of your product and service offerings
tends to increase. You may need to refresh brand identity in order to leverage
these new avenues of business and audience to a greater extent. One good
example of such identity rebranding exercise is set by Radio Mirchi, India’s
leading FM brand. Recently Radio Mirchi unveiled their new logo sans word
Radio. Where earlier Radio Mirchi was just about FM Radio, today the brand has
expanded its content capabilities across Digital, Live and FM platforms. Hence
the rebranding move was a part of its larger business overhaul strategy to
present itself as a complete entertainment brand.
When one business is acquired by another, two
businesses merge to create a new identity, or two businesses working together
separate their ways, revamping brand identity becomes an effective tool to reflect
this change in business structure. When Hero and Honda parted ways, Hero
introduced their new brand identity accompanied with musical composition by A.
R. Rahman – Hum mein hai Hero – to fortify their new image. When US
entertainment giant Disney acquired Star India, and in turn Hotstar, Hotstar’s
name was changed to Disney Hotstar to communicate strength of their
partnership. When Vodafone India and Idea cellular merged, to create India’s
largest telecom company, they changed the name to Vodafone Idea and unveiled
new logo: VI.
There can be many reasons for repositioning a
brand. It can be a planned move to support brand’s vision, or an attempt to
tackle sluggish consumer response, or a strategy to match pace with
competition, or a combination of one or more such factors. During the lockdown,
SonyLiv, OTT brand owned by Sony Pictures, rolled out its new brand identity
with edgy, colourful and youthful logo. This transformation was primarily to
counter competition from other OTT players like Netflix, Amazon Prime, Zee5 and
MX Player among others by refreshing its image. The move was backed by a new
library of content and originals like Scam 1992, The Harshad Mehta Story.
Revamping brand identity, if done right, helps in creating new interest in the brand, fix marketing or strategic mistakes, and also increase sales and customer base. If your brand is in the need for brand identity revamp and you need help to make a right decision, connect with us at info.purplephase@gmail.com call us on +91 78200 85445.
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