What do Mastercard, the Washington football team, Cleveland’s major league baseball team, Burger King, and Zara have in common? They all appear on 2020’s extensive list of company rebrands. The beginning of a new year is often an impetus for change, so it’s likely more companies will consider rebranding to reflect their evolving visions. Changing consumer expectations, technological advances, and increased competition are forcing businesses to reinvent themselves. Rebranding is integral to marketing efforts of just about any business. To remain efficient, businesses must maintain a representative brand identity that resonates in today’s media landscape. A successfully executed rebrand can build and sustain goodwill, bolster loyalty, and improve recognition. Still, before considering rebranding, it is imperative to understand what a business’s brand is and what rebranding means.
What is a Brand?
It is a common misperception that a business’s brand is simply its name and logo. A business’s brand is the sum of people’s perception of it. An effective brand communicates what your business does and how it does it. It encompasses everything that the business is, and wants to be, for its customers. Brands may evolve over time, and successful businesses rebrand to symbolize this evolution.
What Does Rebranding Mean?
Broadly, rebranding is a marketing strategy that involves changing an existing business’s brand identity by creating a new name, logo, symbol, or related visual assets associated with its offerings. However, rebranding does not just involve revamped names and logos. Rebranding is fundamentally the inward process of recreating the way that a business expresses its identity to the world. The goal of rebranding is to develop a fresh and distinguished brand in the minds of consumers, prospects, competitors, employees, and the general public. Often, a rebrand indicates that a business has evolved and is ready to ascend to new heights.
The Decision to Rebrand
There are plenty of reasons for rebranding; rebranding a business can set it apart from competitors, modernize an antiquated identity, and/or highlight an expanded business market. Typically, rebrands are initiated and shaped by business goals and industry evolutions. For example, if your target market has grown apart from your brand over the years, your competition has recently modernized, or your brand has a poor reputation that you would like to change. If you’re considering a rebrand because your business’s vision, mission, values, and market are no longer reflected in your brand identity, then a rebrand may be the right decision. Ask: does the business’s brand accurately reflect the full scope of goods and services it offers or plans to offer? Efficient businesses should consider rebranding if their current brand is not an accurate reflection of the current business. Rebranding can also help massively for repositioning a brand to attract new audiences or become more appealing to its target audience. In addition, an outdated brand identity may be undermining your efforts to grow your business. Symbols, fonts, slang, and images from even just a few years ago could appear outdated and cliché in today’s market. Ultimately, the scope of the rebranding efforts will vary greatly depending on the individual business.
Legal Considerations for Rebranding
1. Trademarks
Whatever the reason for rebranding, a business’s brand is valuable intellectual property, and should be protected under federal trademark law. Both the old name of your business and the new one are central to its brand. When undertaking a rebrand, there are two things every business owner should do before committing to a marketing scheme.
First, before committing to a new name, businesses must search the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office database to make sure the desired trademark name is available. You do not want to fall in love with a new name only to find out that it is already being used by a different company. In addition, businesses should check the availability of URL domains and social media handles. Registering a domain name does not create any legal rights in the name, but it does keep a third-party from purchasing the same domain name.
Second, a business should trademark (or file an intent to use filing- 1(b) application) its name and any variations, the name of your product and the name of any future product, and even relevant social media hashtags as soon as possible. Additionally, if the previous brand name is not already protected through trademark, it will be ripe for the taking and another company could potentially take a portion of your market, especially customers who are not aware of the change. Trademark protection is a “use it or lose it” proposition and registrations can only be maintained with use. By registering the old name and maintaining some use of it, the business can protect the goodwill it has built with customers and prevent them from being usurped by a competitor.
2. Organizational Documents & Contracts
To legally change the name of your business, you will need to either amend your current organizational documents, as filed with the state or create a new business entity for your rebranded organization. Amending the name of your business entity allows you to keep the same tax identification number. Additionally, you will not be required to assign your current contracts to the new entity, however you will need to inform contracted parties of the name change. If you decide to create a new business entity instead, you will need to transfer assets and contracts from the old business entity to the new one.
Post-Pandemic Opportunity
Rebranding offers a great opportunity to strengthen a company’s image, presence, and relevance to consumers. As a return to normalcy inches closer, many business owners will have to acknowledge the damage that COVID-19 has caused and reposition their brand for the post-pandemic future. Indeed, according to an August 2020 article, McKinsey reports 75% of Americans have changed brands during the pandemic. This signals a meaningful opportunity to attract new customers who may be shifting preferences after the disruption they’ve experienced over the past year.
Sources:
ARTICLE: UNBRANDING, CONFUSION, AND DECEPTION, 24 Harv. J. Law & Tec 1, 4
https://www.natlawreview.com/article/out-old-new-re-company-rebranding
https://entrepreneurship.law.umich.edu/new-year-new-me-rebranding-your-business/
https://thinkmarketingmagazine.com/burger-king-goes-through-rebranding-after-20-years/
https://www.zdnet.com/article/mckinsey-three-factors-drive-consumer-loyalty-in-the-next-normal/
https://www.crowdspring.com/blog/how-to-rebrand/
https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/312270
https://www.business.com/articles/how-to-announce-rebranding/
https://www.businessinsider.com/10-most-successful-rebranding-campaigns-2011-2
https://www.pashalaw.com/rebranding-legal-issues/
https://www.womenonbusiness.com/eight-legal-dos-rebranding-campaign/
Photo Source: http://blog.marginmedia.com.au/our-blog/3-standout-companies-that-have-successfully-rebranded
Photo Source: https://info.templafy.com/blog/your-full-scope-rebranding-checklist-how-to-plan-for-identity-updates
Photo Source: https://info.templafy.com/blog/your-full-scope-rebranding-checklist-how-to-plan-for-identity-updates