Rebranding: A marketing strategy

 Rebranding a company is a big deal which requires a huge process and expense. It is like walking on eggshells, if it succeeds it spikes up the status quo of the company and uplifts the brand image. However if it doesn’t succeed it crumbles down the company and may result in the loss of loyal customers.

Re-branding is an essential marketing strategy but a risky one. Firstly, we need to know why rebranding is essential.

Rebranding a company is like giving a makeover to an individual. When we give a makeover to a person we consider the factors like whether the makeover is suitable to that person, does it go well with their personality and instill confidence in them. And most importantly did this makeover bring out a positive outlook to the onlookers.

Similarly, when we are rebranding we are transforming the existing brand logo, coming up with fresh ideas and new concepts. And the prime motive is to attract more customers and maintain the interest of the loyal ones. As customers are the biggest asset for their company, they are also responsible for sky-rocketing the reputation.

There are companies which stand tall as the emblem of successful rebranding. Like Burbn which was launched with the objective of location sharing, earning points at check-ins and post event picture sharing for I-phone users underwent numerous changes and was finally rebranded and launched under the brand name Instagram solely focusing on photo sharing. Now Instagram is undoubtedly one of the widely used social networking sites. Another successful rebranding story is that of Foodiebay.com whichwaslaunchedin2008.It was a website, a restaurant directory which contained around 8,000 restaurants info and details. It was rebranded into Zomato which is a food delivery and restaurant discovery site. Now, Zomato is one of the biggestfood delivering company in India. Here, rebranding brought the company into spotlight and it proved to be a beneficial marketing strategy.

Rebranding is a giant move hence; it has to be done smartly as any reckless move can back fire. It might cause dissatisfaction among the customers and the brand name can beat stake. Some examples of failed rebranding include there branding of Facebook in 2019.The

trademark Blue logo of Facebook was metamorphosed

into a “bland and generic font” and it changes its color to

show the different brands under Facebook (like green for

WhatsApp; Red, orange, purple for Instagram).This change was not well received by the users and it faced backlash. Similarly, there branding of Google Play Music to YouTube Music was not well received. It accumulated a lot of dissatisfaction among the customers as YouTube

Music couldn’t fill in the shoes of Google Play Music.

There were numerous complaints to bring back the old app. This clearly was a failed rebranding.

Rebranding is an essential, perilous and strategic marketing scheme, however, there has to be a strong business motive and well planned ideas for initiating or launching it. It highly depends on the situation of the company. Is it really needed? If needed, it has to be implemented strategically and carefully after careful reconsideration.