Do you remember the moment when you set up your first email address? What was the exact wording of your email? You've probably already renamed or redirected your mailbox to a new one. A similar situation often occurs when starting a business. You set up a company, get someone to create a logo and some branding for a few pennies, but your company grows in a few years, expands its offerings, modernizes its processes, and your logo stays the same? It doesn't always have to be this way, even big successful companies go through rebranding to show the company that they are not a brontosaurus in the market, but that their steps are also moving forward.
In this episode of our Bystro, we take a look at rebranding companies that weren't afraid of change. We've got the successful ones, one misstep and finally we interviewed our art director Tomáš on this topic.
Rolls Royce
Rebranding does not necessarily mean a huge intervention that will transform the brand beyond recognition. But even small tweaks can add pizzazz and prove that it's not just the products that are evolving, but the brand itself. A great example is the rebranding of Rolls Royce, a car company that has been around for more than 100 years and has undergone a total of seven logo changes in that time. The latest one is from 2020. The brand, founded on elegance and luxury, set out to create a design that would rejuvenate it but preserve its history. The colour palette has been changed, the typography has been modified and the emblem, which is typical of the bonnets of Rolls Royce cars, has also been redesigned. Everything looks luxurious, sophisticated and refers to the same brand. That's what we call a small, big change for the better.
Mastercard
Mastercard has been on the market since the 1970s, initially undergoing a major name and logo change, but since 1968 the logo has been based on two interlocking, iconic circles. There is a slight rebrand in the company almost every decade and in the picture you can see the gradual transformation of the logo. As they say, even a master carpenter gets it wrong sometimes, and in 2015 the company came up with another logo. The change was chaotic, the circles blurred, the lettering moved and the change was not met with applause, quite the opposite. MasterCard withdrew the new logo and kept it for internal purposes only. However, they did not give up their desire for a regular rebranding and came up with a significantly simpler and more acceptable version. In recent years, they've dropped the company's name because the logo is so iconic that people associate it with MasterCard even without its name.
Midol
The Midol brand was established in the 1920s. Originally as a product to help relieve headaches and toothaches. Over the years, the over-the-counter remedy has become popular mainly with women, due to its ability to relieve menstrual pain. Although the product leads its category in sales, through a more detailed analysis, it was found that consumers were not familiar with the company's values and could not even remember the colors of the packaging. In fact, the original packaging was easily lost in the shelves of similar products. The results of the analysis convinced management that a rebranding was inevitable for Midol. Compared to the previous rebrandings mentioned, this was a big change and a bold step. The new lettering removed the footer and, together with the reflective colours, the designers created a product that appealed to millennials and Generation Z, just as they had aimed for.
GAP
GAP is a very successful brand nowadays, but it wasn't always so. Around 2010, they faced major financial problems stemming from the separation of part of the company and the departure of the CEO. As the stock declined, management struggled to figure out how to get back to the top of retail. At this point, they had an idea - rebranding. It wasn't a strategic move, there was no notice to consumers, everything in the stores stayed the same, the website stayed the same, they just changed the logo. Unfortunately, for a significantly worse option. The criticism was relentless, people made fun of it all over the internet and GAP stuck it out for six whole days, then issued a statement saying they were going back to the old logo, which they still use today. How much money the change cost is impossible to find out on the internet. Somewhere you can read that it was a hundred million dollar investment, elsewhere you can read that it was a design for a song, which is why the Helvetica font was used and the logo looked like it was designed by a first year graphic design student in the 80s.
How do we do rebranding at Pen&Production?
We asked our art director Tomáš Fišera about this:
"The first and most important step is to get as much information as possible from the client. Why did they decide to rebrand their brand, what are the expectations, if they have any preferences or visual ideas. Then I try to get as close as possible to the company, the products or the services offered. The second step is to research the competition, not only here but also abroad. I want to know the trends in the industry, but also what the clichés are, so I know what to avoid. The essential part of the process is then to come up with an idea concept, it can be a shape, specific symbolism, typography, colours, people, place, there are many possibilities. If the client and I agree on the idea concept, we start to develop it and build on it. In cases of complete rebranding, we create not only the logo, but also other graphic elements for company materials and social networks. We specify the colour palette, typography, in short, we create a complete brand manual for the client."
Rebranding is not just a shiny new logo. It involves a strategic overhaul that can completely change public perception. Make an appointment with us, we'll be happy to take care of your company's rebranding. We also now offer rebranding on an installment basis, with no increase in price.
