All savvy entrepreneurs and business owners know that a brand is more than a name and a logo.

But when you start out, that’s what most business owners start with – branding. A logo and a font and a colour palette and a name.

Then over time, as the business grows and finds its feet, the branding doesn’t match the brand any more. The colours aren’t quite right. The name feels lacklustre and clients start to notice that the feeling they get when they see the branding, isn’t the same as the feeling they get when they interact with the brand.

Something just doesn’t feel right anymore and the answer, could well be a rebrand.

There’s lots of reasons why your business might be considering a rebrand.

But what are the pros and cons of undertaking a rebrand for your business? And will it be worth it?

Rebrand vs Refresh

Before you launch headfirst into a rebrand, it’s important to consider whether you should be doing is a refresh instead.

What’s the difference?

A Brand Refresh is an update to your logo and colour palette. Instead of a complete overhaul, refreshing your brand is a great solution if you need to bring it out of the last century. You can modernise your logo style, and give depth to your branding updating to more modern colour palette.

Rebranding on the other hand is a complete transformation. This is a new name, new logo, new colour palette and a completely new approach to your brand.

If rebranding is where you’re headed, then it helps to know some of the pros and cons of going down this often-challenging path.

Why Rebranding Can Be a Good Idea

Rebranding is a rather large undertaking. And it’s fuelled with lots of emotion, because in order to create new branding, you have to be ready to let go of everything that’s come before.

Given the emotional and financial investment at stake, what are some of the great things that can come from taking the time to rebrand?

It creates better alignment with your business

The most common reason people consider rebranding is because the current brand just doesn’t feel right any more.

Rebranding can give your business new life and help you to grow, because it will put your branding in line with your vision. And when these things are in alignment, it’s easier to communicate the value of your brand and what your business has to offer.

It creates better alignment with your customer

If your brand isn’t feeling comfortable for you at the moment, then you can be assured that it’s not feeling comfortable with your customer.

When there’s a misalignment between your business and your branding, it’s harder for customers to trust you. Confusion breeds mistrust, and mistrust will send potential clients elsewhere.

You can improve your differentiation

When you first start out in business, it can be hard to know what makes you different, or how you want to stand out. Over time this can become clearer.

Once you can articulate what makes you different, it’s easier to reflect that difference in your branding by choosing the right colours, fonts and name that will make your business appeal to your ideal type of customer.

You can improve your messaging

Rebranding and choosing a new name can significantly improve your messaging.

When your branding is right, you’ll find that it will communicate who you are more clearly, becoming a valuable asset in your marketing mix (instead of an asset that competes with your marketing, creating confusion, because your branding isn’t right).

It can help your business to reposition or grow

In addition to aligning your business to your vision, a rebrand can help your business to reposition or grow.

If your products or services have changed, or your business serves different types of customers, or you’ve moved from one or two team members to a bigger team, serving more clients, then rebranding will help your business to grow into what it needs to be in order to achieve new goals.

Why Rebranding Can Be Challenging

While there’s lots of benefits to rebranding your business, there are also drawbacks you need to consider before you take the leap.

It can alienate your audience

Over time you’ve built loyalty with the brand you have. Before you rebrand, you should consider the impact that new branding will have on the audience you’ve already got.

This comes down to basic change management – make sure you consider the negative impacts as well as the positive ones so you can manage them effectively as you roll out your new brand.

It’s a large financial investment

When you first started your business, you grew the brand bit by bit. You might have started out with some business cards and letter head. And then you built a website. And then some marketing and sales material. Perhaps some presentation decks, and lead magnets and even some uniforms.

But when you rebrand, you have to stump up for all of this material all in one go.

And you’ll want to make sure you invest in the right support to do it – otherwise you’ll simply find yourself in the same situation five years down the track, having to rebrand all over again.

It won’t always save your reputation

If you’re rebranding because something has brought your brand into disrepute, you can’t rely solely on a rebrand to save you.

A new colour palette, name and logo isn’t changing the underlying problem that caused the brand to experience reputation damage. And while rebranding can help the brand to evolve, you won’t win back loyalty if you change your logo, without changing the brand’s attitude.

It’s not just the branding that’s the problem

A big mistake I see business owners make, is that they change their branding (name, logo, colours) without considering whether it’s their brand that needs an overhaul first.

If you aren’t clear on the pillars of your brand story strategy (this is your vision, mission, values, differentiators, tribe and personality), then you’ll likely end up with new branding that’s just as misaligned as what you already have.

Your brand is more than a name and a logo. Make sure you’ve done the strategic work required to make your rebrand a success.

Should Your Business Rebrand?

If your gut is telling you that you might need to rebrand, then it’s definitely something you should explore.

Rebranding is a great way to breathe new life into your business, and create a realignment to your vision, purpose and tribe.

Make sure you take a strategic approach, budget accordingly, and communicate well throughout the rebranding process, so you can ensure your new branding elevates your business in the direction you want it to go.