While creating a brand from scratch has its own set of difficulties, transforming a vintage brand is more complicated and requires a delicate touch and an understanding of how to carefully navigate a company’s complexities and culture.
In recent years, historic brands like Old Spice, Burberry and Forbes have successfully reinvented themselves through massive brand overhauls. The reinvigoration of Old Spice was widely considered one of the most successful brand repositionings ever. Working with Wieden + Kennedy agency they developed a campaign based on a brilliant and simple commercial starring former NFL player Isaiah Mustafa that took the brand from grandpa’s after shave to today’s hip dude scent.
Burberry, suffering from multiple image challenges over a decade ago, successfully repositioned itself by taking advantage of its heritage, but also by becoming more relevant to a new generation (Business Insider).
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Forbes worked with Horn Group to reestablish itself from a traditional media company to a “96 year old start-up” by embracing disruption and promoting innovation. As a result, Forbes achieved its best profit performance in five years, citing increasing digital revenue as key. The end goal was achieved: to stage itself for a successful acquisition in 2014.
A cultural shift
Transforming a well-established brand into a hipper, modern one takes more than a talented agency and a savvy marketing department. Leading a brand out of the doldrums is a multi-faceted undertaking with multiple steps. If it’s going to succeed, it’s going to require a strategic shift of the entire organization’s approach and corporate culture. The strategy must be activated and led by a CMO who understands how to bridge the old with the new and who is deeply aware that there is no such thing as a clean slate for an old-guard brand. The C-Suite involvement cannot stop there. A brand reinvention starts at the very top, with a CEO who has prioritized it as a key element in the very survival of the company. The CMO-led team needs to fully grasp the CEO’s mission and vision and have a good sense of how the existing and entrenched corporate culture could both support, and hinder, the repositioning initiative.
A true brand overhaul can take years, so it is critical to build in sufficient time to account for the ups and downs that transformation will bring. During this period, marketing teams should expect and prepare for resistance — both from inside and outside the organization.
Change is scary for most people, and this is especially true for long-term employees. The CEO needs to help create and perpetuate a new culture that is part of the brand repositioning. This needs to be all encompassing, from a new corporate identity to different ways employees and departments work with each other. The repositioning must be a tool that empowers and aligns the people within the company. It must be something that people can identify with and believe in. Values must be reinforced and the reasons for change must be carefully explained.
Mostly, it’s important that a repositioning truly signal a fundamental change that the company is undergoing. This must be clearly communicated throughout the organization, frequently and through multiple channels. It is tireless work and must be approached with complete honesty and transparency to be believable. To be most effective, it requires a strong digital communications program to maintain on-going dialogue with internal stakeholders.
The vision and the plan
The communications plan around reinventing a brand needs to be a gradual, ongoing process with well thought out milestones along the way. Unlike launching a new brand, there is no clean slate for a recognized brand. The communications strategy should bridge the old to the new. When it comes time to put together the plan, several considerations must be addressed, from a painstakingly detailed media relations strategy to a step-by-step crisis communications response. Smart marketers will use the entire marketing funnel to deliver their message and take advantage of a variety of media and creative tactics.
Media plan and transparency
From a media relations perspective, the rollout should be approached with kid gloves and carefully orchestrated. The PR team must be very calculated and delicate in terms of media targets. The sequencing is critical. First, the team needs to choose a neutral journalist — someone who is familiar with the company’s past but open to its future. That person needs to be provided with complete transparency into the inner workings of the organization and access to key C-suite execs. The agency also needs to help get the journalist what they need to paint the complete picture: validation from customers, company performance data, partner endorsement, progress updates etc. The team should visualize in advance what the story will look and work with the reporter to develop the final product. And it’s okay not to have all the answers, and to talk about what didn’t work.
Crisis planning
A sometimes painful, but essential, part of the communications plan is to be prepared for potential crises. As mentioned above, rebranding involves shaking things up for employees, some of whom might not be interested in adapting. From naysayers to disgruntled employees, unveiling a repositioned (and rebranded) company often comes with more risk factors than when you are launching a new one.
There have been extensive studies on the creation of crisis plans. The basics include creating an outline of what possible scenarios might occur, developing plans to address these issues, drafting top line messages around areas that will be examined, and identifying who will be official spokespeople., In every instance potential effect on customers, employees and other stakeholders must be considered. They must have ways of contacting the company for information. Immediate response is critical. Answers to potential difficult questions must be developed in advance.
Context
It’s important that the reasoning that inspired new corporate positioning, and a corporate identity to reflect it, is clearly communicated in advance of the change as well as at the time of public reveal. Without this critical background, there is greater risk of negative or confused reactions rooted in inaccuracy.
Level set
A repositioning can come in all shapes, colors, sizes and phases. Make sure you communicate what kind of initiative your company is undertaking. Is it an evolution in the organization’s product and services? Does it completely abandon the company’s heritage and take a new direction and enter new markets? This level set goes into the context.
Take the high road but don’t be silent
A company repositioning and rebranding is usually met with criticism so it’s important to be prepared to receive it — in public and on social media. Choose wisely which negative reactions you’re going to respond to and use those interactions as a way to inform and emphasize the context that inspired the overhaul in the first place.
No one would argue that creating a brand from scratch isn’t a formidable undertaking, but the clean slate it affords can be quite welcome when compared to the potentially contentious elements of moving an old brand into the future. Recognized brands generally have a more firm foothold in the market, or are trying to hang on to an already established position. We know that old habits die hard. So, to be successful, repositioning teams need to work with, not against, those who may be resistant to change. By focusing on understanding the subtle nuances attached to a brand and a culture with a complex history, your marketing team and executive initiatives have a much greater chance of success.
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Sabrina Horn is the Founder, President and CEO of the Horn Group, Inc.
Laura Anderson, who rose to VP/GM of global communications and events in a nearly 20 year stint at Intel, will take on the Americas technology chair at Burson following the completion of the BCW and H+K merger on July 1.
WE Communications has partnered with ROKK Solutions to form the WE ROKK AI service.
In the dynamic world of modern business, effective communication is a pivotal tool for success across various industries. At Communications Strategy Group (CSG®), our expertise in embracing innovation in communication extends beyond traditional marketing strategies, paving the way for transformative industry-specific solutions.
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