Five questions to ask before you start a rebrand
A rebrand is expensive, slow and public. These are the questions worth answering before anyone opens a sketchbook.
Plenty of companies spend a fortune on a new identity only to discover the old one was not the problem. Before a studio is hired, it is worth slowing down and asking a few uncomfortable questions.
1. What is actually broken?
Write down the specific moments where the current identity fails: a sign that cannot be read, a product range that looks like three companies, a name nobody can pronounce. If you cannot list them, you may need a strategy project, not a rebrand.
2. Who will notice, and who will care?
Customers notice far less than staff do. Map who sees the brand every day and talk to them first.
3. What must stay?
Most brands have equity hiding in plain sight: a colour, a shape, a tone of voice. Name it early so it does not get designed away.
4. Who will look after it in year two?
A system is only as good as the team that inherits it. Budget for templates, training and a real owner on the inside.
5. How will you know it worked?
Agree on a handful of measures before launch, whether that is recognition, recruitment or fewer calls asking where the entrance is.
