marketing

Essentials of Rebranding - Brand Equity & Key Roles

We are surrounded by thousands of ads everyday. Do your brands stand out from those massive messages. Have you ever struggled to make differentiation from competitors or to step into a new market segment? Maybe it’s time to rebrand!

Rebranding is arguably the most difficult challenge for a brand manager. With the upcoming tasks on the to-do list, you need focus, plan carefully and pay attention to details. In this article, think™ would like to introduce you the fundamental ideas to find the corner stone and how the team should work for a success transformation of the brand.

Brand Equity

Who & What

We know that a brand is the sum of the perceptions people hold to your products/ services. But how can we measure the feelings so that we know how to improve performance? The concept of “brand equity” was thus brought to the market. It is to break down the brand into tangible or intangible elements such as colors, images, objects, reputation, loyalty…and etc. Therefore the first step of rebranding is to collect and review these fragments so that you have a clear idea of what exactly construct your brand in customers’ mind? Here we apply CBBE (Customer-based brand equity) by Keller.

Identity (Who are you?)

It means how much people are aware of your brand. You can do a market research to get the sequence of brands mentioned by a consumer and calculate it numerically.

ex. When speaking of fast food, the respondent mentioned McDonald first (score 100), KFC second (score 80), MOS burger (score 60)…and etc.

Meaning (What are you?)

● Performance

In what perspective the product / service can meet consumers’ need. For instance, product design, performance, price, service process, attitude, efficiency… and so on.

ex. Nokia’s classic 3210: long battery life, hard to be damaged.

ex. Din Tai Fung: warm and top-class service quality.

● Imagery

An intangible perception from customers. How your brand image correspond to his/her attitude toward to an issue.

ex. O’right shampoo: green, white, recyclable packaging, tree — match users’ attitude toward environment.

Brand Equity

You & Me

Response (What about you?)

● Judgement
By constantly connect to the brand (not necessarily buying behaviors), consumer would make judgement toward your brand, including satisfaction, reliability, likability, excellence…

ex. Dyson: Leading electronic homeware brand, fashion, high-tech.

● Feeling
What feelings do you evoke in customers’ heart? Note that different occasions may cause various feelings. For example, warm, interesting, exciting, safe, fulfillment, social connection…

ex. Spotify: happy, party, sport, motivation.

Relationships (What about you and me?)

The deepest connection between a brand and its customers:

● Behavioral loyalty: repeated purchase
● Attitudinal loyalty: he/she think it is a meaningful buy
● Community: feeling familiar with the brand owner or other users
● Active fans: following brands’ social media, leave comments, attend events…

ex. Timeless Truth Mask not only fulfills consumers’ need of pampering their facial skin, but also run its own online community and offline sales events. As a result it has a huge group of “T fans” who actively respond to TT Mask’s actions.

The process above should be conducted within the company so that you also have the valuable opinions of employees. By now your brand are turned into loads of keywords, then your team should discuss and brainstorm to remove unwanted/ unsuitable ones and reorganize the left ones into a new set of brand DNA.

Three key roles

Teamwork is the success factor

Rebranding is such a complicated work that it is impossible to be done by one person or on team. Three key roles should all be involved:

● Brand Owners

Brand owner is the captain. He/She need to know the value and the direction of rebranding. If it is the family business and the second generation is in charge, make sure he/she has the adequate authority.

- Responsibility: Budget plan and final decision.\

Budget reference: 10-20% of revenue for rebranding, 5-15% of revenue for annual marketing plan.

● Brand Team
A group of people who knows the brand better than any other. They research the market, deliver the value, come up with strategy, and execute rebranding internally and externally.

- Responsibility: deliver the value, meet the budget, and whatever related to the brand.

- Time control: 3-6 months for rebranding , 3-6 months for promotion and communication

● Consultancy
An external organization can bring the fresh air to the firm. With objective and professional perspectives, the business is more likely to think out of box and avoid blind spots.

- Responsibility: market insight, develop strategy, design and integrate

Conclusion

For a brand with certain length of history, it is a great challenge for brand owners to merge the past into new future. You have to challenge the current, be the change and inspire the team and even your customers. So you have to be patient and take each steps very carefully. We will be sharing the next stages of rebranding, including internal education and external value delivery. Stay in tune!

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Brand image design and execution

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