Lately, many individual and collective brands have been rebranding. This is something I even noticed this past week. I saw several businesses and even individuals announcing rebranding decisions. It is interesting how a growing understanding of the need to rebrand sometimes exists. Even when you look over the past couple years in Zimbabwe, many small and large companies have rebranded. No wonder it is essential that we navigate the basics of rebranding. In our talk, we will look at the recent rebranding of Twitter to X.
What Is Rebranding?
Branding is the process of creating a unique name and image for a product in the consumer’s mind, mainly through advertising campaigns with a consistent theme. The thrust of branding is to create a dominant and differentiated presence in the market that attracts and retains loyal customers. This means rebranding is when you redo that process premised on specific strategic changes to a product or your entire business or company.
What Necessitates Rebranding?
To appreciate rebranding, you need to know the why part. There are many possible reasons why rebranding becomes necessary. Let us look at some of them:
You may be trying to capture a new market or segment. Another reason is that you could have noticed that your customers are failing to differentiate you from competitors. Remember, branding is about establishing a dominant and differentiated presence. If that is not achieved, rebranding becomes necessary. Sometimes the business or company has undergone substantial changes.
Restructuring exercises may also necessitate rebranding e.g., leadership changes, mergers, acquisitions, etc. You may feel your current branding needs to capture your identity, story, and image. That can also necessitate rebranding. We live in fast-paced and dynamic times. That can render your present branding obsolete. That can be rectified by rebranding. These are some of the core premises that can necessitate rebranding.
Exploring Twitter’s Rebranding To X
Recently, Twitter was rebranded to X. This is, of course, something that shocked many. Many people are still trying to wrap their heads around the rationale behind the move. I have continuously seen several others bemoaning how the platform is now ruined. There are so many public sentiments on Twitter being rebranded to X. Sometime in July, Elon Musk laid out why they rebranded Twitter to X.
X Corp acquired Twitter to ensure freedom of speech and as an accelerant for X, the everything app. This is not simply a company renaming itself but doing the same thing. The Twitter name made sense when it was just 140-character messages going back and forth – like birds tweeting – but now you can post almost anything, including several hours of video. In the coming months, we will add comprehensive communications and the ability to conduct your entire financial world. The Twitter name does not make sense in that context, so we must bid farewell to the bird.
3 Major Things To Anticipate When You Rebrand
There are several things to expect when you rebrand. It is best to know and prepare for them. Here let us look at three major ones:
Risks Are At Play – Be Wary Of Them
Whenever you decide to rebrand, there will always be risks. The most inevitable is resistance to change by your customers and other stakeholders. When Twitter rebranded, a sizeable number of advertisers pulled out. Even several regular platform users have expressed concern over the decision to rebrand. Thus rebranding comes with it some risks. Some may be mild to almost non-existent, whereas there can be dire consequences for some. These are dynamics you must carefully investigate before deciding to rebrand.
The Need For Extensive And Detailed Market Education
Rebranding may make sense to you as the brand owner and team, but it is only sometimes the case with the customers. You will have to invest time and resources into educating the market. Please look at the risks aspect we explored moments ago; fears in the market often fuel it. Fears in the market often fuel it. Fears can be allayed when you extensively and in detail educate the market. You have to answer the question of why you are rebranding. You also have to dispel any fears or concerns they may have. That is why I included that excerpt of what Elon Musk said in addressing why Twitter is being rebranded to X. When you closely look at his remarks, it makes absolute sense why they rebranded. Thus, when rebranding, you must reach far and wide in educating the market., If you trivialize that, you can seriously compromise your market acceptance.
Rebranding Can Be Costly – Plan Accordingly
Think of the many years that Twitter has been in existence. Think of the many infinite things, physical and digital, that were branded Twitter. Rebranding to X means getting to undo that branding. Think of the many items and signage, amongst others, whose branding must be redone. I am barely scratching the surface here because there is an inexhaustible list. It may take years to completely rebrand certain aspects to X. When you put all this together, you realize it will cost money. That is inevitable when you decide to rebrand; you need to plan for that properly.
These are some of the basics when it comes to rebranding. The fact that many businesses, companies, and individuals are rebranding right now speaks volumes. Lots of significant changes have occurred in the past couple of years. An objective and deep dive into how your business is constituted can unearth some realizations. One of those realizations can be the need to rebrand.
