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Re-branding: Pros and Cons

What’s Re-branding?


Re-branding is changing the name of your brand name from one name to another. Once your brand name is set to market, all your marketing effort, that being your promotional tools are set to have your customers familiarise yourself with the new brand in that industry.

Pros to Re-branding

  • Re-branding to fit society, for example customers have become more health conscience. McDonald's is working on re-branding their image by introducing healthier options. 
  • Changing your brand to fit a new company identity. For example Apple changed its name from Apple Computers to Apple Inc, and got rid of the colourful Apple logo. 

Cons of Re-branding

  • Customer have developed an emotional attachment to your brand. For example Coke a Cola. In 1985, based on a focus group, Coke decides to change its name to New Coke. Any social scientist would know that a focus group does not have external validity,  thus would have seen the major fault of changing the brand name.    

  • Waste time and money. Pepsi sure did, It costed them $1 million to redesign their new logo- the only difference is it kind of looks like a "smile".   


Moral of the story is think long and hard before re-branding. "Re-branding is a very difficult decision, and should not be taken lightly". If you have an understanding of your customers  then you will be able to know if it's the right decision for you. In terms of understanding your customers, make sure you have market researchers that are aware of what research methodology to use. I highly recommend social scientists with a Marketing background.   

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