What is rebranding, and why should we abandon the old logo? Part 2

We need to attract public attention

If your company desperately needs an information guide but the creativity or opportunities have dried up, you can resort to this method to draw attention to yourself. Design is increasingly penetrating into our daily lives, and news about bizarre and successful rebranding has long gone beyond the business environment. One of the most popular options is to contact a popular design studio and order an express design of a logo. Then, like in Russian roulette, you should first be lucky, and then you will get a design that everyone will talk about. Regardless of whether you like it or not and whether you will use it.

The logo cannot be registered or used

Not everyone needs trademark registration; you need to grow up to it. Those who initially aim high or have developed sufficiently want to secure their business by registering their trademark. This slow and not the cheapest service is additionally overshadowed by searches and refusals: among the thousands of registered brands, they are looking for options similar to yours. And they find it. And everything starts all over again.

Consider the case of the Japanese dog clothing manufacturer Adidog. Perhaps the business started as fun gifts for friends and acquaintances. Over time, he expanded production and got a website and social media accounts, which attracted the attention of the Adidas brand.

At Adidas, the joke was certainly appreciated but not approved. They filed a lawsuit, which recognized a significant degree of confusion about logos and misleading buyers. It was forbidden to use the logo in this form.

You need to stand out from the competition

This reason is especially relevant for highly competitive categories of goods and services, where it is extremely important to stand out at the level of the logo, signage, and corporate colors of advertising products. Most often, this manifests itself in the color of the logo, because that is the simplest, one might say, "pre-signed" brand identifier.

You need to pretend that you are a completely different company

Reputational scandals are often the reason for rebranding.
Bad image or market demands—the reasons may be different, but all that remains is to pretend that you are no longer you. It is rarely possible to solve this issue purely at the visual level, but without the support of graphic attributes in the eyes of consumers, it will not change.

It is possible to impersonate someone who you really are not, and with motives that are quite understandable to every person—to attract attention and please the audience.

There are a lot of similar examples of changing the image. Someone does this out of selfish motives to mislead customers and partners; someone does it just to be part of someone else's market.

It's time to upgrade

The most successful brands refresh their logo at least once a decade to show that they are alive, developing together with the audience, and are not going to fall into senility. At the same time, no one requires drastic changes; it is enough to slightly correct the outline of the letters, change the slope of the sign, make the colors brighter... And voila! You can feel new. For many consumers, such changes may even go unnoticed if they are not disclosed. But they are told, and everything is not in vain.

The logo cannot be used on new media

Each company is faced with the fact that now their logo must be placed in small circles on social media accounts and application squares. This is if we talk about modern requirements.
The brand may always have a need to use not only modern but simply new media for them. For example, there will be a need to print on cardboard boxes, and it will turn out that the monochrome version of the logo in brown tones has killed the whole idea, artistry, attractiveness, and readability of the brand.

This problem is faced either by the owners of old signs or by non-professionals. In both cases, this means that adaptability was not embedded in them: different logo orientations; colored, colorless, and monochrome versions; the rejection of fine lines and small details; etc. What can we say about companies with a century-old history when even Internet projects launched in the 21st century do not pass the test of time?

The adaptability of the logo does not mean a scarcity of execution. Adaptability assumes that you will think in advance about various options for using the future "face of the brand".

The logo unwittingly became associated with something bad

It's not that you failed somewhere; it's just that the world around you has become different. Something new and negative has appeared, similar to you, or the attitude towards the old has changed dramatically.

Participation in the promotion

Such a change in the logo is of a temporary promotional nature and is necessary in order to declare the social position of the brand, "hype" on a relevant topic, or simply not fall out of the general flow.

The decision to change the logo within the framework of this campaign or something similar should be made based on how much this idea, movement, or project corresponds to the values of the brand, its employees, and customers. Do not worry about those who will see in any action of the corporation only selfish goals—there will always be such.

To change or not to change?

We are convinced that rebranding for the sake of rebranding is a waste of time, money, and customer nerves. But if it is necessary to change the logo, you will have to be strong and go to the end. To do this, you need to carefully think through the entire process of implementing your renovations.