Corporate Branding and Rebranding With Impact: Key Elements of a Powerful Brand Strategy

All organizations–companies and nonprofits alike–need branding, which encompasses the messaging and visual identity, both externally to your audience as well as internally to your team and partners. It is a way to showcase your unique position and stand out from the competition. Here are some tips for branding or rebranding success.

What is corporate branding?

Corporate branding is a marketing strategy that creates your company’s public image and shapes the way its culture, products, and services are perceived. Your brand is your company’s or nonprofit’s distinct personality, a reflection of who you are and what you do as an organization. It is expressed in everything from your business’s name and logo to its mission statement and corporate culture, across marketing and advertising channels. It takes words and ideas to articulate a cohesive, articulate brand message and identity in order to align with the target audience(s). Therefore, creating a corporate brand from scratch requires a clear strategy that’s carefully planned and meticulously executed.

But what if your corporate brand needs to be updated—or significantly overhauled to reflect a new business model? That’s corporate rebranding.

What is corporate rebranding?

Corporate rebranding can be a simple matter of refreshing your color palette and visual elements or as complex as reinventing every aspect of your corporate profile.

A successful rebranding strategy often comes to life through refreshed marketing materials, print and digital assets, and website design. Many corporations reinforce their new branding with a comprehensive overhaul of their web content, social media strategy, and graphic and editorial style guides as part of their rebranding process.

Why rebrand your company?

There are myriad reasons to undertake a company rebranding. A fresh new logo can signal a more modern corporate image. You may want to reach new audiences as your products and services evolve. You can rebrand to promote a new corporate mission, reestablish your business’s position in the industry, or announce leadership transitions and mergers/acquisitions. Rebranding can also help with damage control in the wake of a crisis.

Remember—the marketplace is constantly in flux, and the competition (and consumers) grows savvier by the day. Rebranding your business is the way to be seen and stay relevant.

How do you rebrand a business?

Your rebranding strategy should be a seamless roadmap that allows you to maintain “business as usual” for your internal and external stakeholders while growing your targeted customer base—and ultimately, your bottom line.

Rebranding strategies start with a big-picture look at the desired results, whether that’s boosting sales, attracting investors, or reinventing your company’s reputation. Reimagine your current brand position and, with buy-in from leadership, rewrite (or revise) your brand’s story. Then develop a list of deliverables and identify the tactics you’ll use to execute each one.

Visual elements

A key component of a company’s brand image is its logo, which in turn informs other graphic elements like typography and color palette. The most impactful logos are simple, bold, and memorable. Make sure yours is optimized for both print and digital applications.

Many rebrands involve designing a new logo. Your logo rebranding package should include color, monochrome, and black and white versions of your logo as JPG and PNG files. A master file in .eps or .ai form will allow designers to adapt and resize the logo for anything from business cards to baseball caps to billboards.

New print and digital assets

Take stock of all the collateral—both internal- and external-facing—that will need to be refreshed to convey your new look. A strong rebranding checklist includes:

• Advertising assets (digital, print, broadcast)
• Marketing/communications copy
• Website
• Social media accounts
• Email marketing
• Stationery
• Intranet
• Packaging
• Signage
• Brochures
• Executive reports

Note: It’s essential to optimize your graphic elements for mobile. Some 96.5% of global users use a mobile device to access the internet, and mobile is expected to generate 77% of e-commerce sales by the end of 2024.

Legal considerations

Are your company’s new name, logo, and tagline already in use by another organization? Do they infringe on a competitor’s trademark? Make sure legal and compliance reviews factor into your rebranding checklist.

Messaging

Now that you’ve redefined your corporate brand, how will you communicate the new identity?

Start on the inside; update all internal communication materials and explore employee training programs. Adopting a brand’s mission and values requires everyone to be on the same page, and teams must be up to speed on any new products or services.

Be sure, too, to have a customer communication plan. Transparency is a must. Explain why you’re rebranding your business and flag any changes they might expect.

Marketing budget

Every corporate branding or rebranding strategy requires a marketing budget. Along with the production of creative and allowing time for feedback and evaluation, your plan may include media buys, events, publicity, employee training, and customer communications. And don’t forget your consultants! An experienced rebranding agency can do all the heavy lifting. Streamlining the rebranding process can save you money in the long run.

Brand guidelines

A great deal of time and thought went into branding or rebranding your business. Keep your brand story on track with corporate style guides for internal use and to share with your marketing partners. These resources ensure that your brand’s look, voice, and message are executed consistently and with precision across all channels.

• Graphic style guides include different variations of your logo as well as color codes, marks, approved typefaces, and other design elements. Your visual toolbox should include a variety of file types for different uses. (See above.)
• Editorial playbooks ensure a unified brand voice and set the standard for quality. Aim for a compendium of general style preferences—are there specific phrases to use or words to be avoided? Oxford commas or not? Be sure to include your company’s approved mission statement, taglines, boilerplates, and essential message points.

Rebranding announcement

When it’s time to roll out your new corporate brand, make use of every outlet at your disposal for a coordinated launch announcement. Unveil “the new you” via press releases, email campaigns, social media, advertising, and perhaps launch events. This multi-channel approach will spread the word of your brand-new corporate image far and wide. Chances are you’ll see a boost in web traffic, so make sure your website design and content are up to date.

Is your brand ready for an update?

Are your corporate branding, rebranding, and marketing strategies hitting all the right marks? Download our brand audit checklist to see how your corporate brand stacks up–then contact Rapunzel Creative to discuss creating or updating  your company’s or nonprofit’s brand.