Rebranding vs. Brand Refresh: What’s the Difference?

You may have heard the terms “rebrand” and “refresh” before. In the world of marketing and branding, these phrases are pretty common. 

Rebrand and refreshing involve making various changes to your brand identity to either transform it completely or make more subtle modifications. And while they are different from one another, there is a lot of overlap between the two. 

Knowing whether or not your brand needs a revitalizing update to your look and feel or if it needs a major overhaul is crucial to your long-term success. And today, we will take a closer look at the two of them to help you identify when your company may need either one.

What do we mean by refresh?

A refresh is like a mini home renovation, except instead of repainting the walls and installing new flooring, you’re making changes perhaps to the appearance of your brand’s logo and other visual details to enhance your current brand identity and adapt to current trends.

Think details like updating:

• fonts
• color scheme
• tagline
• visuals (video, photos, content on the website, and other marketing materials)

When you should do a brand refresh

When was the last time your branding had any kind of update? If it hasn’t been since season 1 of Ozark started streaming on Netflix, we need to talk. 

All jokes aside, refreshing your brand should happen periodically to keep things well, fresh. To be more specific, ask yourself these questions:

• Are my aesthetics outdated?
• Am I improving and expanding my service offerings?
• Am I extending into a new market?
• Am I trying to narrow my brand focus?
• Has my company had inconsistent branding efforts for a while?

If you said yes to any or all of these, it’s time to do a brand refresh for your business.  

When making a refresh to your brand’s identity, the key thing in mind is that you are not making fundamental changes – you are updating, revamping and elevating your current brand identity. 

Benefits of a refresh

You may be wondering what kind of advantages a brand refresh might bring to your business. 

For starters, while a brand refresh may not consist of major changes to your brand, it can still have a profound impact on helping promote your company as a leader in your industry. Making changes to your brand’s look and feel to revitalize a dull or stake brand image can do wonders to regenerate new excitement in your brand from you customers and even your internal employees. Making an effort to refresh your brand shows that you care about making improvements to your company, and ensuring that your brand image is in line with the times and current trends. In doing so, you can help customers better connect with your brand, and create a stronger impression on your audience. 

And here’s the bottom line…it can help your bottom line. 

Companies’ refreshes that we love

Here’s example of a couple of our favorite brand refreshes from some well-known companies:

Starbucks recently refreshed its brand making nuanced updates to its logo and certain visual aspects of its brand identity. The overall result is a brand that we all know and love now with even more visual impact!

Canva, the popular graphic design app that influencers have adopted in hordes to cultivate flourishing social media following recently updated its logo. The new logo and brand colors feel more playful, human and approachable to help the brand more strongly connect with its audience. 

So then, what’s a rebrand?

A rebrand is much more than a home renovation. It’s like tearing the whole house down and rebuilding from the ground up. 

Rebranding takes more preparation as it’s basically a total transformation of your company. Beyond a website redesign or logo change, a rebrand may include a complete overhaul of your slogan, vision, mission, values, name, target audience, and market to launch your company forward and change its current positioning in your industry. 

Does my company need a rebrand?

Since a rebrand requires a well-calculated strategy, it’s not usually something a business just wakes up one day deciding to do. 

So when should you consider a rebrand?

• Your business undergoes a merger or acquisition 
• You’re unable to differentiate yourself from your competition
• Your brand identity has become unfocused or convoluted
• Your company is expanding geographically 
• Your business needs to disassociate from a negative reputation 
• You’re unable to recruit the best of the best employees
• You’re having trouble raising your prices 

Why rebranding is worth the investment 

If you are finding your business meets one or more of the above, rebranding is worth its weight in gold for the time and strategic planning that goes into making it successful. 

Need some examples of how rebrand can benefit your company? Let us count the ways:

• Attract new target audiences
• Gain pricing power
• Improve your brand loyalty and awareness 
• Recruit top talent to work for you
• Show how your business is innovative and evolving 
• Stay current and ahead of the competition 
• Improve your Google ranking
• Increase that bottom line!

Rebranding done right

Sometimes, you may decide that a rebrand is the best resort due to a brand image that has been ruined. Illustrious clothing brand Burberry went through a period in which it wasn’t the acclaimed brand it is today. When its brand image became tarnished due to a rise in counterfeit Burberry being sold throughout Britain, the company decided to rebrand itself, updating its logo, adopting technology into its marketing strategy, embracing innovation and featuring celebrated A-listers in its social campaigns.   

Ready to be great?

Whether it’s to focus on new products or services, to improve visibility in the market, or to overcome a PR nightmare, every brand needs change at some point. Sometimes it’s making a few updates with a brand refresh. Sometimes, it’s starting all over with a rebrand. 

Take a look into how your company is perceived now vs. how you want it to be down the road. Have this feeling like you need an update to your brand, just not sure which one? Firon can help! We assist businesses of all sizes with a personalized strategic approach that gets results. Connect with us about a brand refresh or rebrand for your business.