Old Wine in a New Bottle!

Markets have become more competitive than ever before and companies are finding it very difficult to retain their existing customers and attract new ones. Against this backdrop, corporate rebranding has emerged as one of the most powerful tools for helping companies operate in the desired market with new brand image and identity. This article aims to explicate various reasons for rebranding and offers a conceptual model for effective rebranding.

products or services provide to the consumers.2 Anand Halve, Founder Consultant at Chlorophyll3 The shift to a new logo and a new look symbolizes the strategic transformation at CEAT. It also reflects the fact that, while CEAT has a long and proud heritage, the attributes that bring it to life for our customers are as fresh and new as ever. The overall design more accurately represents the companys vision of leading the industry in delivering best-in-class products, innovation and services to consumers.4 Paras K Chowdhary, CEO, CEAT Limited

Kunal Gaurav
Associate Professor (Marketing) David Memorial Institute of Management (DMIM), Secunderabad, India. The author can be reached at kunalgaurav2006@gmail.com

Rebranding exercise that is properly executed can bring about freshness in the brand and help the brand position itself more strongly in its target segment.1 Kishore Biyani, CEO, Future Group Companies sometimes give extra importance to logo changes. True Rebranding takes place when the change in the look of the company represents a change in the kind of experience its

mascot, a Rhino with Raising the Bar logo (Refer Exhibit 1). CEAT is one of the Indias leading automotive tyre manufacturers, supplying tyres for scooter, motorcycles, passenger cars, light commercial vehicles, heavy commercial vehicles, tractors, mining and other vehicles across 110 countries of the world. Since the inception of the company, it has used Rhino because it connoted the toughness of its tyres. Nowadays, toughness is not as prominent a factor in the Indian
1

n the beginning of the year 2008, CEAT Ltd., amidst its Golden Jubilee celebrations announced the replacement of its age-old

Rebranding in Retail, Retailer, June 2008, Mumbai, pp. 28. Ruchita Saxena, Change Reaction: India Inc. Gets Makeover, Business Standard, Mumbai, May 11, 2008. Chlorophyll is a Mumbai-based brand communication consultancy. Ibid.

Advertising Express

October

19

BRANDING

Corporate Rebranding

Exhibit 1: Showing Rebranding CEAT

BRANDING

What is Rebranding?

Old

As the competition intensifies and sales of the companies either becomes stable or starts declining, very often companies seek to have a new life for its brand through rebranding. Rebranding can be defined as The process by which a product or service developed with one brand or company or product line affiliation is marketed or distributed with a different identity. 5 Rebranding can be characterized by the creation of a new name, term, symbol, design or a combination of them for an established brand with an intention to develop and hold a differentiated and novel position in the mind of customers and other stakeholders. Normally, rebranding does involve changing the brand name, brand logo, punch line, brand ambassador and advertising strategies to attract new customers and retain existing customers. The rebranding exercise can be either deliberate (e.g., change management strategy). Very often the rebranding exercise of firms does reflect the dynamic nature of the market at present times. Firms are intended to change, often radically, to deal with the expectations of customers and other stakeholders. The rebranding can be revolutionary as well as evolutionary. In the revolutionary rebranding, a complete brand overhaul takes place which is very costly and risky proposition for the companies. Revolutionary branding is mainly triggered by corporate restructuring (e.g., merger, acquisition, legal mandate, etc.) In
5

New Source: http://remade.wordpress.com/category/rebranding

tyre industry as it used to be in 1980s because of improvement in the quality of roads and use of better technology in the vehicle. As a result of the feedback program of CEAT, and based on the opinions given by employees, customers and shareholders, CEAT decided to go for rebranding. In the new logo of CEAT, the lines in orange color are intended to give a youthful and contemporary look and gel well with the maturity and stability of the blue colored letters that indicates CEATs affluent heritage in the sector. In the recent years, the world has witnessed a number of rebranding attempts of several domestic, as well as multinational corporations in almost all the industries across the globe. Today, market has become

highly competitive as so many companies are offering products with similar features to the same group of customers. Customers needs and wants are changing constantly and they expect a better product or improved service every time they make a purchase. Brand managers understood it very well that the well-established brand image can help a company to ensure sustainable competitive advantage over its competitors. In this backdrop, corporate rebranding has emerged as one of the most powerful tools that believe in changing corporate identity by changing label, logos, brand design, punch line and advertising with a purpose to give fresh image to the companies.

Figure 1: Showing Rebranding as a Continuum

Major Changes Revolutionary Rebranding

Change in Positioning

Evolutionary Rebranding

Major Changes Minor Changes Change in Marketing Aesthetics

Source: Muzellec & Lambkin, 2006

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rebranding

Advertising Express

October

20

the evolutionary rebranding, rebranding takes place in a gradual and sequential manner, i.e., changing the design or color of logo, changing the punch line, changing brand ambassador, etc. The evolutionary branding is more of deliberate in nature and easier than revolutionary branding. Muzellec and Lambkin (2006)6 offered a descriptive model of rebranding to explain revolutionary as well as evolutionary rebranding considering two fundamental dimension of rebranding i.e., change in marketing aesthetics and change in positioning. This model opines that the evolutionary rebranding illustrates a fairly minor development in the companys positioning and gradual change in the marketing aesthetics that hardly gets noticed by observers outside the company. Contrastingly, revolutionary rebranding describes a major and easily identifiable change in positioning, as well as in marketing aesthetics, attempted to transform the brand completely.
Reasons for Rebranding

Change in Business Environment

New Old Source: www.relianceadagroup.com

Corporate Restructuring Change in Environment Business

Need for repositioning and renewal Rise in competition

Corporate Restructuring

Although the rebranding is attempted to offer a fresh image to the company and its offering, there are various other factors that necessitate rebranding process. On the basis of previous market experience, followings are some of the important reasons for rebranding:

Corporate restructuring strategy, viz. demerger, split, merger and acquisition often lead to rebranding. On September 21, 2007, UK-based Vodafone, one of the leading multinational communication companies, has successfully launched after acquiring the Hong Kong-based Hutch is on Telecommunication Ltd.s Indian asset. Successively, Vodafone also initiated rebranding of HutchEssar and changed its name as Vodafone-Essar (Refer Exhibit 2). The company also launched a new advertising campaign highlighting new logo with a messageHutch is now Vodafone to give a new, fresh and contemporary corporate identity to the brand. Likewise, Anil Dhirubhai Ambani Group (ADAG) on May 28, 2006 unveiled its new logo i.e., Reliance Apex after the split of Reliance Industry. Mukesh Ambani owned Reliance decided to continue with same R logo but ADAG changed its logo to give a new and fresh corporate identity to the brand

There are instances when companies decided to go for rebranding because of the change in the business environment (e.g., legal obligations) in which they are operating. As a legal requirement, on July 30, 2007, UTI Bank successfully rebranded itself as Axis Bank (Refer Exhibit 4). The rebranding decision was taken by the bank authority as the bank was allowed to use the UTI brand name for free till January 2008 and after that the bank had to pay royalty if it continues using the same UTI name. Although the bank invested around Rs. 500 mn on the rebranding exercise, it got an opportunity to own its own brand. At the same time, this rebranding is also attempted to resolve the confusion of the stakeholders that arose because of UTI brand name used by various businesses (viz. mutual fund).
Need for Repositioning and Renewal

Exhibit 2: Hutch is Now Vodafone

We find that there is a changing pattern in the customer segment, in tune with Indias demography where people below 25 constitute more than 54% of the population. Increasingly, more and more youngsters are becoming active banking customers thanks to new job opportunities and the floating student class. We saw the need to
6

Old New Source: www.vodafone.com

Muzellec, Laurent and Lambkin, Mary (2006), Corporate Rebranding: Destroying, Transferring or Creating Brand Equity? European Journal of Marketing, Vol. 40, No. 7/5, pp. 803-824.

Advertising Express

October

21

CORPORATE...

Exhibit 3: Reliance (Anil Dhirubhai Ambani Group)

offered by this business group (Refer Exhibit 3). In the beginning of Rebranding, ADAG also signed up Amitabh Bachchan (Big B) as a brand ambassador.

Exhibit 4: UTI Bank is Now Axis Bank

BRANDING

rebranding is easier and costeffective than establishing a new one. It is very common for brand managers and the business owners to think that the new corporate identity will change the perception. Successful rebranding requires the change in the way companies do their business. Changing customers experience is the key to make rebranding effective. Rebranding is attempted to establish a clear differentiation from the competitors and communicating re-energized brand

Old Source: www.axisbank.com

change according to what appeals to younger customers,7 M B N Rao, Chairman & Managing Director of Canara Bank. It is well-known fact that the world is moving at a faster pace than ever before, and companies are supposed to change their image to keep pace with the changing desire of the customers. Repositioning and renewal has become one of the most compelling reasons for rebranding. Indian youth is often attracted to the new generation private sector banks which are perceive as more customer-friendly and technologically advanced. Given this backdrop, in the beginning of the year 2008, Canara Bank changed its corporate image aimed to attract the young Indian customers. Canara Bank changed its 100-year old brand image with a new brand image depicting dazzling color, new logo and slogan (Refer Exhibit 5). The new logo of the bank consists of two entwined triangles of blue and yellow color. The color palette and typography have been carefully chosen. The rich blue represents

New

stability, scale and depth. This contrasts with accents of bright yellow that evoke optimism, warmth and energy.8
Rise in Competition

The whole world is experiencing the waves of globalization resulting in entry of multinationals across the industries. Today, market has become highly competitive as everyday new players are entering the same business with similar offerings. Companies are finding it very difficult to retain existing customers and also attract new ones. Eastman Kodak Company, worlds foremost imaging innovator, one of the leading companies committed to a digitally-oriented growth strategy focused on helping people better use meaningful images and information in their life and work.9 Kodak is always on the forefront for using rebranding as a tool to fight with competition. (Refer Exhibit 6)
Rebranding: A Conceptual Model for Effective Rebranding

Exhibit 6: Showing Rebranding Kodak

Exhibit 5: Showing Rebranding Canara Bank

New Old Source: http://remade.wordpress.com/ category/rebranding

Advertising Express October 22

The new corporate logo reflects the organizations image and reflects CEOs ideas and strategies.10 Very often marketers feel that rebranding is the solution for the problems related with brand leadership, brand visibility and positioning. At the same time, brand managers opt for rebranding instead of developing and establishing a new brand as

Source: www.kodak.com
7

10

We Want to Run Like a Cheetah, Deccan Herald, January 7, 2008. http://www.canarabank.com/English/ scripts/LogoStory.aspx http://albuquerque.bizjournals.com/ a l b u q u e r q u e / g e n c o m p a n y. html?gcode=A31A95FB1CF246DCA B38942A1440EAD9 Spaeth, Tony (2006), Brand Name Leadership, Across the Board, March/ April, pp. 23-28.

New Image and Identity

Monitoring Stakeholders Perception

Company with Rebranding established brand

Company with fresh brand

Partnership with Stakeholders (e.g., employees, customers, etc.)

Conclusion

Repositioning Triggers for Rebranding Corporate Restructuring (e.g., Demerger, Split, Merger & Acquisition) Change in Business Environment (e.g., Legal obligation) Need for repositioning and renewal Rise in competition, decline performance of the firm, etc.
promise to the target audience. Rebranding is an opportunity to go after the market that you want.11 A brand is sum of the perceptions people hold about the company and its offering, target customers are satisfied as long as their expectation is fulfilled with the brand. Basically, rebranding is attempted to get new and enhanced identity and brand image by changing its logo, message, brand name and focus. At the same time, it is also aimed to reposition itself in order to attract new market segment and retail existing one.
11

Successful rebranding believes in transformation of a brand to offer an entirely new image to the brand that helps companies to reposition itself for retaining the existing customers and attracting the new ones. Rebranding does refresh the brand image and improve brand aesthetic in the mind of customers. Although rebranding is not only about changing the corporate identity, logo and advertising, it also gives new opportunities to the companies to enter and cater the new markets with changed USP (Unique Selling Propositions) and making people recognize and remember the organization and its products; getting success in rebranding is a tough task. An effective rebranding require a holistic approach of transformation, commitment of top level management, partnership with employees and customers in order to ensure that the new brand image is contemporary and compatible with the expectation of the stakeholders.
Reference # 18M-2008-10-04-01

Corporate restructuring (like merger and acquisition) as well as change in business environment (e.g., legal obligation) force the companies to rebrand and renew themselves. Managing the rebranding communication (external as well as internal) is vital for attaining rebranding goals. Although the responsibility for rebranding may be delegated to marketing department the top management must ensure sponsorship and support to the rebranding. Top management should explain the reasons for the change to the employees by through regular communication in order to keep them updated regarding the process of building new identity, and employees support can be ensured. Changing identity can obviously

12

Pilch, Christine (2007), Rebranding How to Avoid Failure, Business West, April 16. Kaikati, JG (2003), Lessons from Accentures 3Rs: Rebranding, Restructuring and Repositioning, Journal of Product & Brand Management, Vol. 12, No. 7, pp. 477-490.

Advertising Express

October

23

CORPORATE...

Figure 2: Showing a Conceptual Model for Effective Rebranding (Based on Literature Review)

alienate customers who feel loyal to a brand they are accustomed to.12 Companies should also ensure the availability of right information to the existing as well as potential customers at the time of rebranding. Customers expectations should be taken care of in order to offer them improved value and unmatched experience with the new brand. The successful rebranding advocates long-term partnership with employees as well as with customers.