A rebrand is a bit like an avocado. There’s a seed that holds everything – your brand positioning and strategy. Flesh that customers keep coming back for – the experience you create. And skin that holds it all together – your visual identity. Get the wrong rebranding steps and it goes brown fast.
This guide walks you through how to rebrand your business, in the right sequence. Not sure if you actually need a rebrand yet? Start here: when to rebrand your business.
We will cover three distinctive sets of questions to ask yourself, your staff and your customers. They focus on three main areas, defining your brand positioning, redesigning your customer experience and refreshing your brand identity.
Wondering how long this takes? The full branding timeline breakdown is here.
Step 1: Define your brand positioning and strategy
The DNA of your brand — it's your mission, your vision, your values. This is your brand positioning. Your story! When you peel back all the visual identity, you need a brand strategy to back it up. Your brand DNA gets your brand out of bed and puts on some sparkly thongs to go to the postbox. Go through these questions as a rebranding checklist.
Questions to solve your brand's market position
- What problems are you solving?
- How do you want to make your customers feel?
- Why do they come back for more?
- Can you interview three customers to understand why they use your product or service? What are their beliefs? Where do they live? What's their income? What hobbies and interests do they have
- How do you want your customers to perceive your brand?
- Are they able to explain to friends what you do?
- How would you like your customers to describe what you do? What words do they use to describe your brand?
- What is your vision? Why are you in business?
- Who's your competition? What sets you apart?
These questions give you the ability to engage your customers. Involve them in the whole rebranding process.
Allowing them to be part of the conversation builds excitement. It helps transition them along with you and ensures they can celebrate your achievement. It turns the whole thing into a conversation and keeps building that trust.
While your brand changes, they'll see things are still the same. You might even score some more loyalty points with them.
There's also an incredible opportunity to embrace your past failures, use them as learning opportunities and come out the other side. It's your space to grow and learn.
If you want to go the extra mile, you can challenge the accepted industry norms. Are there things you believe that can be done differently that no one expects – this can be a great way to set you apart.
Before we jump ahead, it can be a powerful tool to find your brand personality, not to hold back and fight for what you believe in to make a positive change in the world.
Hot tip – test emotional branding robot
You might have glossed over "how do you want to make your customers feel?", but it's near the top of my list for a good reason. When you can tune into how they feel, your storytelling shifts, your tone of voice becomes more empathetic. You match them where they are at emotionally.
When you appreciate how they feel, you begin to build connections to customers. You begin building trust, and that... is essential.
There's no hard sell from me, but for the price of your email address, you'll get access to the Emotional Branding AI Robot.
Step 2: Redesign the customer experience
You've cleaned up the positioning, now you need to think about the experience customers have when they interact with your brand. It doesn't matter if you sell online or have a physical shop. You need to break down each step in a customer's journey.
Questions to uncover the brand experience you want to give people
- Do you or your customers struggle with any parts of the customer journey? Are they confused? Are there delays?
- Do you need to alter your processes to improve the brand experience?
- How are complaints handled? Is it consistently for the same product/service?
- Can you streamline your internal services/improve products?
- Why do customers choose you? Do they come back?
- How do customers feel when they interact with your brand? What emotions do you want customers to feel?
- Are customer touchpoints consistent? Can they be improved?
If any part of your customer experience isn't delighting them. In that case, you won't be creating as many super fans as you could be.
You can use these questions to audit your existing website, social media presence and anything else your brand touches to check that the messages are all the same and that each interaction is consistent.
For an example of a brand that failed to consider the customer experience, read our analysis of the Jaguar rebrand.
Step 3: Refresh your visual and verbal identity
The final step is to analyse how you communicate – visually, verbally and in writing. Your brand identity holds everything together.
Questions you need to ask about your visual branding
- How would you describe your brand voice? Is it packed with personality? Does it have more balls than a ball pit?
- Do you feel proud of your visuals/brand voice? Why?
- Are your visuals and brand voice consistent across all your brand touchpoints? What can be improved?
- How can you make the visual identity/brand voice consistent?
- Do customers respond to visuals/brand voice? Make a note of comments (good and bad).
- How do you want your brand to be described by customers?
- What visual identity assets do you have? Logos, fonts, colour palettes, graphic elements, icons, patterns, photography styles, illustrations, etc.
- What marketing assets do you have and use? This is anything to promote your brand — website, brochures, social media templates, email marketing templates, adverts, business cards, email signatures, etc.
- Are there any visual/marketing assets you wish you had?
- What visual identity/marketing assets do you need to move the brand forward?
What to do next
A successful brand merges messaging, communication and research with graphic design.
Without clarity on your positioning, you won't understand who you are targeting and giving a brand experience.
Once you are clear on each step, you can devise a plan for evolving and improving.
Action steps to take:
- Who is your target audience? What do they need?
- What will your brand experience look like?
- Do you need to invest in, create or organise new processes to keep the experience consistent?
- How will your brand voice sound? Pick out words and phrases you would like to use. Make a list of all the phrases to exclude, too.
- Will you create your voice and tone? Side note: you always have the same voice, but the tone is different to reflect the emotional states of the audience.
- What will your visuals look like? Consider building a mood board on Pinterest — logos you like, colours, typography, photography, and other visual elements to inspire your brand. Consider how they will make customers feel and your brand's goals.
- How will you create a consistent visual identity? Will you create your own visual identity? Will you hire a graphic designer to help?
- How to rebrand yourself: What visuals and marketing collateral do you need to develop or refresh? Create a list of all the items you use to speak to your target audience.
- Make a rough timeline to plan the launch. Consider how long it may take to recreate marketing campaigns, update the website, and how long it takes to print things. Give yourselves a generous amount of wiggle room to ensure everything is ready. Nobody likes egg on their face.
How long does a full rebrand take from start to finish?
A full rebrand typically takes 8 to 16 weeks from kickoff to launch. Complex rebrands with physical spaces, large teams, or legacy systems can stretch over 12 months. But for most businesses, here is the realistic breakdown:
- Weeks 1 to 3 Discovery, brand audit and stakeholder interviews. This is where we figure out what is actually broken and what just needs a polish. You will be surprised how often a full rebrand turns out to be a targeted refresh once we dig in.
- Weeks 3 to 7 Brand strategy and messaging. Positioning, values, brand promise, tone of voice, customer personas. This is the thinking that shapes everything visual. Skip this and you are decorating a house with no foundation.
- Weeks 7 to 12 Visual identity and design. Logo development, typography, colour systems, photography direction. This runs in iterative rounds with your feedback. Two to three rounds is typical.
- Weeks 12 to 16 Brand guidelines, collateral and rollout. Packaging the brand into usable tools: style guide, templates, social assets, signage specs.
- Weeks 16 to 18 Launch and handover. Internal brand training, asset rollout, launch campaigns. This is where you go live and start seeing the rebrand in the wild.
- Note: If a website is part of the scope, the website build runs in parallel with the identity design from week 7. A website will also require additional weeks after brand guideline delivery, and consequently the Launch and handover will be later too.
How long does It take to build a brand from scratch?
Building a brand from scratch takes 4 to 6 months for most businesses. That covers strategy through to launch. But building brand awareness – where your audience starts recognising and trusting you – that is a separate timeline entirely.
The brand itself (your strategy, identity and launch assets) follows the timeline we have outlined above. Discovery, strategy, design, guidelines, launch. Four to six months with a committed team.
Brand awareness is different. It is the result of consistently showing up with a clear message, a recognisable identity, and content that resonates. Most businesses start seeing meaningful awareness within 6 to 12 months of launch, but this depends heavily on your marketing budget, consistency and the size of your audience.
Here is the distinction that matters: building a brand is a project with a start and end date. Building brand awareness is an ongoing effort that the brand makes possible. You cannot build awareness effectively without a clear brand underneath it. Throwing money at ads before your brand foundations are in place is like putting a megaphone in front of someone who has not figured out what to say.
If you are starting from zero, our advice is to focus on getting the brand right first. Then launch with a clear 90-day awareness plan that covers your website, social presence, and one or two marketing channels you can commit to consistently.
What should you expect along the way?
Expect to be involved - the best rebrands are collaborative. You'll need to dedicate time for workshops, feedback rounds and decision-making. Expect some discomfort too. Letting go of an old brand identity is harder than people anticipate, even when you know it is time.
And expect the timeline to flex. The two biggest delays we see are slow feedback from stakeholders and scope changes mid-project. Lock in your core team, commit to deadlines, and the 16-week mark is very achievable.
A summary of how to rebrand your business
I'd highly recommend reaching out to professionals for guidance on any areas you are stuck on – the clearer your thoughts on the direction – the better the results! A creative team is only as good as the research. So get all your ideas out of your head onto paper.
If you can, follow the steps above. Outline your brand position. Create the experience you want to give customers and think about what your brand should look like. You'll be able to have candid conversations with brand strategists and designers to help you flesh and turn your ideas into something truly unique.
Harvard Business Review created a great post about Reinventing your Personal Brand that's worth reading, too.
If you want a deeper look at a branding timeline, I've put together an article that will help. There's also my Level Up Your Brand Podcast on Spotify that you should plug into.
If you need help with branding, you can reach out on our contact page and either book a call or fill in my bodacious form if video calls aren't your thing.
Frequently Asked Questions
How do I rebrand my business?
Start with three steps: first, define your brand positioning and strategy through market and audience research. Second, review and improve the customer experience. Third, analyse and enhance your visual and verbal communication across all customer-facing channels.
Is rebranding just changing a logo?
No, no, no! It's so much more. A rebrand goes far deeper than visual changes. It involves revisiting your brand strategy, checking your positioning, messaging, and customer experience. The logo is front and centre in the visual identity, and it comes after the strategic work is done.
When should I consider rebranding?
Consider rebranding when your brand no longer reflects your business direction, your audience has shifted, you are merging businesses, entering new markets, or your identity feels dated and inconsistent with your offering.
