During a special focus on the subject of corporate rebranding by CNBC Africa, I was recently asked why many high-profile repositioning projects fail so spectacularly and cost corporations millions in lost consumer confidence.
What boards of directors do wrong more than anything is consider a rebrand simply an external paint job, an exercise in corporate aesthetics and investment in new-look logos, color schemes, and glossy ads, and then expect consumers to suddenly wake up seeing the organization in a brand new light.
A logo represents only the very tip of the corporate iceberg. Rebranding isn’t about graphic design; it’s about inside-out operational change.
If an enterprise’s internal community (employees, management, supply chain, investors) isn’t united on the central shift of strategy, operational incentives, leadership narrative, and clear proofs to back them up, then any external refreshment, however visually pleasing it might appear, only creates confused, unaligned internals and hostile, disappointed customers who can instantly detect where the newly painted surface doesn’t match their lived reality.
Whenever I lead firms through strategic reorienting processes, whether it be to market disruptors or growth-centric organizations, the corporate visual identity is always the last element we consider changing, or ever change for the matter. The focus for the enterprise must be purely on internal mechanics: to get the executive thinking straight, get incentives to align with strategy, establish concrete proofs before going to the public market.
In the end, firms usually rebrand because the organization has lost its market relevance or they’re entering a new one — but if that doesn’t come with internal re-engineering first, then adding new livery to an ancient engine would only demonstrate how old its moving parts have really become!
A new logo is not a quick fix for a bad customer experience, an obsolete business model, or declining customer engagement in its most tangible market expression-or, in the words of Al Reis, “The rebranding idea that a ‘new face’ means a new product has proved so fallacious that most consumer marketers no longer think it relevant.” Rebranding is a promise; if your internal operation is not wired to fulfill that promise, a new exterior will ultimately only exacerbate structural weaknesses in the enterprise. As an organization within your sector announced its major rebranding recently, what is the first clue that you’ll go and seek? The logo or proof points in operations.
