Question
Which company or companies are in need of a rebrand/shake up the most? How and why?
Answer
People are conflating rebranding, repositioning and strategic business model changes (the big brother of "pivot" for startups).
Lots of healthy, but growth-limited companies could benefit from a rebrand (= new name, or new story for old name, but otherwise business as usual), especially those whose brands are just placeholders and haven't done much. Almost by definition though, a well-known brand cannot handle a rebranding unless it is in trouble. But sometimes yes. Rebranding means changing your image without overtly changing your market (though ANY rebranding will implicitly change your emphasis in the marketplace which will lose you some customers and gain you some new ones). You don't have to rename or change your logo, but you can just change the meaning of the name/logo if it isn't too strongly established. Capital One managed to rebrand to "aggressive" for example. Volvo can't change "safe" but commodity car brands that don't mean anything in particular (Kia, Hyundai) have an opportunity to attach a meaning by pushing hard in some clear direction. Broad can narrow, but narrow cannot broaden very easily.
Repositionings are harder: it means deliberately changing the market you serve by dropping some customers, adding others. Netflix is doing that by gradually moving away from mailed DVDs to broadband delivery. B&N is doing that by devoting an ever-expanding square footage in its retail stores to the nook. They may be able to completely rebrand as a coffeeshop+apple store. Maybe they can even add work desks for people to rent, or go after a club/lounge membership model...every single old media brand, from the NYT to the HBR, needs a strong repositioning. Friendster, MySpace, Yahoo... all need to do this obviously.
Strategic shifts are the most dramatic. It means completely exiting one market and moving to another, possibly with a lot of painful restructuring and asset liquidations. This is only ever considered when it is clear your original market is drying up. This is so damn hard that it is generally easier to just put the money back into the open market via gradual shrinking of the company through stock buybacks. I met a Phillip Morris guy who claimed that they thought of their distribution network to the corner store/drug store/gas station store retail world as their main high-value asset and were thinking of repositioning the business as a delivery network to that retail world. I am skeptical. IBM is a rare success in this space (hardware to services). BP, which some have mentioned, I think is practically irretrievable. Speculators may still play with the stock, but the fundamentals have been cancerously eaten away by all appearances. They should probably dismantle and sell their assets to other companies. Any new name will inherit the stink.
Whether or not you rename as part of the rebrand, or morph it gently... a case by case decision. IBM never expands its acronym anymore. The company that my dad worked for went from the archaic, turn-of-the-century TISCO (Tata Iron and Steel Company) to Tata Steel. The sister company across town, TELCO (Tata Engeineering and Locomotive Company) went to Tata Motors.
How hard the rebranding is depends on whether you are a marketing, sales or PR driven company. It is hardest for marketing driven companies, and easiest for sales-driven companies. In computing, Apple will have the hardest problem if it it ever wants to try it, Google will be slightly easier, Microsoft will be the easiest. Details: http://www.ribbonfarm.com/2010/1...
Lots of healthy, but growth-limited companies could benefit from a rebrand (= new name, or new story for old name, but otherwise business as usual), especially those whose brands are just placeholders and haven't done much. Almost by definition though, a well-known brand cannot handle a rebranding unless it is in trouble. But sometimes yes. Rebranding means changing your image without overtly changing your market (though ANY rebranding will implicitly change your emphasis in the marketplace which will lose you some customers and gain you some new ones). You don't have to rename or change your logo, but you can just change the meaning of the name/logo if it isn't too strongly established. Capital One managed to rebrand to "aggressive" for example. Volvo can't change "safe" but commodity car brands that don't mean anything in particular (Kia, Hyundai) have an opportunity to attach a meaning by pushing hard in some clear direction. Broad can narrow, but narrow cannot broaden very easily.
Repositionings are harder: it means deliberately changing the market you serve by dropping some customers, adding others. Netflix is doing that by gradually moving away from mailed DVDs to broadband delivery. B&N is doing that by devoting an ever-expanding square footage in its retail stores to the nook. They may be able to completely rebrand as a coffeeshop+apple store. Maybe they can even add work desks for people to rent, or go after a club/lounge membership model...every single old media brand, from the NYT to the HBR, needs a strong repositioning. Friendster, MySpace, Yahoo... all need to do this obviously.
Strategic shifts are the most dramatic. It means completely exiting one market and moving to another, possibly with a lot of painful restructuring and asset liquidations. This is only ever considered when it is clear your original market is drying up. This is so damn hard that it is generally easier to just put the money back into the open market via gradual shrinking of the company through stock buybacks. I met a Phillip Morris guy who claimed that they thought of their distribution network to the corner store/drug store/gas station store retail world as their main high-value asset and were thinking of repositioning the business as a delivery network to that retail world. I am skeptical. IBM is a rare success in this space (hardware to services). BP, which some have mentioned, I think is practically irretrievable. Speculators may still play with the stock, but the fundamentals have been cancerously eaten away by all appearances. They should probably dismantle and sell their assets to other companies. Any new name will inherit the stink.
Whether or not you rename as part of the rebrand, or morph it gently... a case by case decision. IBM never expands its acronym anymore. The company that my dad worked for went from the archaic, turn-of-the-century TISCO (Tata Iron and Steel Company) to Tata Steel. The sister company across town, TELCO (Tata Engeineering and Locomotive Company) went to Tata Motors.
How hard the rebranding is depends on whether you are a marketing, sales or PR driven company. It is hardest for marketing driven companies, and easiest for sales-driven companies. In computing, Apple will have the hardest problem if it it ever wants to try it, Google will be slightly easier, Microsoft will be the easiest. Details: http://www.ribbonfarm.com/2010/1...