Rebranding announcement – how to communicate the change?

Conducting rebranding is one thing; rebranding announcement is the other. If you’re about to start rebranding your company, you have to think about many questions, including marketing and PR. And that’s what we want to tackle.

Rebranding is always a big revolution in the development of your company. Your stakeholders and customers need to understand why it happens and what they can expect afterwards. Needless to say, rebranding is a big challenge but also a big opportunity to build a stronger position in the market with a new robust image.

Things you have to consider during rebranding announcement

Rebranding is always a complex process involving many companies (e.g., marketing and PR agencies), departments and questions to consider. First of all, you have to plan everything you can and schedule a rebranding announcement timeline before you even start your In order to make sure you have everything under control, create the whole rebranding timeline along with the necessary rebranding checklist. Assign people and companies responsible for different areas of rebranding and equip them with all the tools and information they need to do their job effectively.

Secondly, make sure all the marketing materials are ready. This refers to:

• Corporate assets (business cards, email addresses, financial documents etc.)
• Sales materials (presentations, offers, catalogues etc.)
• Web materials (domain, webpage layout, logotype, fonts, brand portal etc.)
• Marketing assets (brand guidelines, style guide, media kit, animations, templates and other promotional materials)

Before you announce the rebrand to the world, start with internal communication so that all employees and business partners are up to speed. Some of them may be asked about journalists and other interested parties about the recent rebranding process – make sure they know what to say about it. A consistent story is one of the prerequisites of a successful rebranding announcement.

When it comes to external communication, plan something special. Maybe a press conference or an event for all your stakeholders? Take a look at this short video from Kia’s new logo unveiling. They know what they’re doing:

It’s always vital to invite the most important journalists in your sector so that the market can be quickly informed about the rebranding. Consider adding a storytelling element. People love good stories. If you can explain why the rebranding process was necessary and what its outcome will be, people will be more eager to engage in communication with you and appreciate your new brand from day one.

Rebranding announcement – How to create a rebrand rollout plan

Once you take care of all that, you need to start thinking about the rebrand rollout plan. In such a plan, you should consider all the relevant elements related to going public with your brand, including the timeline and specific stages of the rollout. The rule of thumb is this – you start with the internal audience and then move to the external audience. Each stage should be thoroughly described:

1. What happens at that stage?
2. Who do we want to target?
3. Who is responsible and for what?
4. When should the given stage be started and finished?

Frequently, brands going through the rebranding process try to gradually build interest and engagement with a series of newsletters, social media posts, ads and even videos or events. Don’t give away everything at once; try to build excitement. That’s why storytelling is so important – you can tell several different points of your big story and concentrate on them in various stages.

At each stage, make sure you’ve included media and influencers in your industry. That’s the role of your PR agency/department. Journalists are usually interested in what’s happening in their areas of interest, so they should welcome your rebranding materials with open hands. Usually, it’s good to assign a specific person to answer all the possible questions. If your company doesn’t have a spokesperson, a marketing director or a C-suite manager is also a good choice.

Lastly, make sure you have your ambassadors and business partners on board. This refers to:

• Clients
• Vendors
• Distributors and wholesalers
• Carriers
• Representatives and other entities you work with on a daily basis

CREATE A LAUNCH CALENDAR

As we mentioned earlier, rebranding is a complex and multi-faceted process. If you want to succeed with it, you have to make sure it’s all locked and loaded. A brand launch calendar will be of help here. In such a calendar, you should include all the rebranding stages along with their:

• Lead times and operational cycles
• Review and approval processes
• Other related questions (e.g., legal requirements)

The calendar itself should be legible and easy to keep updated. All the additional elements should be stored in accompanying files, e.g., Excel sheets.

HOW TO WRITE A REBRANDING PRESS RELEASE

Don’t forget that you need to inform all the relevant media about your rebranding. Prepare a so-called media kit that’s made of:

1. A press release
2. A new brand identity (ideally with the old one for comparison)
3. Additional elements (e.g., a detailed explanation of the story behind the rebranding)
4. Quotes from key people in your company and the company/designer responsible for the rebranding

A press release should contain all the elements mentioned above in a compact form (not more than two pages), and it ought to provide answers to basic 5W questions (who, what, where, when, why). This way, journalists interested in your brand’s transition can get all they need to prepare an article or a post for their newspaper’s or digital portal’s website. Don’t forget to add contact information in case of additional questions.

Execution: By an in-house team or an agency?

The answer to that question depends on your resources. If you have an extensive marketing department with branding experts, PR consultants and other specialists involved in the process, you can try and execute rebranding (and its announcement) in-house.

However, consider asking for a second opinion before you choose this option. Working with an external branding agency can give you a fresh look at your old and new brands. And such agencies (just like Admind) have broad experience in conducting and announcing rebrandings, so you can benefit from their expertise.

Moreover, many brands going through the rebranding process conduct in-depth research and market study to make sure the new brand is well-received by the target audience. That’s what Skoda did when they wanted to introduce a new brand identity for their company because of the EV revolution in the motor industry.

Rebranding announcement – social media

You cannot neglect social media in your rebranding, especially if you are a B2C company. People use this channel to stay in touch with their favourite brands so that it’s obvious that’s where they are going to look for information.

STEPS TO PREPARE A SUCCESSFUL SOCIAL MEDIA REBRANDING ANNOUNCEMENT

Again, here, it’s extremely important to build interest gradually. You can create a series of social media posts informing your target audience about the upcoming change in your company’s identity and communication. You can start with storytelling to lay the groundwork. Tell people following your brand why this transition is necessary, what will change and to what end. This way, you can get more people on board even before the transition happens.

CHECKLIST TO LAUNCH A REBRAND ON SOCIAL MEDIA

Rebranding on social media involves many elements that you have to keep in mind. These are as follows:

1. Profile name
2. Profile pictures
3. Cover photo
4. Social media templates
5. Company’s name and description
6. New contact information

Make sure you change all these elements before you publish the final rebranding post on your social media profiles.

HOW TO WRITE A REBRANDING POST

As we mentioned earlier, you should opt for a series of posts, but it is also a good idea to publish one final rebranding post that summarises the whole process. In such a post, you could include answers to the following questions (you can even do it in the Q&A form):

1. Why did you go through rebranding?
2. What does your new brand mean? What’s the significance of your new identity?
3. How did you choose your new company name and identity?
4. What’s different about your company now?
5. What can your customers expect after the rebranding process?

Encourage employees to boost and talk about your rebranding

Every employee and co-worker in your company is also its ambassador. That’s why it’s so important to have all the employees onboard with rebranding. Give them all the necessary knowledge and encourage them to talk about rebranding in their communities, especially among friends and family. This way, more people will know about the transition, and they will view it as something positive (because they’ve heard about it from a person that they know and like).

Rebranding announcement – examples

We’ve gathered three interesting examples of how brands from different sectors went about their transition. Take a look at these three YouTube videos:

AirBnb introduces their new logo – Belo

The company combine animation and storytelling to present the effects of its successful rebrand.

Mark Zuckerberg announces Facebook/Meta rebranding

Note that Facebook’s founder talks about the company’s new mission. We have repeatedly pointed out that a major change in business strategy is a good reason for rebranding.

Intel goes through the rebranding process

In a short video clip company shows how the Intel brand has changed throughout the years.

Skoda reveals their new logo

Read more about the recent Skoda rebranding on our blog.

Do your rebranding with Admind

If you are looking for additional help to go through the rebranding process (and announcement), Admind is at your service. Thanks to our extensive international experience in both B2B and B2C, we can help you organise and execute every single element of your rebranding. And if that’s necessary, we will gladly help you design your new brand from scratch!

Find out more about our rebranding process, and reach out to see what we can do together!

See also our articles on: what is rebranding and rebranding examples.