Product & Business Rebranding

As for product offerings, when they are marketed separately to several target markets this is called Market Segmentation. When part of a market segmentation strategy involves offering significantly different products in each market, this is called Product differenciation  This market segmentation/product differentiation process can be thought of as a form of rebranding. What distinguishes it from other forms of rebranding is that the process does not entail the elimination of the original brand image. Rebranding in this manner allows one set of engineering and QA to be used to create multiple products with minimal modifications and additional expense. Another form of product rebranding is the sale of a product manufactured by another company under a new name: an Original design manufacturer is a company that manufactures a product, often in a location with lower operating costs, which is eventually branded by another firm for sale.

Following a merger or acquisition, companies usually rebrand newly-acquired products to keep them consistent with an existing product line, such as Symantec placing acquired security and utility software under its Norton brand (itself an offshoot of flagship product Norton Antivirus. This can also happen in reverse if an acquired brand has Wider Recognition in the market than that of the purchaser, such as Chemical Bank  taking on the Chase branding after its merger with the company.

mall businesses face different challenges from large corporations and must adapt their rebranding strategy accordingly.

Rather than implementing change gradually, small businesses are sometimes better served by rebranding their image in a short timeframe – especially when existing brand notoriety is low. “The powerful first impression on new clients made possible by professional brand design often outweighs an outdated or poorly-designed image’s weak brand recognition to existing clients”.

A change of image in a large corporation can have costly repercussions (updating signage in multiple locations, large quantities of existing collateral, communicating with a large number of employees, etc.), while small businesses can enjoy more mobility and implement change more quickly.

While small businesses can experience growth without necessarily having a professionally designed brand image, "rebranding becomes a critical step for a company to be considered seriously when expanding to more aggressive markets and facing competitors with more established brand images

The ubiquitous nature of a company/product brand across all customer touch points makes rebranding a heavy undertaking for companies. According to the iceberg model, 80% of the impact is hidden. The level of impact of changing a brand depends on the degree to which the brand is changed.

There are several elements of a brand that can be changed in a rebranding these include the name, the logo, the legal name, and the operate identity (including visual identity and verbal identity. Changes made only to the company logo have the lowest impact (called a logo-swap), and changes made to the name, legal name, and other identity elements will touch every part of the company and can result in high costs and impact on large complex organizations.

Rebranding affects not only marketing material but also digital channels, URLs, signage, clothing, and correspondence.