8 Lessons We Learned from These Famous Rebrands [2023 Edition]

Rebranding could be daunting, but it may well improve your brand recognition and enable you gain a bigger following — and we have seen it done right by a number of the biggest names on the market.

On this blog post, we’ll explore a number of the most notable famous rebrands and what marketers can learn from them to use to their very own businesses. Whether you are trying to rebrand what you are promoting or for inspiration to take your brand to the following level, these rebrands offer priceless insights into what it takes to refresh and modernize a brand successfully.

1. Meta

In October 2021, Facebook underwent a significant rebranding effort, changing its name to Meta. This modification reflects the corporate’s shift in focus from being a social media platform to becoming a metaverse company. It now focuses on creating virtual reality experiences that allow users to interact in a more immersive and interconnected way. This rebranding effort also included a complete recent visual identity and logo design.

One lesson marketers can learn from this rebranding effort is the importance of staying relevant and never shying away from innovation. Facebook recognized that the world is changing and that folks are increasingly in search of recent and inventive ways to attach and have interaction with one another.

By shifting its focus to the metaverse, Meta is positioning itself as a frontrunner on this emerging field and demonstrating a willingness to adapt and alter in response to evolving consumer needs and preferences. Marketers could learn a thing in regards to the importance of staying attuned to changes out there and being willing to make daring moves to remain ahead of the competition.

2. Petco

In October 2020, Petco announced it might not sell electronic “shock” collars. The announcement highlighted the corporate’s rebranding efforts as a health and wellness company for pets.

The pet store redesigned Petco’s homepage, in addition to the Petco app, to deal with their recent initiatives — including health and wellness resources for pet parents, a “Right Food Finder” tool to assist parents discover the healthiest foods for his or her pets and an prolonged range of pet healthcare and insurance offerings.

Nowadays, many American pet owners treat their animals as relations — so Petco’s rebranding makes loads of sense. The brand new design higher reflects the brand’s more holistic approach to animal wellness — including a dedicated landing page that outlines maintain your pet’s mental, physical, and social health, with a tagline, “We’re working with trusted experts to enhance pet wellbeing by raising the standards of every part we do. Since it’s what we might want if we were pets.”

Overall, this was a particularly successful rebrand because it focused on a shift in consumers’ lifestyles and ensured the corporate’s refreshed vision reflected those priorities.

3. Dunkin’

In 2019, Dunkin’ Donuts announced a rebranding effort, changing its name to “Dunkin’.” The move was designed to reflect the corporate’s expanding focus beyond donuts and towards a greater variety of foods and drinks options, including breakfast sandwiches, coffee, and other snacks. The rebrand also included a recent visual identity and logo featuring a daring, modern font and an updated color scheme.

Dunkin’ recognized that consumer tastes and preferences were changing and desired to rival the coffee giant Starbucks greater than retain its identity as a donut shop. The brand knew it needed to adapt to stay competitive, and it was a successful rebrand that is still going strong. By rebranding as “Dunkin”” and expanding its offerings, the corporate was in a position to position itself as a more modern, versatile brand that might meet the changing needs of its customers.

This highlights the importance of commonly reassessing your brand’s positioning and messaging and being willing to make daring moves to remain ahead of the curve. Moreover, it underscores the importance of keeping your brand consistent across all touchpoints, from visual identity to customer experience, maintaining a solid and cohesive brand identity.

4. Adobe Creative Cloud

In May 2020, Adobe released a blog post, “Evolving Our Brand Identity.” The article dives into the choices behind Adobe Creative Cloud’s rebranding and states, “We’re making these branding changes to make sure our portfolio continues to be easy for our customers to navigate and understand, in addition to maintain a fresh appear and feel.”

Amongst other things, Adobe Creative Cloud redesigned its:

• Logo: The corporate redesigned the brand to an all-red logo with warmer hues.
• Creative Cloud logo: The brand new logo uses a colourful gradient to represent “the importance of creativity.” The colours in the brand are pulled together from various Adobe products and the newest Adobe red logo.
• Product logos: The corporate is adding 3-letter mnemonics to assist viewers determine product families — like Adobe Photoshop (Ps) and Adobe Photoshop Camera (PsC). The designers also used colours to prepare products into categories.

These redesigns successfully highlighted and arranged the various product offerings of Adobe Creative Cloud. As an illustration, once you navigate to the “Video” product page on Adobe’s website, all apps inside the Video category are similar shades of blues and purples.

While some designers have expressed frustration over the brand new logo color similarities, it is sensible that the brand needed to prepare its products higher — with a catalog of over 50 products, selecting the proper ones to your needs can feel overwhelming. The updated logos should help make it easier to choose and select.

5. Starbucks

Through the years, Starbucks — one of the crucial valuable brands in the world — has proven the true power of a great brand. And certainly one of the telltale signs of a great brand is the flexibility to consistently innovate and push the boundaries relatively than settling for what’s already working.

In 2020, Starbucks released its “Starbucks Creative Expression” brand expression guide. The location focuses on Starbucks’ defined voice, typography, and logo to create consistency across channels and Starbucks locations.

In a number of words, Starbucks goals to create an open, creative, carefree, and modern brand. On the Voice page, as an illustration, it reads, “We’re confidently turning down the quantity of competing messages to raise experience, removing obstacles in the way in which of individuals finding exactly what they seek at Starbucks.” The rule adds, “When we now have the space, we tell a passionate coffee story. But even with just a number of words, our copy could make you smile.”

Ultimately, this most up-to-date Starbucks rebrand is easy and effective. Quite than moving too far in the wrong way of the brand’s roots, the corporate sticks to its fundamental company vision while making slight alterations to proceed serving the needs and preferences of its consumers.

6. GoDaddy

A internet hosting service founded back in 1997, GoDaddy needed an upgrade. In early 2020, they created a brand-new logo, refreshed their web site design, and created recent marketing campaigns to match the brand new look. Their design page reads, “A recent brand for a recent era” and focuses on how GoDaddy’s users — the on a regular basis entrepreneurs — inspired the brand new look.

Certainly one of GoDaddy’s most striking changes is the new logo, named the GO. GoDaddy believes the GO represents “the indomitable spirit of on a regular basis entrepreneurs.” Its contemporary design uses colourful visuals, hand-drawn illustrations, and a daring, serif font to evoke a way of inspiration and joy. GoDaddy’s brand voice, depicted in recent campaigns, goals to be casual, human, and friendly.

While some brands might need less of a makeover, GoDaddy’s older image felt outdated and fewer cohesive. Their rebranding reflects the fashionable tastes, personalities, and desires of the fashionable user.

7. Pottery Barn

Pottery Barn, a roughly 70-year-old home furnishing company, has now put sustainability because the central focus of their brand, promising consumers that what they purchase will likely be worthwhile — each when it comes to quality and environmental impact.

Pottery Barn, named essentially the most sustainable home furnishings retailer, has focused its efforts on sustainability with a dedicated landing page outlining its commitments:

• Plant a tree (with the Arbor Day Foundation) each time a consumer purchases a chunk of indoor wood furniture.
• Use responsibly-sourced cotton.
• Keep products out of landfills by restoring items with a recent Pottery Barn “Renewed” line.
• Contribute money for communities to speculate in health clinics, water filtration systems, and more (the brand has currently contributed $3 million).

Ultimately, as your brand grows together with your consumers, it’s essential to contemplate what matters to them today. Pottery Barn has done a superb job identifying a sweet spot within the furniture marketplace: Sustainability. As consumers proceed to use this value as a guiding light of their purchasing decisions, it is sensible for Pottery Barn to make sure all their updated marketing materials reflect its mission.

8. I❤️NY Logo

We have spoken about all these successful rebrands, but marketers have just as much to learn from famously failed rebrands.

On March twentieth, 2023, the “We ❤️ NYC” logo by Graham Clifford was announced to be Recent York City’s new branding campaign to switch the enduring “I ❤️ NY” logo by Milton Glaser — nevertheless it did not capture the identical emotional connection and visual appeal that made the unique so famous.

While the brand new logo featured a more modern font and a heart symbol made up of assorted Recent York City icons, it lacked the simplicity and elegance of the unique design, which has grow to be synonymous with the town itself. Moreover, the brand new logo did not resonate with Recent Yorkers and visitors like the unique, eventually abandoning it.

Marketers can learn from this failed rebrand attempt the importance of respecting and constructing upon existing brand equity. The “I ❤️ NY” logo had grow to be an iconic symbol of Recent York City and its culture, and attempting to switch it with a recent design was a dangerous move that ultimately backfired.

Marketers should rigorously consider the present brand equity of an organization or product before making any significant changes and deal with constructing upon that equity relatively than ranging from scratch. Moreover, marketers should hearken to the feedback of consumers and stakeholders before making any major branding decisions and be willing to pivot or change course if crucial.

Key Takeaways from Famous Rebrands

The above examples make it easy to identify some similarities that made all of them strong contenders for best rebrands. But before you start your rebrand for your individual business, remember these takeaways:

1. Keep your audience on the forefront of your plans.

What tastes and preferences have they got? What inspires or excites them? How would they want your website designed? Identifying and catering to a selected audience or buyer persona provides you with a greater likelihood of succeeding through a rebrand than attempting to appeal to the masses.

2. Use your consumers’ outside preferences to shape your rebranding.

Consider your consumers’ passions beyond your services or products and what they care most about — you’ll be able to weave those into your brand story.

Like Petco and Pottery Barn’s successful rebrands, ethical or sustainable marketing can garner attention from those that wish to see their money fuel a socially responsible business.

3. A rebrand is greater than only a logo change.

You would like your rebrand to be daring. Otherwise, it’s only a brand refresh.

To properly rebrand, you’ll be wanting to conduct a content audit and analyze all of your existing content to make sure each webpage, logo, graphic, and commercial is updated to suit your recent image.

4. A brand guideline page is critical for cohesion.

Most examples on this list have a dedicated brand guideline page for ensuring each worker is empowered with the proper tools to create content that matches the brand new look.

Each GoDaddy and Starbucks, as an illustration, outline how the voice should sound, what fonts to make use of, and even what colours to incorporate in any public-facing marketing materials.

Rebrand together with your customers in mind.

Ultimately, a rebranding strategy could be an exciting and effective opportunity to thrill existing customers while attracting recent ones. We hope these famous rebrands encourage you to start together with your fresh look.

Editor’s note: This text was originally published in May 2021 and has been updated for comprehensiveness.