02 Sep Design Teams, Customers and Rebranding
Rebranding can be a necessary step in changing the trajectory of a company.
However, it does come with some measure of risk. Rebranding when done right seeks to take the successful aspects of a company’s service or product and carry those forward into the future, while shrugging off the failures of the past. Problems arise when the management in charge of the change fail to consult and test with the target audience. It seems rather simple, yet time and again you hear of case after case where the management seems satisfied, fails to consult with the intended audience and suffers accordingly. Take the example of the article we ran a while back on Rhode Island’s failed rebrand attempt. We believe that online communities can provide the support needed to make a rebrand go right, as they provide a space for the continual testing of products and services, with the target audience. In an article written by Michaela Mora entitled How to Avoid Rebranding Mistakes she recounts her time as Director of Research for Blockbuster online and how focus groups proved crucial for the rebranding process.