Change Management Success Stories in Brand Revitalization

Doing a brand refresh is tedious, and it never feels like a good time. But common practice is to do one every 5 years. 👎 THE DOWNSIDE is that it throws a wrench in your operations with all new packaging and label systems to integrate. You need to communicate the change to wholesale partners and consumers and hope they embrace the change, and your whole team needs to be up for the challenge. 👍 THE UPSIDE is that a rebrand can revive stagnant sales, give your brand a chance to stay relevant, and give you an opportunity to update your positioning to meet changing consumer needs. Usually, if done thoughtfully with a detailed review of the changing competitive landscape, it proves worthwhile and helps build your customer base. You find your sweet spot again. When I was running Gorilla Coffee, our packaging, which once stood out, was becoming the norm, so we went through a brand refresh. And while tedious and painful on the operations side of things, it helped grow the business. Here are some of the things that happened post-refresh: ⭐ Whole Foods Market made us their preferred local vendor for the entire Northeast Region as a result of improved sales. We got better placement and into every store. ⭐ A Japanese firm approached us to become our licensing partner in Tokyo, where we built out a roastery, cafes and a wholesale program. ⭐ The design became iconic, winning design awards and press attention, and one we repurposed for our RTD, wholesale coffee bags, and most of our merchandise. This is just one example in our industry. I can think of so many others. With a market as crowded as specialty coffee and new brands entering constantly, it’s important to keep your packaging fresh and relevant. I’m happy to share my experience and thoughts on launching a successful rebrand. DM me anytime to chat. 🤓 #coffeebusiness #specialtycoffee #branding 

Up to 60% of rebrands fail. The usual cause? Chasing a new look without a real plan. I’ve studied over 200+ rebrand case studies. The winners share four traits. The failures? They almost always prioritized aesthetics over strategy. 1. Strategy before beauty Three out of four consumers remember brands by their logo. That’s why most failed rebrands start there and end there. The successful ones invest months building a strategic foundation before touching design. 2. Voice that connects Brand voice isn’t just copy. It’s your personality across every channel. Nike doesn’t just sell shoes. Their voice is empowering, motivational, slightly rebellious, and it’s consistent everywhere. Harry’s and Dollar Shave Club both sell razors. Harry’s uses refined sophistication for premium buyers. Dollar Shave Club leans into irreverent humor for cost-conscious millennials. Same product category, opposite voices. Voice comes from knowing your audience, not guessing. 3. Visual identity with purpose Visuals work only after strategy and voice are clear. Tropicana learned this in 2009. They replaced recognizable packaging with a clean, minimal design. Customers didn’t recognize it. Sales fell 20% in six weeks. Royal Mail made the same mistake in 2001. They ditched 500 years of equity for a meaningless name: Consignia. The public mocked it. Within 15 months, they reverted, wasting millions. Visual identity should strengthen your strategy, not erase your history. 4. Live the change internally first If your team doesn’t believe in the rebrand, it will never take flight. Every employee must understand and live the new direction before the public sees it. McKinsey found that change programs with strong employee buy-in are 30% more likely to succeed. Internal alignment before external launch, always. Ignore this, and you won’t just waste money. You’ll destroy trust. LESSON: A rebrand isn’t about looking different. Kia proved it in 2021. They didn’t just tweak a logo. They redefined their purpose: “Movement that Inspires” and backed it with product innovation. Revenue jumped 18% to a record $60 billion. Kia invested in transformation, not cosmetics, and hit historic growth. In an example of what not to do, Gap launched a new logo on October 6, 2010. By October 12 - just 6 days later - they reversed it. Cost: $100 million down the drain. A new look only works if it’s built on a strong foundation. When you’re clear on why your brand exists and what it stands for, the visuals have power. They signal meaning people can feel. Get the meaning right, and the look will matter. Motto®

In talking about #b2b brand one of my to do points was creating core positions, messages, and stories that resonate with the key ideas you need to hit over and over. I'm not going to take positions and messages as but if you're interested in that topic, I suggest you follow Patti Drach Fiore who has spent her career sussing out differentiated positions and messages for B2B's. So, let's talk about stories. Way back in the early mid 2000's I was the first ever person responsible for the global brand at SunGard Data Systems (the FS Tech group). Prior to that, marketing lived in the businesses. But our CMO recognized we had a problem. We were huge. But we had grown primarily through acquisition and most clients recognized us by the name of the product they used, not the company brand. In fact, most customers didn't realize that we could help them with a variety of challenges across the enterprise. A brand study revealed that despite being a multi-billion dollar company we had almost no unaided awareness. We had just decent aided awareness. And some of the concepts we wanted people to think of when they thought of us weren't resonating. We didn't: - Create more thought leadership content - Buy lists and send more emails - Create SDR cadences What did we do? - We created and communicated brand guidelines that got every business looking, writing and feeling the same - We created approved factoids that could be shared publicly across the organization - We struggled to get case studies because of the nature of our business so we went to work getting day in the life stories of our customers that would pass their legal approvals - these stories were meant to show the breadth and depth of the companies we served and we used them as the base creative for all of our campaigns - We took 100+ user groups and combined them into US and European events called SunGard World. At these events we used the factoids and stories we had gathered. - We advertised these stories in targeted publications. - We pushed this story at events. - We took 100+ microsites and created one SunGard site. Basically we created one story - centered around the tagline 'rely on our strength' and then strategically pushed that out across the world across all channels with all the budget we had. That's brand. It's not a logo and a color palette - it's crafting a singular understanding of your company - that they exist, what they do, and why you should trust them. The end results? The brand itself was valued at 1BN and SunGard Data Systems was the 2nd largest LBO of it's time. After the LBO we continued this work.