There are lots of reasons why a company might choose to rebrand:
- increasing globalisation leading to confusion in the minds of customers
- acquisition or merger of two companies – or a spinoff – necessitating a change
- significant change to the business – products, services, direction, scale…
- the need to differentiate from competitors
- occasionally as a result of a crisis
- and no doubt there are more…
Such a big change isn’t usually decided on a whim, but is driven by necessity. And corporate brand metamorphosis certainly isn’t easy. It would definitely be worth getting some expert advice!
As always with the Communicate Magazine conferences, the upcoming Transform Conference is intended to help people facing the implementation of such a major project, providing practical ideas and case studies based on the experiences of the line-up of speakers.
For this conference, the speakers are drawn from corporates, governments, charities and corporate advisors, and include: Unilever, Hays, Dave, AkzoNobel, The Co-Op, Aviva, Santander, Holcim and many more.
There will be discussions on communicating the changes internally, on protecting intellectual property, dealing with cultural issues, reputation management, visual identity and fonts, brand architecture and reinvention without damaging brand heritage. It sounds fascinating – the only issue, as always, is choosing between the different streams of discussion.
I’m particularly intrigued by the idea of a history of the world in 1000 fonts, which is the topic to be covered by Bruno Maag of Dalton Maag – brand values and visual identities from the Romans onwards! On the other hand, guidance on how to execute a new visual identity across multiple brand touchpoints in multiple departments across multiple regions sounds essential, and as a former project manager I can imagine just how complex such a programme could be. (This session will be led by Gideon Wilkinson from Endpoint).
I’ll just have to hope that Communicate have decided to video each session. Or that I can find a time-turner before October.
The early bird period for this conference is nearly over, so you’ll have to act fast (before the end of August) if you want to make a saving on the conference fee. It’s going to be at the Hotel Russell, in London, on October 21 – and it’s an all day thing (not surprising, given what they plan to cover). More details here. Looking good!
Lucy is Editor at Corporate Eye