The Misnomer that is Rebranding transcription

The misnomer that is rebranding transcription

By Fiona Boyd |

This post is a transcription of The Misnomer that is Rebranding videopost featuring Michel Hogan of Brandology being interviewed by Fiona Boyd, co-author of Niche Content Millionaire.

Fiona: Hello and welcome. Today I’m talking with Michel Hogan – owner and founder and lead associate at Brandology. She works with a group of people who work with companies to help them get their brand exactly right – as it should be in the marketplace today. Welcome Michel.

Michel: Thanks Fiona.

Fiona: Rebranding is a word that gets bandied around a lot and it probably has more significance for you than it does the average person. When do you know that it’s time for a company to rebrand and then exactly what is rebranding? What do we mean by that?

Michel: I actually think rebranding’s a misnomer, at least from where I sit, because I think when most people are talking about rebranding, what they’re really talking about is, we’re going to remarket, we’re going to rename, we’re going to relogo. You know, all of those things that are really actually just brand markers, right? If you go back to the definition that I hold of brand, which is this intersection, or this result, of what you believe and what your actions show, and that, you know it’s your values, it’s your promise, it’s the story of who you are and where you’ve come from, and it’s the compilation of all of that stuff. You know, I don’t think that you ever really rebrand…

Fiona: …you can’t just change that, can you?

Michel: …that doesn’t alter, and so I think a lot of what people think of as rebranding is not actually rebranding at all. It’s essentially…it may be repositioning or remarketing the existing brand to their customer, to the audience. And you can create somewhat of a fresh, a fresh appearance. But fundamentally, unless you change the processes and products and services and protocols and principles of the organisation, the brand is still the brand. And I say that actually quite a lot to people, you know, your brand is your brand is your brand.

Fiona: So Michel, I’m just wondering, then…what we call rebranding is probably really freshening up?

Michel: Yeah, yeah, freshening up…

Fiona: …given that you can’t change the brand and its story and where it’s come from, but then, you can sit there and decide on a new future, correct? Or decide on how you’re going to look in the future. How – when do you know it’s time to do that, to freshen up, to have a new look and have a new outlook?

What we mean by rebranding is often re-imaging or re-logoing.

Michel: I think that process is actually one that should happen on an ongoing basis. I have a little diagram which I remember drawing once which is, sort of a bit like an entwined DNA strand, you know, I think that there’s two active elements of brand and one is theoretical brand and one is functional brand, and the functional brand is sort of when it’s on the ascendant, when the focus is on that, typically the theoretical side of the brand, the more strategic form of the brand falls away.

And then when the strategic side of the brand’s on the ascendant, the functional side falls away, so there’s this constant interplay between those elements within an organisation, as there should be. And the functional side of brand’s the piece that really interacts with the marketplace. It interacts with the customer, it really has to connect with the environment and make sense in the environment for the organisation to be successful. And so I think that, for me anyway, a lot of the work that people need to do, deciding when to freshen, when to revisit this stuff, has to do with what’s going on out there. And to a degree connecting and responding to that. That’s the one piece of brand that does connect and respond. There’s a little three circles diagram I draw and one of those circles is positioning. And the positioning of an organisation is sort of this alchemy of what do we do, why do we do it, how do we do it, and those questions really do connect very deeply with the marketplace and the environment. And if you keep asking those questions continually, you will just by virtue of keeping your positioning fresh keep your brand fresh. But that doesn’t trade off against the anchoring pieces, those enduring pieces of promise and values…

Fiona: …and story…

Michel: …and story, and that, you know and that historical story that stay as the foundation, and that connect you, and keep it connected to what’s always been.

Fiona: I would think that in – let’s call it – refashioning – many companies would seek to forget the story of the past, or sometimes they do…do you see that?

Michel: All the time. I see lots of companies that want to try and forget the story of the past, and in fact I think one of the great values…

Fiona: …even about the valid and really valuable story, somehow because it’s an old story and not a new story it seems to not have as much value.

Michel: …without question. I think one of the great failures of marketing, of a lot of brand practitioners who come from the marketing side of things, is that they tend to focus on, OK, well let’s move forward and it’s a new story and, you know…

Fiona: …the new new thing…

Michel: …the new new thing, and at the expense of what is often and incredibly powerful, well loved…

Fiona: …and successful…

Michel: …and successful story from the past. And I think that’s a great pity because there’s a lot of affection, there’s a huge connection both inside and outside the organisation for those pieces. And when they’re not honoured, and when they’re not brought into what’s going on, and carried forward, I think everyone loses.

Fiona: Tell me what happens from a consumer perspective when exactly that happens…someone comes in and refashions according to the new look, junks the history and the story, what does the consumer usually do?

Michel: Well it depends. The existing customer, and the customer that’s had the long connection with the organisation can quite often be completely put off, and actually leave the organisation, leave their association. Sure it might attract new customers, but there’s a really famous, there’s a great brand blow up story, which is Gateway computer, in the US, and Gateway’s actually one of my favourite case studies for exactly why this stuff is so dangerous. Gateway was a pretty successful, you know, tier two computer provider, you know they weren’t Dell but they were doing OK. They had a really loyal and very strong story and it was all fashioned around this somewhat folksy, family image of, they had a cow, as their logo, and it was, like, moo, and it was a little bit, it was certainly, it was almost like the anti-technology computer position, I mean it actually had some really good pieces to it. And then along came this, like, no no no we’re going to basically ‘rebrand’, and I use inverted commas on purpose. And essentially they chucked the entire past story, they chucked all of the old thing, came up with something new, basically tried to turn them into the alternative to Dell, so the Dell Lite. Failed miserably, nearly killed the company, it’s barely managed to survive, it’s never regained its market position from that. And that was just such a…it just didn’t have to happen, it was such a strategic failure…

Fiona: Why change such a unique way of presenting your case to the market, it’s unique and distinctive, wouldn’t you want to just build on that?

Michel: Exactly, why not? I mean, you’ve got something like that, you know, there’s no one else there doing it, everybody else is appealing to the technophile, you know, you’ve got one company out there…

Fiona: …so appeal to the mass market, I’m fun and folksy…

Michel: …I’m the family computer company…and it was such a mistake. And it made me so sad, actually, because they did have something unique and something worth protecting, and they just threw it away, and their customers likewise, walked.

Fiona: Michel, thank you for your time today. Great case study, and we’ll hear more case studies from Michel Hogan in coming series.

Michel: Thanks Fiona.

Fiona: Thank you.

Photo: flickr myuibe

This is the transcription of the videopost The Misnomer that is Rebranding. Michel Hogan has weekly blog on Smart Company and also has her own blog on branding at www.brandalignment.com.

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