Rebranding: stages, risks and typical mistakes

Rebranding or restyling: where the boundary lies

Restyling is an update of the brand's visual shell without changing its essence: logo, colors, packaging, sometimes a slogan. Rebranding is a review of the brand's business strategy, positioning, and often the product, where visual change is only the visible part of the work. Sber in 2009 year did not simply repaint the logo: the bank simultaneously launched a mobile app, electronic queues, and new services. This is a comprehensive rebranding — changes within the company that are then transmitted outward.

The difference directly affects the budget. Restyling costs many times less because it only affects design and communication. Rebranding requires reviewing business processes, training staff, negotiating with partners, legal re-registration, and sometimes even changing the product line. Hence the figures in 1,2 billion dollars for Pepsi or 2,5 billion for Sber on implementation — this is not the cost of a new logo, but the cost of rebuilding the entire brand's operational machine.

What a rebranding consists of in practice

The classic sequence looks like this, and skipping steps in it is a direct path to failure:

1. Audit of current brand perception — audience surveys, competitor analysis, review of internal processes.
2. Formulating the business task for rebranding — and here experts give a strict rule: if you can't describe the goal in two sentences, it's better not to start the project. A vague goal is the main trigger for future failure.
3. Repositioning — a review of what the brand promises the market and how it differs from competitors.
4. Redesign of the brand identity — logo, colors, tone of communication, packaging.
5. Phased implementation across channels — first internal touchpoints (office, website, app), then external ones (advertising, social media, outdoor, shelf packaging).
6. Monitoring and adjustment — collecting feedback and fine-tuning communication after launch.

It is worth separately mentioning the point about implementation across channels — this is what is most often done in one go, rolling everything out everywhere at once. This is a mistake: the audience doesn't have time to adapt, and the negative reaction hits all channels at once, amplifying each other.

Why the new brand is always criticized at first

This is not a sign of failure, but a normal psychological reaction to breaking with habit. Coca-Cola in 1985 year after launching New Coke received over 1500 angry calls daily and reverted to the original recipe within 79 days. GAP in 2010 year rolled back the new logo within 6 days — the audience reaction was so sharp that the company couldn't withstand the pressure. Tropicana spent 35 million dollars on new packaging, lost another 27 million in six weeks of sales, and returned to the old design.

MTS went through a similar storm in 2006 year: the new logo was called "an egg", jokes and criticism lasted for weeks online. But within 10 days, 90% of Russia's population learned about the rebranding, and several months later, revenue increased by 35,5%. The difference between MTS and GAP is one — MTS wasn't scared of the first wave of criticism and didn't backtrack on the decision, but instead gave the audience time to get used to it.

Working with this resistance requires explanation, not silence. People criticize not so much the design itself, but the feeling that they weren't asked and the solution looks like a caprice. If a company publicly states why it's changing — a new market, a new audience, a new product — criticism remains, but it stops being perceived as "why was this even necessary at all?"

How to maintain recognizability during radical changes

A complete break with the previous brand image is a rarity even in 'radical' rebranding. Usually, at least one stable element is preserved — the shape of the logo, a characteristic color, the brand voice tone — which serves as an anchor for the old audience. Twitter, when transitioning to X, retained blue as part of its palette during the transition period, although the symbol changed completely, and this partially softened the perception gap.

• Change elements gradually, not all at once — color and form of the logo separately from the tone of communication.
• Test the new identity on a loyal audience before the full release, not after.
• Keep recognizable 'anchors' — a distinctive sound, a slogan, a pattern — even if everything else changes.
• Explicitly explain the connection between the old and new in communication, rather than relying on the assumption that the audience will see it on their own.

Employees are the first audience of rebranding

Introducing a new brand within the company is often put last on the agenda, which is a mistake in prioritization. Employees learn about the brand change at the same time as clients or even later — and become the most convincing critics of the new direction simply because they do not understand its reasons.

The logic works in reverse: first, explain to the team why the brand is changing and what it means for their work, then launch to the market. The rebranding at Sber was accompanied not only by a new logo, but also by real changes in how employees work — new services, electronic queues, an app that the staff themselves had to learn to sell to customers. When an employee understands the benefit of change for their work, they convey that confidence to the customer in live conversation — and this works stronger than any advertising campaign.

When and how to evaluate the result

Evaluating the effect of rebranding within a week or two is a methodological error. In the first days, the reaction is almost always distorted by the noise of criticism and the habit of the old image — this is visible in all the case studies discussed above. The minimum meaningful evaluation period is several months, when the audience has had time to adjust, and the metrics reflect real behavior rather than an emotional spike.

• Brand awareness — through surveys, before and after.
• Revenue trends and average check in comparable periods.
• The tone of mentions in social networks is not quantity, but the ratio of positivity and negativity over time.
• Customer churn and acquisition—especially in segments with high loyalty to the old brand.
• NPS and repeat purchases—show whether the new brand image has taken root in real behavior, not just recognition.

Typical mistakes and different scenarios of complexity

A local store and a national bank undergo rebranding by completely different risk rules, and using the same approach for both is the source of half the market failures.

Typical mistakes are repeated regardless of scale: lack of a clear business goal, attempt to change everything at once, ignoring the audience's opinion during the audit stage, and a panic reaction to the first wave of criticism — as in the case of GAP, which rolled back the decision in six days instead of giving people time to get used to it. Repositioning is not a one-time act of courage, but a managed process where patience and a clear goal formulation matter more than design boldness.