As a marketing leader, you know how important it is to present your audience with a consistent brand experience across all of your brand`s assets and touchpoints. But there are also legal and regulatory reasons to make brand consistency a priority when converting your brand assets, as outlined above. Your legal, regulatory, and compliance colleagues can help you assess your brand asset conversion strategy based on your individual needs. If you met with legal counsel early in the rebranding process, they probably had ample time to complete all the necessary paperwork and submissions before your start date. Otherwise, they might ask you to wait to get started until all the legal details are completed. While these are some of the most common regulations we`ve come across, there may be additional regulatory and compliance requirements for your business. Be sure to review this issue thoroughly with your legal team to identify any other considerations you need to consider. While small businesses can grow without necessarily having a professionally designed branding, „rebranding becomes a critical step for a company that needs to be seriously considered as it grows into more aggressive markets and faces competitors with more established brand images.“ [15] info.templafy.com/blog/your-full-scope-rebranding-checklist-how-to-plan-for-identity-updates The decisions made by your legal team regarding your business name, ownership, and structure all have downstream implications for keeping your rebranding compliant. Therefore, it is important from the outset to create a holistic plan that highlights all these legal implications and defines the approaches you will take to ensure that your new identity is updated according to the specific requirements of your regulators.
So you`ve decided to rename your business. Or you just listened to our podcast episode on rebranding. And now? What steps should you take to protect your brand and business from the myriad pitfalls associated with rebranding an existing business or product? To choose the best long-term course of action, your legal team needs to understand the reasons for your rebranding. You need to provide as much strategic context and market analysis as possible so that Legal can determine the most advantageous path. Organizations can intentionally change their name to get rid of negative images from the past. Research suggests that „concern about the external perception of the organization and its activities“ can be a major driver of rebranding exercises. [5] Your legal team can also advise you on grace periods related to transforming your brand assets once you`ve officially introduced your new brand to the world. For example, M&A-driven rebrandings may require you to update all your publicly available touchpoints within a certain time frame. You can be fined for each day you use an old brand identity after an agreed date. Several elements of a brand can be changed during a rebranding, including the name, logo, legal name, and company identity (including visual identity and verbal identity). Changes made only to the company logo have the least impact (called logo exchange), and changes to the name, legal name, and other identity elements affect all parts of the company and can result in high costs and impact on large, complex organizations. Deciding on the best strategy to get your new brand out there in the world is fun and exciting.
But it`s also expensive and can come with immense pressure to get it right. Therefore, it is extremely important to make sure that all your T`s are crossed and that all your i`s are dotted in terms of legal dependencies. Companies often change their name to address external and/or internal issues. Companies typically have rebranding cycles to keep pace or stay ahead of the competition. Companies also use rebranding as an effective marketing tool to hide past grievances and thus lose negative connotations that could potentially hurt profitability. For example, if you switch brands due to a merger and acquisition, you`ll likely feel immense pressure to introduce your new identity quickly and efficiently. But before you move forward, take the time to discuss your unique situation with a lawyer. Small businesses face different challenges than large companies and need to adapt their rebranding strategy accordingly. In a study of 165 rebranding cases, Muzellec and Lambkin (2006) found that rebranding, whether or not it is the result of a corporate strategy (e.g. M&A) or represents the actual marketing strategy (change in the company`s reputation), aims to improve, recover, transfer and/or restore the company`s brand value. [1] Rebranding became a fashion at the turn of the millennium, some companies renamed it several times.
The name change from Philip Morris to Altria was done to help the company get rid of its negative image. Other brand changes, such as the British Post Office`s attempt to rename itself Consignia, proved so unsuccessful that millions more had to be spent to start all over again. To legally change your company name, you must either amend your current corporate documents as filed with the state or create a new business unit for your renowned organization. If you change the name of your business unit, you can keep the same tax identification number. In addition, you do not have to assign your current contracts to the new company, but you must inform the contracting parties of the name change. If you want to create a new division, you must transfer assets and contracts from the old division to the new division. Your legal department exists to keep your organization on the safe side of all the laws, regulations, and rules that affect your business. Therefore, consider them a trusted partner in your rebranding. Let them know immediately about your plans to change your brand identity. Ask good questions. And count on their expert advice to develop your rebranding implementation plan. Nasir N.
Pasha is Pasha Law`s Executive Counsel, providing essential legal services and assistance to businesses and businesses in California, Illinois, New York and Texas. He oversees all activities of the company and plays a key role in maintaining relationships with customers and ensuring that each transaction is completed as smoothly as possible. In some cases, companies are trying to take advantage of the perceived fairness that they believe is always present in their brand. Radio Shack, for example, changed its name to „The Shack“ in 2008, but the rebranding never led to an increase in retail market share. [8] By 2017, Radio Shack had significantly reduced its physical retail presence, closing over 1,000 stores and moving to a core online retail business model. [9] The scope of your rebranding efforts varies greatly from company to company. Rebranding could be as simple as tweaking your existing logo to give it a more modern look. Or maybe your business has grown to offer new and additional services, and you want your brand to reflect your increased presence in the market. Maybe a rebranding is necessary because you failed to protect your original business. Rebranding is a marketing strategy in which a new name, term, symbol, design, concept or combination of these is created for an established brand with the aim of developing a new differentiated identity in the minds of consumers, investors, competitors and other stakeholders. [1] This often involves drastic changes to a brand`s logo, name, legal names, image, marketing strategy, and advertising themes.
Such changes are usually aimed at repositioning the brand/company, sometimes moving you away from the negative connotations of previous branding, or bringing the brand to the high-end market. You can also submit a new message that a new board of directors wants to convey. Regardless of the reason for the rebranding, a company`s trademark is valuable intellectual property and should be protected by federal trademark law. Your company`s old and new names are at the heart of its brand. When rebranding, there are two things every business owner should do before committing to a marketing program. A rebranding is also a good time to decide whether superfluous or obsolete assets should be restructured or closed. You may find that there are service offerings or sub-brands that are no longer relevant to the strategic direction of your business. Take the time to identify these areas early with legal counsel so you don`t waste organizational resources transforming brand assets for a part of your business that no longer has a purpose. For example, your legal entity was incorporated as „Larry`s Landscaping, LLC.“ But after redesigning so many of your clients` pools, you decided to offer pool installation and maintenance services under the separate „Shangri-La Pools and Landscapes“ unit. A DBA designation is a cost-effective and efficient option to achieve this goal.