When it comes time for a company to rebrand, there are some very important choices to consider. The biggest question is, of course, what’s not working about the old brand? And how do you answer that question? If we take a history lesson, it might be as easy as comparing oranges to, well, oranges.
THE GOOD:
Minute Maid overhauled their slightly dated look in 2009. All the best changes were made, adjusting awkward scaling, addressing slightly dated type, updating graphics, and adding a few nice features but keeping the main elements that consumers have come to know and trust.
THE BAD:
Around the same time, Tropicana went through a rebranding. Yikes. Minimalism is great, but this is starting to get a little Walmart-esque. Consumers had really connected with the illustrative orange, and felt this bland brand didn’t reflect Tropicana’s corporate feel. Even on a functional level, it was hard for the average shopper to differentiate between Tropicana and other brands. Enough consumers had written the company that the rebrand was being taken off the shelves a little over a month after it was released (though we must admit, we do like the fun orange-shaped cap).
We keep these sort of things in mind when rebranding for our clients. We recently overhauled the website for Laura’s Candies, after helping them through a rebrand some time ago. Laura’s is an iconic New Orleans brand, so while updating it we kept some basic forms in mind, like the script and the colors, but smoothed out details and modernized forms. The website harks back to vintage-feeling packaging:
Don’t get me wrong – we LOVE to totally revamp when necessary. Keep an eye out, some of our long-time brands are getting freshened up as we speak!
