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Rebranding can be expensive – but it doesn’t have to be!
Branding is important to every business!
Your brand on your product or service tells consumers where it came from, who produced it, and that has quality.
Let’s look an example. At Home is a Dallas, TX based company. It was founded in 1979 and was originally named Garden Ridge Pottery. As one might expect, that brand is somewhat limiting. Having “garden” and “pottery” in the brand name suggests that products and services offered are limited to those items, even if that is not the case. Sometime later, the name was simplified to Garden Ridge. This re-branding removed the limiting “pottery” element but may have been confusing to consumers. Garden Ridge filed for Ch. 11 in 2004 and in 2012 brought in Lee Bird III as the new CEO (formerly of Nike, Inc., Gap, and Old Navy). By 2014, Garden Ridge had re-branded all of its stores to the At Home brand. That rebranding involved changing the floor plan, trademarks, and color scheme, and putting a house symbol in place of the “o” in At Home. The cost for all of these rebranding changes was about $20M.
What lessons can be learned from At Home?
Choose branding that encompasses your products or services.
Avoid limiting or confusing branding – (Garden Ridge Pottery vs. At Home – what message does that branding convey?)
Chose a logo that helps rather than hinders that message.
A smaller, more nimble company could have rebranded earlier – and started building consumer recognition with accurate yet flexible branding.
If your product or service evolves in a different direction, choose branding that allows for flexibility – or create a new brand. Do not be tied to sentimentality when change is in order.
Are you worried that your brand is not a reflection of what your business offers? I can help with that.
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Source: “Garden Ridge is evolving into At Home”. Dallas News. June 16, 2014.
