Whether your company is a long-standing consumer business, B2B enterprise, or nonprofit, there may come a time to reinvent your public image. Knowing when and how to implement a full rebrand, however, is a challenge. Wait too long and your brand may already be irrelevant to current audiences. Do it too soon and the new brand image may not resonate with customers or prospects.
Contents
What is a Rebrand?
3 Examples of Successful Rebranding Efforts
3 Examples of Unsuccessful Rebrands
Summary: What to Know When Considering a Rebrand
What is a Rebrand?
The basic definition of a rebrand is when a company fundamentally changes their corporate image in some capacity. This could be through a logo redesign, a shift in their product offering, or something even more dramatic like a name change or mission change.
3 Examples of Successful Rebranding Efforts
It can be hard to know when it's time for a change. After all, rebranding is a risk. It takes research, creativity, and often outside resources. Plus, your taking a huge leap that could shift your audience, resulting in a temporary hit to your profits. When is it worth the effort?
Let’s look at three companies that took the plunge, why they knew it was time, and how they made their rebrands a success:
1. Reed Elsevier Becomes RELX Group
As a B2B organization, Reed Elsevier has always been known as an academic publisher. For nearly 120 years, the company focused on providing research material and content analysis for clients like physicians, scientists, lawyers, and insurers.
However, in 2015, executives decided it was time to rebrand. They changed the name to RELX Group. CEO Erik Engstrom said in The Financial Times that the business “had chosen a ‘shorter and more modern name’ to reflect the company’s transformation to a ‘technology, content, and analytics driven business.’”
The leadership team also simplified the company’s corporate structure and worked on delivering clearer messages about what the business offered stakeholders. The brand soon transformed from stuffy academic organization to cutting-edge media and analytics company.
2. The ACLU Changes Its Visual Identity
The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) is a non-profit organization that has been around since 1920. It’s a public interest law firm dedicated to preserving and defending individual rights and freedom.
Although its previous visual identity, including its logo, was recognizable and admired, in 2017, ACLU leaders felt it was time for a change. They saw more and more young people using their voices as a call to action and an American society becoming highly diverse. This political and social climate spurred the ACLU to create a bolder look for new generations who could embrace and support what the organization stands for.
Leaders wanted to avoid alienating older constituents who still looked to the ACLU for its expertise. So, they decided to work with a design agency to help visually maintain some of the previous look while updating it for newer generations of advocates.
3. Domino’s Pizza Becomes Domino’s and Reaps Success
The rebranding effort went deep and took years. Executives knew they needed a total overhaul, much more than just a new name and logo. They transformed the company completely, from upgrades to the quality of the food, to menu expansion. Domino’s actually took “pizza” out of the name, to be seen as more of a food delivery company than a pizza maker.
Leaders invested more in technology that appealed to customers and improved operations. They launched new apps and delivery options. The marketing team made visual branding changes to reflect the new focus on good food, service, and value. Domino’s simplified its logo, redesigned stores, and altered the packaging.
As part of the massive brand rebuild, Domino’s also made a bold move to acknowledge past failures, including pizza quality. The company went as far as making fun of itself in its own national ads to highlight its improvements.
Amazingly, these efforts paid off and the company made a big comeback. Bloomberg reported that Domino’s went from a nine percent share of the market in 2009 to a 15 percent share in 2016.
3 Examples of Unsuccessful Rebrands
Sometimes, despite best intentions, rebrands go awry. Often due to a lack of understanding of their audience, on the brands part. Here are some times when a rebrand didn't go quite right:
1. Tropicana
Many unsuccessful rebrands occur because a brand makes a seeming arbitrary or out-of-the-blue change to their packaging. This is often done in effort to stay up-to-date and modern.
But what so many brands fail to realize is the importance of staying recognizable.
Particularly for busy grocery shoppers who want to quickly be able to scan for their favorite products in order to complete their grocery-shopping chore.
In the case of Tropicana, they opted to update their signature packaging, moving away from the more literal and straightforward orange and straw and towards a "sleeker" and "refined" image of a glass of orange juice.
Needless to say, the move backfired. Unable to quickly spot the classic packaging, or recognize the new cartons, consumers made different choices. The rebranding effort resulted in an estimated 20% loss in revenue for the company.
2. Cracker Barrel
Sometimes a brand makes a change that it deems necessary, without fully understanding their customer base from an emotion standpoint; without understanding the why behind customers desire to frequent their stores or buy their products.
In 2025 the 55-year old brand Cracker Barrel decided it was time for a change. They opted to update their classic logo that featured an older man in a chair next to a barrel, and and old-timey feeling font style and coloring. The move came as part of a multi-faceted rebrand that included updating the look and feel of their stores, and overhauling some of their product offerings.
However they failed to fully comprehend how much stock consumers placed in the brand for it's nostalgia. A nostalgia that many feel being stripped away with this new logo and store experience.
3. Dr. Pepper
(Image source: 17Blue Digital Marketing)
A rebrand that goes out of its way to alienate an entire demographic is certainly a choice. This may be the one and only time when you'll hear us say perhaps TOO much customer research was done.
Here's what happened: Dr. Pepper saw that their sales for their diet soda were down. After digging into consumer insights, discovered that men were not buying as much as women, due to men feeling that diet sodas weren't "manly".
Instead of taking that fact and formulating a campaign targeting women, to encourage even more sales from that demographic, Dr. Pepper went the other direction. They launched a campaign aimed at attracting more men to buy the diet soda product by branding it as "manly". In doing so, they effectively alienated the female customers they already had...(the ad campaign literally said "it's not for women.").
Summary: What to Know When Considering a Rebrand
So how do you know if it’s time for your company to rebrand? As we’ve seen, even perennially well-respected organizations, like the ACLU, have found the need to rebrand and connect to new audiences.
One of the best ways to keep track of your brand perception — and your competitors — is to actively listen to your audience on social media. Perhaps your company needs a name or visual change, or dramatic operational improvements. You won’t know unless you’re in tune with your audience.
Paying attention to what people say about your company and its products not only gives you insight into their feelings, but reveals areas where improvement is needed. Social listening also helps you learn where your company is facing irrelevance. Knowing these things about your customers, competitors, and industry helps you create a roadmap for what a significant rebranding may look like.
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