Great question Carolin – tagging some of our community who might be able to help you Jade Phillips, Fiona Chorlton-Voong, Emma Wallace, Iain Hunter, James McKerracher, Ryan McGee, Jason Rance, JaRoy Buffong, Elena Cobianu, Nikhil, Will Greig, Nika Talbot, Diana Shih, Alex Messianu, Xanthe Mendoza, Andrew Sabatier, Paul Spiers, Umesh Dhanji, Suni Sekhon, Ian Pate

Great question Carolin … beyond looking/sounding/feeling dated and tired, for me the biggest issue is when a brand is explicitly or implicitly speaking to a rapidly outdated paradigm that is used up, spent becoming a dinosaur, not where the narrative is at/going … old school not new school … dial up not fiber optic … red ocean not blue ocean … so last decade not contemporary. Hope that helps!

If I understand your question – you are asking about triggers, internal and external, that lead to a name change/rebrand? If so, I can think of a few:



1. An education nonprofit I consulted with was born during the Cold War. They had a couple of issues that necessitated a rebrand/name change:


a. Name (an acronym) feels dated, is confusing and hard to remember

b. They grew inorganically chasing funding, wherever they could get it, so now have a disparate set of services and offerings


c. Most importantly, they never re-defined their purpose and reason for existence in a post-Cold War world

2. Anderson Consulting changed their name to Accenture after an internal battle with their sister company, Arthur Anderson. The arbitration settlement forced them to change their name. They were lucky because a year later Enron happened!

3. Aunt Jemima pancake syrup, mix, etc. rebranded because their brand image/name is deemed offensive and culturally unacceptable today.

4. Weight Watchers (to WW) and Dunking Donuts (to Dunkin) refreshed their brand in a bid to modernise it, and attract a new and younger audience, who associated these companies as “my parents” brands.

5. Google named their parent company Alphabet to placate investors, who were concerned that Sergei and Larry’s moonshots would distract and take away resources from their golden “search” goose. While, I believe, Meta did it to distract lawmakers and us from all the negative publicity being leveled at Facebook, for all the ills of social media.

Hope, I answered your question, otherwise I just took up a lot of real estate!

Hi Carolin Greiner, visual strategist and designer here.

The answer is yes, but I’m usually only approached once the brand has been identified as the hurdle or the rebrand question has been raised.

In saying that, I always undertake an intensive discovery workshop with my clients to reaffirm the level of the rebrand, and the following are my lines of inquiry which may assist you in establishing if the question should be raised…

Initially I like to assess the two main situational forces: external forces and internal forces.

• EXTERNAL forces may be X-company’s position in the market, competitor activity, market/audience perception past/present/future, market/audience adoption, an assessment if the style is dated or perhaps it’s a style that doesn’t fit with modern marketing outputs (i.e. social media) etc.

• INTERNAL forces are things like X-company’s growth and/or focus shift (i.e. new business acquisition, development of sub-brands and new revenue streams/focuses etc), positioning, the investment required to undertake the rebranding task (not just the design services, but the cost of the roll-out, e.g. launch awareness campaign, signage, packaging uniforms, vehicles, collateral etc), and timeline and projections 6mths/12mths/2yrs/5yrs. Another internal consideration that I usually see is an emotional one; X-company’s culture, legacy, and personal preferences – clients often like to think that they are objective about their brand, but it’s rare that I see that. There are often many subliminal emotional motivators at play, so it’s also important to identify what those are and navigate around them appropriately. It could be something as inconsequential like the client’s daughter likes the colour purple. Seriously, I could write a book on the feedback that I’ve heard/received during my career!!

When I assess a client’s brand visual viability, I will classify them into one of four categories:

1. ’Satisfactory Brand’ status

2. In need of a ’Brand Refresh’.

3. In need of a ’Brand-Evolution’, or

4. In need of a complete ’Rebrand’.

Personally I find that the term ’rebrand’ is a very daunting for my clients and in my entire career and I’ve really only ever undertaken six significant complete rebrands (the rest would be brand refreshes or evolutions). If you’re interested, here’s a case study of a complete rebrand that I recently conducted that required an entire Group of companies, with each business is rebranded to work together: https://www.bebolddesign.com.au/emergentgroup .

This particular group had started as one business, then added and acquired more in its 34 year history. Its ’strategy’ had always been reactive, and with the lead company and group company sharing the same/similar names, there was external and internal confusion about who did what. A rename for the Group was required and all businesses have their own identities that fit under the the same master insignia, any new business is to be designed using that framework but will still be unique in its own identity. All up, this was an 14mth project from initial workshop to launch. It’s been one year since the launch and we are currently undertaking the next stage to facilitate a ’brand-extension’ for the group company’s brand along with a supporting awareness campaign.

Happy to help if you have any specific questions 🙂

Hi Carolin, as already touched on by others above its often more than just the actual brand name but how its conveyed to a new or changing audience (as per Nikhil’s examples of WW and Dunkin). When I was part of the team at Speedo it was about retaining the name but repositioning the brand to engage with new segments around Fitness , Health & Wellbeing, as well as the traditional core of Competitive Swimmers. Move consumers away from old associations with swimming at school in chlorine soaked pools or middle aged men in small trunks, to being the enabler of people enjoying the freedom of the water (both mental and physical). This was then reflected in our choice of imagery, body shape and diversity of people we used in our photo shoots (don’t try to sell a Wellbeing consumer with an image of a muscle bound athlete training hard) etc. The name stayed the same but its on and offline positioning changed significantly. I also like the example of Burberry going from a somewhat outdated British brand worn by football hooligans in the 1990’s to where it is now – really impressive job. In both cases the “triggers” were changing consumers needs and deomographics leading to a strategic brand realignment. Hope that helps in some way – always happy to chat. Jason