Entrepreneur article on Rebranding

This month's Entrepreneur Magazine has an excellent column on Rebranding by John Williams. 

John's major points are:

1. Don't confuse rebranding - which is a comprehensive, frequently expensive change of strategic direction for a company - with the simple need to update your look.  A simple refresh of design elements or slight naming alteration, which may be all that is required, is not the definition of rebranding. 

2. Rebranding should only be undertaken based on a proven need to alter course (e.g. new market, new trend, new product direction).  Given changing market conditions, it may even be crucial.  Rebranding should be based on sound strategy supported by facts related to sales and profits, not driven by organizational fatigue.  Ideally, everything should be changed at once.  For B2B companies, this starts with all sales tools and the website.

3. Be prepared to lose some customers.  The more dramatic the change of strategic course, the more customers will probably become alienated and abandon your product or service.  No worries, as long as you embody and deliver on your new brand promise to the new target audience(s).  Branding is about using mindshare to win marketshare.

John is an eloquent torchbearer for my mantra that Brand = solid differentiation.  In his words, "you simply can't be all things to all people".   He believes as I do that Brand Happens.  "Branding isn't an option today -- (it's) either by default or design." 

He offers one final piece of advice of particular interest to tech vendors: changing the name of the business to the name of the product is rarely advisable.  It is usually self-limiting and stymies the organization's ability to pace marketplace evolution.