Rebranding & repositioning a brand with immense brand equity simultanuoeusly is suicide in the retailing sector. What are your views on this?

if brand equity is so high means brand doing very well no need for repositioning and rebranding. if you are going to destroy that immense equity with rebranding then definitely counts as suicide. if your brand is so strong then you need to bring innovation in marketing strategy or product development definitely not in brand..

I would like to answer this question by asking this question,why would you invest in a product that you failed to market and position the first time,what would make  it worthwhile second time?what has changed?why not continue with the old brand and start boosting its image?wouldn't that be more productive/efficient and effective?

in my experience rebranding and repositioning is really a waste of resources and time.if the product failed the first time what have you changed that makes it better the second time.if you have made major changes to the product itself,I believe it would take time but it will improve the results with the same old brand.starting from zero is hard and costly and you run a chance of failing  more than if you stayed with your old brand,worked on improving the image and got consumers involved in the changes and improvements.

I will repeat Haseeb's and others' intuitive question, non-rhetorically, what is the need for rebranding in the first place if the "brand equity" is immense? Vital information may be missing here that can be collected via the following sub-questions:

 

1. Are we dealing with a new product by the brand OR new customers OR new markets?
2. Your brand equity is immense and superior, but is it "negative" or positive" for your new positioning?
3. Is it needed for the repositioning to a new customer segment that is willing to pay for "cheaper" more generic products than "branded ones"?

 

I believe the core of your question lies in the word "simultaneously". And I think that in doing both simultaneously, the risk is higher and indeed closer to a suicide (if it fails). Why? That is too much change at once! Besides, to which one will you attribute a possible failure and how much time, effort and cost will such inquiry entail before you can reverse damage? You may want to re-position first, benefiting form the superior brand name you have and the value derived thereof and see the result. Second, if you want to offer a different price-category, you may want to re-brand and see the affects of such action, better to pilot it and research it thoroughly first.

 

In many cases, considering an "endorsed identity" is much safer, one that derives trustworthiness, value, quality and recognition from the mother brand but offers "almost-same-for-less". One that you can "easily" (=with minimal damage incurred) withdraw from without "self-killing" your mother brand.

 

ps: retail is not a familiar play-ground (yet), so please correct me if my answer does not apply to retail.

 

I believe that a full make over eliminating the previous brand is intact suicide. I believe that inventing a sub-brand is a smarter choice (Toyota Lexus, Nissan infinity) or if it was a must then rebranding I'm a smart way relevant to the original brand soul and spirit (coke and Pepsi) is a better choice. If a brand reachs high equity then it must have done something good in the past the is worth reutilizing or reinvesting in.

Rebranding and repositioning takes a lot of resources and is a very long and costly affair. First, evaluate the benefits you would achieve by this exercise against the resources you would spend and the time it would take to make everyone in the value chain aware about the change.Is it really worth it? The exercise is successful if you are targeting a new consumer group who would not carry the prejudice of the old name and would treat it as a new product all together. The question to be asked is, if the brand already has a high equity and brand recall, why change it? But a cost benefit analysis would make the decision easier.

I can say that it is not suicide all the time. I think that It depends on the name of brand and market conditions such as consumption attitudes, target consumers and market's economic growth.

It will be suicidal if some one is trying to play with when brand equity is so high, we can always take a call when the product is going through different product life cycle phase.

But again can always take a call whether we have scope taking it to next level in getting placed in bigger segment where there is potential.

For example as our team quoted few examples pepsi / coke it was considered as luxury drink, had they would not have though repositiong now pepsi or coke would not have reached those heights where it is now enjoying brand equity.

Rebranding doesn't necessarily mrans that its a suicide. There are a lot if companied who undergoes the process of rebranding and they do this in order to be xompetitive and upgradevtheur brand. To be more competitive especially to the newer competitors who are more agressive. Rebranding doesnt necessarily means that you will change your brand you may change the theme or upgrade the logos or font so that it will be a lot more attractive to the target markets in branding we need to consider the principle of marketing in which it symbolyzes by the abbriviation AIDA we always need to attract the Attention of our markets so that we could catch their Interest so that we could create Desire, the last is their Action wherer they would like to buy the product. And all this depends on how marketable you make your brand.

It depends on why you want to rebrand and reposition an already successful brand ?  

If it is just to reinvent the wheel and make the brand look fresh, there are various other ways to do it. Again if it is to attract new customers then you will have to examine at what cost because it might mean alienating your existing customers who have made the brand successful in the first place. Rebranding and repositioning usually go hand-in-hand, you cant have diverge views for a brand.

 

Cant help you further since i am not able to convince myself of the need for a successful brand to reposition or rebrand. If you have a specific issue with the brand, then make it clear and maybe a solution could be found.

IF BRAND IS HAVING HIGH VOLUMES THEN WHATS THE FUN TO RELAUNCH OR REBRAND THAT.....? IF IT WAS NOT SO THEN NO NEED TO WORRY ABOUT ANY BACK LASH .... FOCUS ON YOUR PROJECT TO MAKE IT A REAL SUCCESS... GOOD LUCK

Hello Sidrah :

   Repositioning automatically will cause rebranding, If you are talking about rebranding retail chain as i think, I prefer to keep brand as is and keep digging on the postioning using one or two benfits for decade and open a new channel if you want to attract different segment .

  However this doesn't mean  not to be flexible and change some features to cope with market changes, 

think abo value added services ( home delivery , special packing , coupon payment ) but keep the core as is ( return is a lways allowed with no exception  for example might be an asset tht ayou don't change)

  To make it clear thik of BMW , what is their cor postitioning ( joyful  driving ) all others (speed, stability , customer services .. all can be considered value added services but never BMW sacrifice joyful driving)

Volove sacrifie shape but never touches safety...

Alyan