From Old to Gold: Digital Advertising Strategies for the Rebranding Process
Rebranding is a strategic pivot that businesses make to evolve in the market, realign with customer expectations, or shift their image. However, with this transformation comes the challenge of effectively communicating the change through advertising. Here are some tips for ensuring that your advertising strategy smoothly transitions through the rebranding process.
Why do so many organisations engage in rebranding?
The Benefits of Rebranding: A Fresh Perspective
Rebranding, when done right, offers quite a few advantages. It gives new life to a brand, ensuring it remains relevant in an ever-changing marketplace. By adopting a fresh identity, companies can eliminate outdated perceptions, align better with their vision, and get in touch with modern designs and values. Rebranding presents a golden opportunity to reach new audiences. A new brand identity opens doors to new markets, thus helping growth. In short, rebranding is a strategic investment that often yields dividends in brand loyalty, market position, and future opportunities.
Before Rebranding: Preparing the Ground
Research and Analysis: Understand your target audience’s sentiments regarding your current brand. Tools like social media listening can offer insights into what customers feel and expect.
Positioning and Differentiation: Clearly define your new brand’s positioning. How will it differ from the competition and the old brand? This will guide your advertising message.
Budget Allocation: You’ll likely need to invest more in advertising during the transition phase to communicate the rebrand effectively.
CPM plays an important role in this media buys when it comes to rebranding. CPM, where advertisers pay for every thousand ad impressions, is ideal for rebranding campaigns aiming to maximize brand visibility. Always remember to factor in design and production costs beyond the ad buys. Regularly monitoring performance and adjusting the budget can further ensure that each dollar spent resonates with the right audience, amplifying the new brand’s impact.
Consistent Messaging: Develop a consistent message that bridges the gap between the old brand and the new one. This ensures that you don’t lose the equity built over the years.
Teasers and Pre-launch Campaigns: Engage your audience’s curiosity by teasing the upcoming rebrand. This creates buzz and prepares the market for the change.
Engage Stakeholders: Your employees, partners, and key customers should be among the first to know. Their buy-in can help amplify the advertising message.
Test and Feedback: Pilot your new branding in controlled settings or segments to gather feedback. Adjust your advertising strategy based on this data.
After Rebranding: Hitting the Market with Confidence
Launch with Impact: Initiate your rebrand with a significant advertising push. This could be in the form of digital campaigns, PR events, or collaborative promotions.
Multi-channel Consistency: Ensure that your new brand is consistently represented across all channels, whether online or offline.
Reiterate the Value Proposition: Your audience needs to know why the rebrand matters. Use advertising to articulate the improved value proposition.
Monitor and Respond: Post-rebranding, closely monitor customer reactions. Address concerns, answer questions, and counteract any misinformation.
Ongoing Engagement: Continue engaging with your audience through content marketing, social media, and other advertising channels. Keep the momentum going.
Relevant Digital Campaigns: A Deep Dive into Different Kinds of Digital Ads
In the realm of rebranding, advertising plays a crucial role in conveying your new brand identity. Choosing the right ad network and leveraging various digital advertising formats can provide multi-faceted touchpoints for your target audience. Here’s a breakdown of digital ad types and ideas tailored for a rebranding campaign:
Push Notifications
Push notifications are direct and immediate, making them a powerful tool for real-time engagement.
- Announcement Alerts: As soon as your rebranding goes live, send a push notification to inform and invite users to explore the new brand identity on your app or website.
- Teasers and Countdowns: In the days leading up to the rebrand reveal, generate anticipation with daily countdown notifications or hints about what’s coming.
- Feedback Solicitation: A week or so after the rebranding, push a notification inviting users to share their thoughts or participate in a feedback survey, reinforcing the notion that you value their opinion.
- Special Promotions: Pair your rebranding with exclusive deals or content available for a limited time, announced via push notifications. This can encourage users to engage.
Display Ads
- Banner Blitz: Launch a series of web banners that unveil the new brand identity with a compelling tagline.
- Interactive Ads: Use rich media ads that allow users to interact and discover elements of the new branding, creating a sense of engagement.
Retargeting
Target users who’ve interacted with your pre-launch teasers or visited the old brand’s site, reminding them of the new identity and its value proposition.