Think beyond the logo A 27-page document, leaked this year, outlining PepsiCo’s strategy for rebranding its logo, may or may not have been an elaborate spoof — but the fact that people were prepared to believe that a design agency would suggest that tilting the logo a few degrees to the right would increase its gravitational pull on customers betrays a basic truth. Rebrands place too much emphasis on the logo.

Anita Brightley-Hodges, founder of Still Waters Run Deep, a design consultancy, advises her clients to think hard about their reasons for rebranding before entering the design studio. “The logo is just a tiny part of it,” she said. “Rebranding needs to reflect your company values and you really need to understand what your customers want.”

Know your brand Before rebranding, you need to know where your existing brand stands. “The first thing we do is carry out a perception study,” Ms Brightley-Hodges said. “We ask customers a lot of delicate questions that the client might be too embarrassed to ask. Then we hold a brand workshop with senior members of the client’s team. We present them with evidence-based research on the current reality of their brand, discuss where they want to be and then work out a strategy on how to get there.”

Budget wisely Paul Veness is director of Endpoint, a brand implementation company that is managing the Abbey building society’s rebrand to Santander. It is his job to put the ideas dreamt up by the design agency into practice. “We have to make sure that all the new signage and branding goes up in every building, on every site and in every branch,” he said. “What people don’t always realise is that the implementation costs can be 20 to 30 times the design budget.”

Get local buy-in A company’s rebrand is doomed to failure if it cannot convince its own staff. It is vital, therefore, that staff on the front line are kept informed at every stage of the rebranding process. “Communication is key,” Mr Veness said. “You need to be constantly in touch with the site managers.”

Rebrand or debrand? Starbucks’ new West End store will mark a move towards a more individualised, locally relevant and less corporate feel. But this is an update, not a rebrand, insists the company, desperate to avoid the “debranding” headlines that followed a similar exercise in the United States.

Don’t cry wolf In October last year national newspapers ran a story about Pizza Hut changing its name to Pasta Hut. It was a repeat of a publicity stunt that Yum! Brands, the parent company, had run in America a few months previously. From a marketing point of view it was a great success, publicising the restaurant’s upgraded menus. But what happens when Pizza Hut really does want to rebrand? Will we all be so credulous then?

Never mind the pollack How do you rebrand a fish? This was the challenge facing Sainsbury’s this year when it ran a national campaign to convince us to eat more pollack. Despite being a tasty, cheaper and more sustainable alternative white fish to cod, pollack is neglected by British consumers, largely because we are too embarrassed to use its name. So Sainsbury’s renamed it Colin, which is apparently French for pollack when cooked. Sold in limited edition packaging inspired by Jackson Pollock and designed by Wayne Hemingway, the madeover fish was soon flying out of the store. A week after the launch, Sainsbury’s pollack sales were up by 68 per cent. Last month Seafish, the seafood industry body, announced that pollack was now the eighth-most popular seafood in the UK.

Take stock When Oxo launched its X Factor-linked marketing drive, complete with new X-shaped cube, it was widely perceived as a clever publicity stunt. In fact, the idea for the new cube had come from the factory floor, as a way to stop the corners chipping off during packaging. The marketing department then used the idea in its rebranding. “The Oxo cube is an iconic brand but it had a slightly dusty Seventies image,” Libby Newcombe, the marketing manager, said. “The Oxo factor campaign is about modernising the brand and positioning it as relevant to the families of today.”

Respect history History is littered with rebrands that have failed. According to Stuart Gendall, director of corporate communications at the Royal British Legion (see case study), a common mistake is to ignore your brand’s heritage. “Take great care in how you reach out to a new audience during times of change. It’s vital that you don’t alienate your existing supporters in the process.”

Enjoy yourself Rebranding can be fun, Mr Gendall believes. “Changing perceptions is something inherently risky, but that means its also hugely exciting and rewarding when you get it right.”

Meet Poppy, a new Forces sweetheart

Rebranding the Royal British Legion (RBL) presents a highly delicate problem. How does the organisation remain relevant to a younger, multimedia-literate generation, without damaging the long and noble tradition that is the very essence of the Legion’s existence?

It is a challenge that the Legion has decided to face up front. It has launched an interactive online community, called LegionLive (www.legionlive.org.uk), aimed at members of the Armed Forces, their friends, family and a younger generation of fundraisers and supporters. And, in a startling break from tradition, this year’s Poppy Appeal will be fronted by an online virtual character, who subsequently will be used to deliver a range of social media activities The character is named Poppy, of course, and her backstory is that she was born on November 11, 28 years ago. Her grandfather served in the British Armed Forces and her brother still does. Poppy will host LegionLive, write regular blogs and upload videos. She will regularly post content on social media sites such as YouTube, Twitter, Facebook, Bebo, and Flickr. Poppy has been set a target of gaining 100,000 friends by 2011.

According to Robert Lee, RBL’s head of media and campaigns, LegionLive will be a key element in helping to raise the Legion’s £31 million target required to help the Afghanistan generation of wounded and bereaved. “The introduction of LegionLive demonstrates our commitment to reaching out to serving and ex-Armed Forces and their families for many years to come,” he said.

This is not the first time that the Legion has tried to reach a more modern audience. Last year it launched a £5 million project to replace its Legion Clubs with a new generation of professionally run social clubs. However, the new clubs failed to attract a big increase in membership and the nine revamped New Legion venues have been put up for sale.

Stuart Gendall, RBL’s director of corporate communications, is optimistic that the online activities will succeed where the revamped clubs failed, by attracting a younger audience while remaining respectful of the Legion’s tradition. “We drew on our strong heritage with the Forces family and local communities to develop a means to encourage those who have been impacted by conflicts past and present to share their views and experiences with one another in one, big online community,” he said.

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