The good (and bad) reasons for a rebrand

Lucian Camp is a financial services brand consultant, copywriter, author and blogger. He co-presents the On The Other Hand podcast.

I very much enjoyed the opportunity to chair a Forum seminar about rebranding the other day.  A first-class panel of four excellent speakers;  a large and engaged audience;  a lively discussion;  and some exceptionally good pastries.  What more do I want from a Thursday morning?

The speakers came at the subject from different angles, but their talks all had one thing in common.  They all made it clear, as all speakers on branding still must, that “rebranding” means very much more than just changing the logo, and possibly the name, and various aspects of the visual identity.  That’s just “rebadging,” and it’s a pointless and foolish thing to do, costing a lot of money and achieving very little.  Rebranding, on the other hand, is something much more fundamental – an important part of a programme of comprehensive change, affecting the business’s positioning, proposition and very likely its culture, values and purpose too.

Of course I agree with this.  As far as I know, everyone involved in any way with branding and rebranding agrees with this.  But that’s why I can’t help thinking it’s odd that every single person who’s spoken on the subject in the last fifty years has felt obliged to start their talk by saying so.  Surely that can’t be necessary any more?  Is there anyone alive who hasn’t got this message by now?  Does anyone know a single individual who believes that rebranding is just changing the logo and choosing a new typeface for the website?  No, is the answer to that, no-one does.  No-one’s thought that way since about 1947, when websites were still some way from being an issue.

But I’m going to share a secret with you.  Speakers still say what they say about all this because even now, in 2026, the very large majority of optional rebrandings in financial services are, actually, just rebadgings – changes of logo, sometimes name and visual identity and not a lot else.

I say “optional” rebrandings to distinguish them from “obligatory” rebrandings, where businesses have to do something usually as a result of M&A activity – they’ve sold the brand they were previously known by, or they’ve acquired a business that dramatically redefines what they do, or their new subsidiary in Dusseldorf points out that the name means something rude in German.

A fair proportion of rebrandings are driven by considerations like these.  But a lot aren’t.  And, to be honest, most of the optional kind are driven by someone important getting bored.

It may be the chairman, or the CEO.  It may be the head of marketing.  It may obviously be the head of brand.  It may be the spouse or partner of one of the above.  It may be a combination of most or all of them.  But whichever, what happens is that somebody, or somebodies, decides it’s time for a change.  The logo hasn’t been changed for ages.  It looks out of date.  The fonts weren’t chosen for digital.  We need more cut-through.  We’re getting lost in the crowd.   There are always reasons, and some of them sound plausible.  (Some of them really don’t, though – one of last week’s panellists told us about a new CEO who wanted to adopt a cuddly animal as a logo so as to create warmer market perceptions.)

In reality, personal views like these are usually the starting-point.  Of course it’s then necessary to go on to make a robust business case, involving interminable slide decks and lots of expensive research.   But the reality is that the projects’ key sponsors just want something they can call their own.   Most of the optional rebrandings I’ve done over the years – and there’ve been many – have been of this sort.  And although a large proportion haven’t done much good, not many have done much actual harm either.

There is one complication I should mention.   Those holding the purse-strings have become suspicious of the benefits of these rebadging exercises, so it can be hard to get them funded.  When that’s a problem, the winning move is to fall back on a similar, but cheaper-sounding alternative:  a brand refresh.

Your room to manoeuvre here is a bit more limited – for example, you can’t really change the name in a refresh, although arguably you can take the vowels out as abrdn did.  But you probably will get a green light for it, and it’ll still give you a chance to make your mark on the business.

And although I completely agree with last week’s panellists on the strategic justification for proper rebranding, I can say from much personal experience that making a mark is what it’s often about.