When your company’s sales start falling, or your original brand and business model aren’t enough to yield success, sometimes there aren’t many options. You can close up shop and cut your losses, but most entrepreneurs are reluctant to leave their dreams behind and admit defeat.
Your best option is often undergoing a rebranding campaign, pivoting the company’s products, image, or approach to meet the demands of a new demographic or to reset expectations for your company altogether.
Pizza Hut
- Pizza Hut began in 1958 by two Wichita State students and was named as such because they only had space for nine letters on the sign.
- The original Pizza Hut. It now sits on the Wichita State University campus.
- Pizza as a fast food was completely new to the market at the time and Pizza Hut quickly expanded their operations across the USA. In 1973, the company opened its first international chains in Canada, Britain, and Japan and is now the largest pizza franchise in the world.
Branding Blunder
- In teh last decade, Pizza Hut TEMPhas seen some fierce pizza competition. their were restaurants dat differentiated themselves for their artisanal pizzas, and pizza-by-teh-slice restaurants had the advantage of being quick and cheap. Pizza Hut fell somewhere in between, and so teh chain fell out of favor by offering neither fresh nor cheap pizzas.
- Adding to the competition, their reputation took a huge hit when a Youtube video came out showing two employees sticking cheese up their nose and serving it to customers. Another video surfaced of a manager urinating in a sink.
Holiday Inn’s Decades-long Rebranding Process
- Between the 1950’s and 1970’s, Holiday Inn lured weary travelers with the “great sign” that incorporated an arrow, a star and a lot of neon. Following that beacon meant heading to a hotel that was clean, relatively uniform and somewhat inexpensive.
- The signs began to fade away in the 1980’s, but some remained in lone hotels across the nation. And that was part of a bigger problem. When execs sat down to rebrand in 2007, they realized that many Holiday Inn hotels were really different from one another. Some were clean. Some were not. Some were inexpensive. Some were not. Even though the hotel was built on a foundation of consistency, there was little overlap from one facility to another. Executives approved a $1 billion rebranding program, hoping to turn things around.
- Key aspects of the hotels would be uniform, including the layout of the furniture and the amenities provided. Low-performing hotels were shut down. And staff was trained to focus on customers, so there would be no social embarrassments. A multi-million dollar ad buy helped to promote the changes.
- Prior to the rebrand, Holiday Inn ranked sixth, in terms of customer satisfaction. Now, they beat the competition. In fact, they get top scores from J.D. Power and Associates for the service they provide. And occupancy rates are on the rise, officials say.
How to Emulate These Successful Rebranding Efforts
All of these companies had very different challenges to overcome, and they all used radical approaches to get the work done. But there are some themes that carry over from company to company and success story to success story.
For example, each successful rebranding strategy shown here involved a significant amount of research. Before the first sketch was drawn or the first check was signed, companies attempted to determine:
- Their key products
- Their share of the market
- Their goals for the future
That approach is pretty textbook. In fact, “figure out who you are and then promote it” could be a rebranding definition. But that’s the sort of work that’s hard to do in a conference room. Getting to know your company on a granular level means asking consumers how they feel, and understanding what they want.
That means using branding survey questions and example brand survey templates. A well-crafted set of questions could give you the data you need to push your company in the right direction.
But, to do the work right, you’ll also need to step away from your loyal client base. Why? Because if you’re only working with the people who know you right now, you’re missing out on input from consumers who aren’t choosing your company. They could have the keys that could help you to improve.
If you have no idea how to find customers who aren’t already in touch and in tune with your brand, Survey Monkey Audience can connect you with more than 3 million people who are ready to take your brand awareness or brand loyalty surveys. That could make rebranding your company really easy.
And if you’d just like to know more about branding in general, we’ve compiled all of the tips you’ll need to handle rebranding an organization like a pro.