0:14

Howdy . Welcome back to another fun

0:17

filled episode of the unknown secrets of internet

0:19

marketing . I am your host , matthew Bertram

0:21

. As you can see if you're watching this on YouTube

0:23

, matthewbertramcom is a

0:25

. I just bought my domain . I've been building out

0:27

my site . Go check it out . Tell me how

0:29

bad it is . I would appreciate any

0:32

feedback and and

0:34

with that being said , I have a great

0:36

guest for you because , well

0:38

, rebranding and

0:40

branding is critically important

0:42

. I shared on a previous

0:45

podcast that I canceled

0:47

out of an equity deal that I was getting

0:49

involved in because the owner didn't

0:51

believe in the power of branding and

0:54

I just felt

0:57

like I was operating on a different wavelength and

0:59

didn't feel that it was a good relationship

1:01

, even though I thought the deal was good . I felt

1:03

like we were going to run into trouble and I feel

1:05

like anytime you get involved with

1:07

business , you got to be on the

1:09

same page , because when you're doing equity , you

1:12

know you're in business together . It's not someone's

1:14

paying you for marketing and um

1:16

and so . So that happened and I

1:18

thought it'd be good . Um , uh

1:20

, buddy , jim , uh , jim , I say

1:22

your name wrong . How do you say your last

1:24

name ? I don't even want to , I don't want to slaughter it .

1:27

I apologize .

1:28

Heininger . Um

1:35

, he is known as the rebrand man , uh and with rebranding experts , and he has worked

1:37

with a long list of impressive companies . Uh

1:39

, some of the ones you might've heard of

1:41

, uh Blue Cross , blue Shield , mcdonald's

1:44

, wendy Uh

1:46

, sounds like you've done some stuff with Ogilvy . I'm certainly a student

1:48

of everything that

1:50

he did and I

1:53

believe that traditional

1:55

space has

1:58

started to be cannibalized

2:00

by the digital space

2:02

, and I

2:04

really wanted to get you on

2:07

and talk through

2:09

. As a lot of listeners know , our

2:12

agency went through a rebrand

2:14

recently from eWebResults to EWR

2:16

Digital . We did the KFC thing as well

2:18

, as I'm about to rebrand this podcast

2:21

, and so I thought it was good timing

2:23

personally to have you on and

2:25

to review your methodology

2:28

. Uh , and , and I think that there

2:30

are a lot of businesses out there with

2:32

, um , the way the economy is

2:34

, uh , trying

2:36

to figure out how , how

2:38

can I position myself in the

2:40

space , how can I cut through the noise

2:43

with my , my messaging , my unique

2:45

selling proposition , how do I

2:47

compete ? And the

2:49

answer is not always to just go dump

2:51

a bunch of money in paid ads . Okay

2:54

, that's not always the answer

2:56

, and it has to be part of a

2:59

broader strategy and

3:01

it really starts with how

3:03

you're communicating your value proposition

3:06

right . And so , jim , thank

3:08

you so much for coming on . If there's anything more you

3:10

would like to share to credentialize yourself with your

3:12

background , it's super impressive . I

3:15

would love to kind of set the table

3:17

for the conversation .

3:18

Oh , thank you , Matthew . I lead

3:20

the rebranding experts . We've been in

3:23

business about eight years now and

3:25

focus solely on

3:27

rebranding organizations . That's all

3:29

we do , and we developed a methodology

3:31

that you talked about . That's kind of the end to end

3:34

process for how an organization

3:36

should do it successfully

3:39

.

3:41

So let's cater this conversation

3:44

. Maybe we can even break it into two parts . We can say

3:46

one part specifically

3:48

talking to , let's say , small business owners

3:51

or even marketers working

3:53

with small businesses , because sometimes

3:56

they're running campaigns or they're doing SEO

3:58

or they're doing well , social media and

4:00

digital PR is quite big

4:02

, but , man , you got , you got to have your your

4:05

branding on point . Okay , you got to have

4:07

your uh target persona . Um

4:09

, you need to speak , your messaging needs

4:11

to be there . There's a lot of things that go into that and

4:14

then maybe talk to , maybe bigger

4:16

organizations . They could be , um

4:18

, direct to consumer or even

4:20

, uh , uh , b2b organizations

4:22

. A lot of people that have started

4:24

to listen to me are

4:27

in a B2B setting and

4:30

they're two different animals , and bigger

4:32

companies can do more things

4:34

than smaller companies , right , and

4:36

I think a lot of times the smaller companies

4:39

say we don't have the money

4:41

for a rebrand . Why

4:43

should we rebrand ? You know

4:45

what should we do ? So let's start the conversation

4:48

with well , who should rebrand

4:50

and why .

4:51

Yeah , good place to start

4:53

, and I'm actually even going to back it up

4:55

a little bit just to kind of make sure I have

4:57

my perspective of what a brand

5:00

and what a rebrand is . So

5:02

you know , people

5:04

oftentimes think that their brand is just

5:06

their name and their logo and

5:09

that that represents them out in the

5:11

business world . It's so much more

5:13

than that . You know . Your brand is

5:15

the total collection of experiences

5:18

that someone has with your organization . So

5:20

it has to do with you know , when

5:22

they pick up the phone and call customer service

5:24

, how they're treated , when they see your

5:27

product or your service out in the market , how

5:29

does it feel to them , and

5:31

so we look at it from that very kind

5:33

of broader perspective

5:36

of all those pieces need to be put

5:38

together to really create a brand

5:40

in people's minds . And remember

5:43

the brand is up in their minds . It's

5:45

how they perceive you , but

5:47

you can influence it through all the marketing

5:49

that we're talking about . So , if you think

5:51

about what is a rebrand , a rebrand

5:54

is standing up an entirely new

5:56

brand . It's

5:58

orchestrating an overhaul

6:01

of what your brand is out in the marketplace

6:03

and everything from that

6:05

name and that logo to you

6:08

know , to the customer service approach

6:11

. You know how people are treated . How do

6:13

you , how do you deliver on the

6:15

online experience ?

6:15

How does it make them feel right ? People buy based

6:17

on emotions . People associate

6:20

with brands , people connect

6:22

and they buy because of

6:24

the way it makes them feel right . I think , that's

6:27

really what it comes down to .

6:28

Absolutely so . Then now

6:30

to the question of why would somebody rebrand ? We

6:32

kind of look at it as there's two buckets of reasons

6:35

that you would rebrand . Oftentimes

6:37

you need to rebrand You've

6:39

acquired a company , you've gone

6:41

through an acquisition , you've hired a company

6:43

, you've gone through an acquisition

6:45

, you're merging two companies or you've run

6:47

into issues that could be kind of crisis

6:50

related , that you're needing to leave

6:52

that old brand behind and start a new one

6:54

. So

6:57

those are kind of structural reasons why you would rebrand . The other bucket is opportunity

6:59

, and that is that you are running

7:01

into barriers to growth , for example

7:03

, and need to reposition

7:06

yourself on the marketplace in a way that's going

7:08

to attract the kind of customers that you want . You're

7:10

introducing a new product or service that

7:13

greatly opens up new

7:15

markets for you . Maybe you're going into new

7:17

geographic markets very

7:26

strategic growth kind of opportunity that you're wanting to rebrand the organization

7:28

to enable you to go out face forward into the future and be able to grow

7:30

your business in the way you want it to . So need

7:32

or opportunity are really the two reasons people

7:34

rebrand .

7:36

I love that . I think that

7:39

a perfect example of maybe someone listening

7:41

is like I want

7:44

to get more enterprise

7:46

level clients and . I'm currently working

7:48

with um . You know

7:51

homeowners , if , if

7:53

they're in a service-based industry , um

7:55

, or like small businesses as their client

7:57

and they position themselves

7:59

in a way where they service

8:01

that category and they're known

8:03

for that and and like

8:06

, how much can

8:08

you pour in to change

8:10

the conversation to inch towards what you're

8:12

trying to do ? Versus how

8:14

about we create a new brand to

8:17

target that that can create that

8:19

message from the beginning of what

8:21

, what we need to do and where we need to go ? And

8:23

I like the , the things that you said . I'm dealing

8:26

with a couple of companies that , uh , just

8:28

made an acquisition , right , and they're like okay

8:30

, we have different brands . Do

8:33

we , do we merge them ? Um , do

8:35

we keep them separate ? Uh , do we create a whole

8:37

new brand ? Uh , like what ? What

8:39

are what are we doing ? How ? How do we approach ? It's

8:41

really like a almost not a full

8:43

go to market strategy , but it's a go to market

8:45

strategy of how you know people

8:48

are going to view us and how we want to be viewed

8:50

and what is our value

8:53

proposition . To get that message

8:55

tight and aligned .

8:57

well , Absolutely

9:00

yeah . You often find

9:02

in smaller companies or companies

9:05

where there was an entrepreneurial founding of

9:07

it , that they didn't spend as much

9:09

time on developing their brand as they did

9:11

building the business basics so

9:13

that they could scale it . And now they're

9:15

several years into operation

9:18

and they look back at that brand and say , OK , that really

9:21

is not representing us well . Or

9:23

we've grown and we're offering more services

9:25

or products than what that original name

9:27

that we came up with defined

9:29

. That's when you need to rebrand . That's

9:32

when you need to reposition yourself in the marketplace

9:34

.

9:35

Man . I hear this in terms a lot with

9:37

clients that start

9:39

looking at their website . Hey , I need a new website

9:41

. It was built five years ago , whatever

9:44

, and all the case studies or

9:46

all the information on it's just old . It's not who they

9:48

are anymore . The website should be

9:51

constantly maintained and updated and

9:53

revalued when you're doing that . So

9:55

I hear it a lot in that context

9:58

. Now just one more kind of definitional

10:00

thing before we get into , it is a

10:03

brand refresh thing

10:07

. Before we get into it is a brand refresh ? Right Is also another thing that

10:10

people talk about a lot . Where is the line between

10:12

a ?

10:12

brand refresh and a rebrand , and I'm even going to put into the

10:14

definition there repositioning , because that's kind

10:17

of in the middle of those two . So

10:19

a brand refresh is ? We view

10:21

that as kind of a . It's a facelift , it's

10:23

a visual makeover of the company

10:25

that you would

10:27

use in your marketing efforts . It's perhaps

10:29

a new logo , a new color palette , maybe

10:32

some new language that you're going to use to go out

10:34

and position yourself . When Pepsi puts

10:36

a new you know

10:38

logo on their can , that's a refresh

10:41

. That's not a rebrand . That's a refresh because it's the brand is . That's

10:43

a refresh because it's the brand is still the same . It's

10:45

just the visual presentation of it that's

10:47

going to be different . Now in the middle you've

10:50

got repositioning , which kind of goes

10:52

to that point of expanding

10:54

your marketplace , new customer base

10:56

. You know that you're wanting to market to

10:58

in a way that you haven't in the past

11:00

and you're needing to reposition

11:03

your company to make it fit

11:05

their needs or to show how you

11:07

can meet their needs . But it doesn't

11:09

change the name of the company

11:11

and it doesn't change the DNA of

11:13

the company . It's pretty much the same company

11:16

but you're just kind of repositioning yourself to

11:18

a new or broader audience . A

11:20

rebrand is all those things

11:22

pulled together where you are actually

11:25

going to go in and change the DNA

11:27

of your organization . You're

11:29

going to put a new name out there , leave

11:32

the past behind and do

11:34

all that repositioning and

11:36

refresh as part of it . So it's the

11:38

comprehensive overhaul of your brand to be

11:40

able to go into the future in a new way of your brand to be able to go into

11:42

the future in a new way .

11:44

Now , rebrands and we've

11:47

gone through one that I've been through internally

11:50

here is a lot of work , okay

11:52

, so what are the things that

11:55

Someone needs to consider ? If

11:57

they're listening to this

11:59

show and say , okay , maybe

12:02

I need a rebrand , how

12:04

should they be looking at it ? And then , also

12:06

, coupled with

12:08

that , I think it's really have a facilitator

12:11

and someone guiding you . Uh , like yourself , but , man , like it's

12:15

not easy . It's a lot of work , depending on on on

12:27

where the layers are and and

12:29

make sure that what you're doing

12:31

, where you're going to end up . You need

12:33

to make sure that's aligned on the beginning and that's

12:35

where you need the most help , because if you don't know

12:37

what you want to be when your brand

12:40

grows up or whatever , then

12:42

you could get into a lot of trouble and

12:45

you could do a lot of work and that work

12:47

could be put somewhere else or doing something

12:49

more productive for the company . So you

12:51

got to make sure that this is the right

12:53

fit for you and then you need

12:55

to make sure you're aligned with what your goals are and

12:57

also you need to have somebody that's done it before . That keeps you

12:59

out of the ditch .

13:00

Yeah , I greatly appreciate that

13:03

support , and

13:05

the very first question that we start out with in

13:07

any engagement is why ? Why are we doing this

13:09

? What are we hoping to achieve ? Because that

13:11

becomes your reason for as

13:13

you progress down the journey , to

13:16

keep reminding people , and informing people is

13:18

why you're doing this rebrand . It needs to

13:20

be super clear . We break

13:22

the methodology up into about four different

13:24

parts , and the first is really discovering

13:28

what that new brand is going to be . And

13:30

so , based upon your research , based upon your

13:32

understanding of stakeholders and how they perceive

13:34

the company , your vision , your future

13:36

, of where you're wanting to go and how you're wanting

13:39

to expand the business , we

13:41

articulate that new brand . So that

13:43

articulation is the first step to make

13:45

sure that everyone is comfortable

13:47

and aligned behind that , especially

13:51

leadership , because they're going to have to

13:53

embody that new brand as you go down this

13:55

journey a little bit further . Then you've

13:57

got that whole kind of alignment

13:59

piece behind it where

14:01

you're making sure that your internal organization

14:04

is in support of what that new

14:06

brand is and making

14:08

sure that every

14:11

employee can tell the new story , that they

14:13

know how to represent the new brand , that

14:15

HR is brought into the equation

14:18

, to make sure that their whole you

14:20

know recruiting of people is

14:22

for the new brand and that their performance

14:25

management of people supports

14:27

that new brand . So making sure

14:29

all those pieces are in place while

14:32

you're a . If you have , you know locations

14:42

out in the public uniforms

14:44

, you know a variety of different materials

14:46

and pieces that need to be updated so

14:48

that when you go to launch that new

14:50

brand and activate it in the marketplace

14:52

, everything looks seamless and

14:55

that you present it in one single you know

14:57

go to market day or every

14:59

you know you launch the new brand , customers

15:01

see it unveiled , the new website goes live

15:04

, the new behaviors

15:06

that your employees are going to display

15:08

you know are activated

15:11

on that particular day , and that that

15:13

kind of sequencing of it , of making

15:15

sure that you've got every step checked off

15:17

before you go to market with

15:20

it , is critically important . What

15:22

are some of the biggest challenges to your questions

15:24

? Well , first of all , it's getting leadership support and

15:27

making sure leadership is aligned behind it , because

15:29

if they're not , if

15:31

in deciding what that new brand

15:33

is , they're going to keep questioning it . You

15:42

want them to have ownership of it from the start and have a piece of stake

15:44

in it , so that they then can focus their energies on encouraging employees

15:46

and conveying it to customers when the time

15:48

is right . Most people

15:50

don't understand the complexity

15:52

of it , you know , which is why we built this methodology

15:55

that has all these different steps

15:57

that we follow in it to make sure it's done properly

15:59

. You know , sometimes we get clients that

16:02

will come in and want to jump to you know

16:04

further down the road and we say , uh-uh

16:06

, we're not doing that . You know , we're going

16:08

to go back and do it right . That's why you

16:10

came to us is . You know , because we're experienced

16:12

in this . We're going to do it right so that you don't

16:15

find yourself later having holes

16:17

or gaps in this new brand and

16:19

not being able to deliver it successfully

16:21

. Another big challenge is it

16:23

costs money to do this , you know , and

16:26

there's our costs in the whole process

16:29

. But then if you're an organization that

16:31

has locations

16:34

across the country , you've got

16:36

employees across the country . All those

16:38

require more costs . So if it's

16:40

signage in those restaurants

16:43

or in those real estate offices that you

16:45

own , those don't need to be updated . That

16:47

takes time , that takes money to

16:49

do that . Uniforms for people

16:52

If you have vehicles out there , if you're an airline

16:54

rebranding . every plane

16:56

has to be repainted , so you've got to

16:59

account for that in your overall timeline

17:01

and in your cost and your investment in the

17:03

whole effort . So those tend to be the biggest

17:05

challenges is leadership , support

17:08

, time , energy because of the

17:10

complexity of it , and then the costs .

17:12

So question for you on

17:15

the quantitative side , okay , like

17:17

you talked about some

17:19

big brands and you've worked with some big brands , like

17:22

when they're thinking about doing

17:24

a rebrand and you're talking about , okay

17:27

, airline , okay , I mean like that's

17:29

a lot of um assets

17:32

that have to be repainted or color

17:35

scheme change or whatever , um

17:37

, when they're doing like a cash

17:39

outlay right Of , like what this

17:41

is going to cost versus

17:43

the market opportunity of what they're going after

17:45

, how , how are they

17:47

figuring it out and how is it getting

17:49

past ? Like the financial

17:51

team , like where , what are those models

17:54

look like ? To project that

17:56

to say , this should bring

17:58

us in X amount if we do all this

18:00

right , or can you just speak to that in some way

18:02

, because I'm just curious how those conversations

18:05

are going , which is why you don't

18:07

see major

18:09

companies with a lot of trucks on

18:12

the road or planes on the road or

18:14

locations rebranding that frequently

18:16

Because if you do it right it should

18:18

last you a period of time .

18:22

That frequently because if you do it right it should last you a period of time and you

18:24

don't want to encounter those kinds of costs if it's not necessary . So you know a

18:26

lot of those kinds of things can be amortized

18:28

, which is what makes the financial

18:30

people happy If it's any

18:32

kind of hard asset that's got to , you know

18:35

needs to be remade . But

18:37

it goes back to that original question

18:39

of why are we doing this and

18:42

making sure the financial people are

18:44

in on that discussion so that they

18:46

see that there's

18:49

an overriding rationale for

18:51

doing this , that then they can

18:53

base their financial projections on and

18:55

their handling of the costs . If

18:58

that CFO isn't involved in those original

19:00

discussions , they are going to say wait

19:02

a second , why are we spending so much money on this

19:04

and create bumps

19:07

in the road that you don't want ? So getting

19:09

leadership involved from the beginning is critical

19:11

.

19:11

Yeah , you know , at the smaller companies

19:14

I can see you

19:16

know there might be a limited number of stakeholders

19:18

that are making that decision . And

19:20

you know what I see on the campaign

19:22

side of things . Right , because a campaign

19:25

could be like a smaller rebrand or a messaging

19:28

and targeting that you're testing out . Man

19:31

, I see a lot of times there's

19:33

campaigns out there that are absolutely

19:36

working , fantastic , right , based on the

19:38

sales cycle , based on bringing on new customers

19:40

, like it's working . And then you

19:42

know what Leadership's

19:45

just like . We need something new .

19:47

We need something fresh .

19:49

I am sick of looking at it and and I

19:51

I think that you know that that's

19:53

where data comes in and and and

19:55

going back to like , okay

19:57

, why are we trying to do this ? What

20:01

are we trying to do this ? And getting that quantitative piece to focus

20:03

on , okay , like , here's the new market . If

20:05

we go into this market and we position ourself

20:08

this way and we run these ads and we can predict

20:10

out kind of what that's going to look like

20:12

to capture that revenue , then

20:15

you have a strong business case that

20:18

you can hand to somebody . Have

20:23

a strong business case that that you can you can hand to somebody . Um , I wanted to see if you'd

20:25

be willing to share any of the case studies , uh , for

20:27

some of these bigger brands of of

20:29

things that you've done for them , and kind of talk

20:31

through it like , um , presenting

20:33

the case study of , like what the problem was . You

20:36

know why , hey , brew branding , we thought

20:38

to do this . You know what you

20:40

looked at , what

20:45

you did and like the results . I don't know if there's any of those you can share . I'd love

20:47

to go through some of that so people can kind of see the methodology and how it

20:49

works .

20:49

Right . So you know , one project

20:51

that's currently in process that kind of really

20:53

demonstrates why a company would rebrand

20:56

is a credit union . You know

20:58

, if you think of credit unions , they were all originally

21:01

named for whatever employee

21:03

group that they supported the

21:05

teachers or the employees

21:08

of a particular business

21:10

in a town , and they established that and

21:12

they're named after that . Well

21:14

, that's not going to attract any new customers

21:16

that don't work for that company . So as they

21:18

try to serve more , you

21:21

know , offer more financial services to a broader

21:23

group , or they're wanting to expand into

21:25

different geographics , they need a new name

21:28

and they need an orientation

21:30

of their service and their products that

21:33

meet the needs of all your banking

21:35

type customers as opposed to just the

21:37

ones of that particular employer

21:39

that started them . So that's

21:41

an example of one that we were seeing

21:44

work that I think people can clearly understand

21:46

. Another one you know is we had a merger

21:49

of three companies that were

21:51

all in the hospitality space , so they

21:53

serviced kind of high-end luxury

21:55

hotels with things like linens

21:58

and restaurant supplies and

22:00

so forth and forth and things that you would find

22:02

in your room at a luxury hotel

22:04

. Three of them merged together

22:06

. It was private equity and

22:09

they clearly had a strategy

22:11

of wanting to add more companies

22:14

to this portfolio over

22:16

time that all served the

22:18

same customer base , and so we

22:20

, you know we were stuck with , you know , three

22:22

names that kind of just were

22:24

very specific to what those companies did

22:26

, couldn't broaden them out , couldn't

22:28

give them any more elasticity

22:30

that was needed to serve that role . So

22:32

we went back to a real naming process

22:35

and we found what was consistent

22:37

across the way these three companies worked

22:39

and it was all that they really . They

22:42

treated their customers , the high-end

22:45

hotels , as almost their concierge

22:47

kind of service in terms of what

22:49

they needed to make

22:51

their customers feel the best , the

22:54

guests at the hotel . So we named

22:56

that particular company One Concierge

22:59

and that gave that large

23:01

umbrella for

23:04

the private equity company

23:06

to add other businesses underneath

23:08

it . It was very much concierge

23:11

, just shortening the word concierge to

23:13

concierge and being

23:15

number one just really kind of positioned

23:18

them in the marketplace that all their customers

23:20

were like , delighted , thought it was great , like

23:23

the simplicity of it , and then we

23:25

were able to go out and market them as in

23:27

a new way , that then what they had

23:29

done in the past , as being a provider

23:31

to all the hotel needs that you've got that

23:34

example is is

23:45

really highlights the fact that why you should do where you should

23:47

combine , versus just create multiple different brands right

23:49

For different segments

23:51

, when you , when you have that larger opportunity

23:54

and and really you're merging those companies because there's

23:56

issues with merger and acquisition company

23:59

culture , yeah , company culture and stuff like

24:01

that .

24:02

And I would even I

24:04

would just throw into it , just add to it .

24:06

What's important about that particular example

24:08

, too , is that you had legacy employees

24:11

of three different companies that were , you know

24:13

, all kind of vying for wanting their name

24:15

to be the brand that was yeah . But

24:17

coming out with a new name that was

24:19

neutral and , you know , and nobody

24:22

, nobody had that kind of ownership claim to

24:24

it . We were able to better persuade

24:26

those long-term legacy employees that this

24:28

was the good for all and that

24:30

this was , you know , the way that we wanted to go forward

24:33

to market that was going to benefit them

24:35

better , and so it was able

24:37

. It gave us that internal kind of communications

24:40

and engagement plan that

24:42

we were able to get everybody on board before

24:44

we went to market with it . So a

24:46

good way , too , of realizing . You know , one

24:48

of the challenges in a rebrand is your

24:50

employees have to be a part of

24:52

it , and if you're changing a

24:54

name for somebody that you know , somebody's worked

24:57

there 40 years , they suddenly

24:59

feel like , well , what was

25:01

all that 40 years ? For what kind of equity

25:03

have I built ? It's now

25:05

gone because you just changed the name

25:07

, and so I got to be connected to that new brand

25:10

if I'm going to continue to work hard for

25:12

it . So it shows you yet another challenge

25:14

in rebranding that has to be addressed .

25:16

So you're getting the buy-in , you're getting their input

25:19

. The company culture

25:21

is so critically important . I

25:23

was even thinking management of assets

25:25

, right , and I think a lot of people don't

25:27

think about the cost savings , right

25:30

If you're managing three different websites

25:32

, three different set of campaigns , all the different

25:34

social media accounts associated with it , all

25:36

the PR like it's

25:39

. You know , agencies

25:42

have processes and abilities

25:44

to to manage multiple

25:46

accounts , but that can never compete

25:49

with a singular focus

25:51

, right , and having some something

25:53

internal and and you can

25:56

bring everybody together , focus

25:58

on one message , one

26:00

set of platforms , one set of campaigns , like

26:03

it simplifies the process . So

26:05

, so there's even cost savings when

26:08

you look at it from that standpoint . Um

26:10

because , like if they just kept buying companies

26:12

and then every single . I did this

26:14

project for a candy company

26:17

that bought um , their candy division from

26:19

Nestle and they had like 12

26:22

or 14 different brands . Like

26:29

12 or 14 different brands , different agencies , different platforms , different , everything

26:31

, right , right . And so it's like the shape of all these different

26:33

accounts , based on whatever that business

26:36

did previously , is all this legacy stuff

26:38

. That many times you got one

26:40

corporate person or two

26:42

or three corporate people that are like all right , here's

26:45

16 different brands to

26:47

manage all of them and here's a list

26:49

of all the different agencies , the different

26:51

logins to the websites , the different social media

26:54

. It becomes a

26:56

huge task , a Herculean task , to

26:58

be able to manage that man . It makes perfect

27:01

sense hey , we're going to keep adding companies

27:03

to this . We need something that's inclusive

27:05

of all of this , and and then , and then

27:07

our team . We can streamline it and

27:09

be super effective on getting our

27:12

messaging correct and and

27:14

and reaching the right people . So I love that . Okay

27:17

, so we touched

27:20

on this a little bit . Okay , we touched

27:22

on this a little bit . The two things that I do

27:24

want to cover , if we still have

27:26

time , are let's

27:29

talk a little bit more . Who

27:31

starts the process of the rebrand

27:33

? Okay , like , is

27:35

it the CEO ? Is it the C-suite , is it the

27:38

marketing director ? Is it the sales director ? Like

27:40

, how does the coalescence of

27:42

the stakeholders that are involved in it

27:44

decide that

27:47

that's coming from ? Or is it messages from the employees

27:49

? Is it investors ? Like what are you seeing

27:51

when people are like , yeah

27:53

, they're calling you , we need a rebrand ? Like how

27:55

did that conversation start ? I'm just curious .

27:58

Well , and it's interesting because when

28:00

we get the initial outreach for companies

28:02

, it's usually in a very stealth manner

28:04

. You know they've been thinking about this and

28:07

they've maybe looked at their current agency

28:10

and you know , to evaluate whether they have

28:12

the capabilities to do this . They know

28:14

that it's a much bigger lift than just

28:16

changing your name and logo , you

28:19

know , and they want to make sure that they're doing it

28:21

right . It's usually the CEO that reaches

28:23

out first to us and says

28:26

I , I , I want to rebrand

28:28

my company . I understand that . You know

28:30

that I I've got challenges that I can't overcome

28:32

with their current brand . I've got bold

28:35

ambitions that I want to achieve and I

28:37

know my brand is what needs to be

28:39

fixed , and so we usually

28:41

get it from the very top of the house . Um

28:43

, sometimes it will be a marketing person

28:46

that will reach out , but they have also

28:48

already had those C-suite

28:50

conversations and they're just representing it

28:53

. But there's not a lot

28:55

of convincing that

28:57

we have to do . It's the right thing . We just want

28:59

to make sure they understand what a rebrand

29:01

entails . That's where we focus kind

29:03

of our education efforts .

29:05

Yeah , and then the last question I

29:07

really was curious about is what

29:10

are the trends that you're seeing

29:12

happening with rebranding

29:14

of companies ? Like you saw the meta

29:16

Facebook right . Which I think

29:19

that there I know what's

29:21

kind of going on with the tech brands for

29:24

the most part I follow that pretty closely

29:26

. But I'm just curious , just like general

29:28

trends and rebranding , you know , shortening

29:31

of names , seeing it with some oil companies

29:33

they've changed their name or there's mergers

29:35

, just you know , you

29:39

have a broad perspective of kind of what's

29:41

happening . What are the things that you're seeing

29:43

as it relates to that kind

29:46

of what's happening ? What are the things that you're seeing as it relates to that ? And then

29:48

if you could couple that at the end with maybe any trends that you're seeing

29:50

on brand promotion , brand

29:53

building as it involves with digital

29:55

marketing , we have a lot of listeners that

29:57

are very strong digital marketers or work

30:00

with a lot of different companies to try to get them

30:02

into the right mindset of

30:04

what they should be looking at , what they're

30:07

seeing from your perspective .

30:10

So some of the different trends and first of all , one

30:13

of the things I always kind of start with is the

30:16

misuse of the term rebranding . You

30:18

know , you always see people saying , oh , we're

30:20

rebranding , well , they just changed

30:22

slightly their logo

30:25

or something like that refreshed

30:27

it . That's not a rebrand . You know they use

30:29

the term rebrand because it attracts

30:31

more attention than to say you refreshed

30:33

it . So that's one of the trends that we wish

30:35

would stop . You

30:38

know , this time of year you always see

30:40

a lot of higher education institutions

30:43

rebranding . You know , university

30:45

of Tampa that went by UT just

30:48

said we're going to change our brand and make it UTampa

30:51

now because UT can

30:53

be confused with Texas .

30:55

I love Southwest Texas to Texas State

30:57

.

30:58

Okay .

30:59

Like you don't want to be a directional school . I

31:01

think is kind of the trend yeah

31:03

.

31:04

So you see a lot of those you know right now , just

31:06

because of timing and the

31:09

fall , start of school season and so forth . One

31:11

of the biggest trends is the

31:13

shortening of names . You know it's realizing

31:16

that people

31:19

, when they originally created their brand , added

31:21

so much descriptive language to

31:23

it that you know to

31:25

kind of establish themselves in their

31:27

market and they don't need that anymore

31:29

and they're able to shed that now . Campbell

31:32

Soup is just the latest example of that

31:34

. They're dropping soup from their formal

31:36

name and they're just going to be Campbell's and

31:39

it's a way of not

31:43

letting your name define you too

31:45

tightly . But but you

31:47

simplifying it so you can broaden out and

31:50

you can be appreciated for more things . Dunkin' Donuts

31:52

did the same things . You know

31:54

we still are kind of , you know , puzzled a little

31:56

bit by why Weight Watchers

31:59

went to WW several years

32:01

ago and then changed back to Weight Watchers

32:03

. They're now using

32:05

Weight Watchers . You don't see WW anymore

32:07

. It was just kind of an odd rebrand . I

32:09

don't think it wasn't in consumers'

32:11

best interest . It was in what they thought

32:14

was their best interest . It just doesn't make

32:16

sense , and so they're back to Weight Watchers again

32:20

. So the shortening of names and , you know

32:22

, because everybody likes one word names

32:24

anymore too it looks good on a

32:27

. You know , a tile on a smartphone

32:29

. It's

32:33

just easier to remember than a whole bunch of different names . You know the spinning

32:35

off of companies . You know Kelanova

32:38

is the latest . You know it was a Kellogg's spinoff

32:40

and

32:48

now it's being acquired by Mars . You know , because it was . It's such a nice

32:50

tight positioning and and financially successful business . So breaking companies up and

32:52

and that rebranding of different divisions

32:54

into standalone companies but

32:56

keeping a little bit of a heritage link

32:58

to the original brand , is

33:01

a trend that we're seeing as well too . So when

33:03

it comes to that whole digital piece , you know , whenever

33:07

you introduce a new brand

33:10

and you rebrand , you have to change

33:12

up your website as well too and all your

33:14

digital marketing , and

33:19

that's a very kind of complex process and I'm not the real expert on it

33:21

, but I know from our team that you know you really have

33:23

to look at the advanced

33:25

work that needs to be done to make sure that you've

33:27

got everything in place to design the

33:29

new website that's going to then be able

33:31

to launch , and that kind of migration

33:34

effort is critically important to make sure

33:36

that you don't lose traffic in

33:39

the process and

33:41

then , and if anything , you're opening the doors

33:43

to be able to attract new customers that you never had

33:45

in the past . I think that's the . You know

33:47

it's a big piece of anything is how do you appeal

33:49

to more people on that digital

33:51

platform ? How do you make sure that those

33:54

folks that you know that you

33:56

need for your ambitious growth plans

33:58

are being attracted to the brand

34:00

? That there's , there's , there's , there's the digital hooks that are going to pull

34:03

you into that . That there's the digital hooks that are going to

34:05

pull you into that , love it .

34:06

I would just double down on the migration effort

34:08

. I have seen very

34:10

sad stories of companies

34:12

that have rebranded or

34:14

changed their domain and have

34:16

not mapped correctly the

34:19

migration of all the work

34:21

that they've done online , mapping back to

34:23

it with 301s and how they're

34:25

transferring over the website , and that

34:27

carry forward needs to happen

34:30

or you could just destroy

34:32

so much work , and

34:34

Google is not as forgiving

34:37

as it used to be with the proliferation

34:39

of information . All

34:41

right , jim , I know we're getting to time here to

34:44

wrap up . Jim the

34:46

rebrand man , I love

34:48

it with rebranding expertscom .

34:50

Also follow us on LinkedIn too because

35:06

we do post and share a lot of content

35:09

on there that we write for Forbes

35:11

about all the different you know challenges

35:14

and pieces of the rebranding process , so

35:16

we'd look forward to hearing from anybody .

35:18

Awesome , and if you've stayed

35:21

around to this point and you are

35:23

enjoying this kind of topics

35:25

, please leave me a review , let me know

35:27

. Please subscribe and follow . It really helps the

35:30

algorithm and I can get better guests

35:32

and more people . Jim , I

35:35

love having you on . I was excited

35:37

to get you on . I think a lot

35:39

of people going into the end of

35:41

the year are looking

35:44

to rebrand their company

35:46

and are on the fence about it , so I really wanted to get you

35:48

on . So thanks so much for making time

35:50

Until

35:53

next time , everybody . Bye , bye

35:55

for now .