How Much Does It Cost To Rebrand?

How Much Does It Cost To Rebrand?

Rebranding is changing a company's brand identity and perception in the marketplace. It involves creating a new brand name, logo, design system, marketing materials, messaging, and more to replace outdated or ineffective branding. Rebranding costs can vary greatly depending on the company's size, breadth of change, and use of professional branding agencies. Here, we explore how much it costs to rebrand and ways to estimate your potential investment.

Defining Brand Identity and Rebrand Rationale

A brand identity is the visual and verbal elements representing a company's personality and offerings to the public. This includes the following:

• Brand name
• Logo design
• Colour palette
• Typography
• Voice and messaging
• Visual assets
• Packaging and branding applications

Rebranding completely transforms some or all of these brand identity assets. Reasons companies rebrand include:

Outdated Branding

If branding elements feel dated or no longer reflect modern sensibilities, a rebrand helps the company appear current and evolving. This can be especially important for brands trying to appeal to younger demographics.

Mergers and Acquisitions

When companies merge or acquire others, branding must often change to reflect the new organisation and strategy.

Market Expansion

Expanding into new markets or offerings may necessitate branding changes to appeal to different customer segments.

Poor Brand Perception

Rebranding helps turn around brands with bad reputations or market perceptions. It signals tangible change.

Leadership Change

New executives often initiate rebranding to align branding with new visions and corporate directions.

Not all branding refresh needs require a complete rebrand. But when brand identity no longer serves business goals, rebranding allows genuine reinvention.

Cost Considerations for Rebranding Projects

Many variables influence rebrand costs, including:

Scope of Rebranding

Rebranding a single brand, product, or division costs less than company-wide rebranding initiatives impacting multiple brands and sub-brands. The more visual assets requiring changes, the greater the investments.

Use of Branding Agencies

Hiring professional branding agencies substantially increases costs and the quality of strategy and outcomes. Rates range from $150-$500+ per hour.

Geographic Reach

For multinational brands, global rebrands across all markets cost more than single-country rebrands. Costs compound with translations and local adaptations.

Integration Efforts

Updating branded environments and materials after a rebrand also drives costs higher. Impacts can include:

• Signage
• Printed materials
• Product packaging
• Software, apps
• Websites and domains
• Internal communications

Market Research

Robust quantitative and qualitative research to inform rebrand strategy adds considerable expense but ultimately saves money by ensuring an optimal brand direction with the target audience.

Post-Launch Marketing

Introducing a new brand to consumers requires extra advertising, promotions and launches to shift perceptions entirely. Without this, rebrands fail to gain traction.

We’ll now examine typical rebrand budgets.

Small Business Cost to Rebrand

Brand Strategy and Design

For small businesses, branding agencies typically charge $15,000-$60,000+ to execute a new brand strategy, name, logo, identity standards, messaging, and visual branding. Quality ranges dramatically within this budget level.

Often, small businesses choose DIY branding through online services like Tailor Brands, Looka, and Canva. These offer logos, templates and branding tools for approximately $200-$2,000. This can work well for simple branding needs. But most professionals caution against completely forgoing strategy help.

Implementation

Basic branding implementation for a small local business costs around $2,500-$5,000. This allows for printing new business cards, signage, promotional items, packaging and branded assets. Again, DIY services reduce costs.

Simple websites on user-friendly CMS platforms like WordPress or Squarespace enable small business owners to implement branding updates themselves for little added cost.

Total Small Business Rebrand Costs

• DIY: $2,500 – $7,000
• Professional: $20,000 – $100,000*

Factors like the number of customer touchpoints requiring branding integration impact exact budgets.

Mid-Size Company Rebrand Costs

Brand Strategy and Design

Professional branding agencies charge $80,000-$150,000+ to guide strategic positioning, naming, identity, guidelines and messaging for mid-size brands. The brand implementation also requires additional investments.

Implementation

Updating materials and environments with the new branding across a mid-size company with multiple locations and departments can cost $250,000-$1M+, factoring expenses like:

• Brand application design
• Printed sales and marketing collateral
• Product packaging redesign
• Software, mobile apps, and web properties updated
• Vehicle graphics and fleet branding
• Uniforms and apparel
• Internal branding and communications

Ongoing costs for items like signage and printed materials continue in subsequent budget years.

Total Mid-Size Rebrand Costs

• Start-Up Investment: $500,000 -$2M++
• Ongoing Annual Costs: $100,000+

Enterprise Rebrand Costs

Brand Strategy, Positioning and Design

Top-tier international branding agencies charge $200,000-$500,000+ in creative and strategy fees to rebrand large enterprises. Complex brand architectures with multiple sub-brands, products and global regions require seasoned expertise.

Intensive quantitative and qualitative research also comes standard. Audits assess current brand perception, equities and weaknesses to inform strategies. Ethnographic research like focus groups and customer interviews uncover unmet needs. And employee engagement surveys provide an internal perspective.

Brand design then brings the strategy to life through naming, identity development, style guides, verbal tonality frameworks, imagery, video content and guidelines.

Implementation

Because scale directly increases rebranding costs, transforming enterprise brands demands multi-million dollar implementation budgets, including:

• Thousands of printed materials across all business functions are updated
• New packaging across product categories and stock-keeping units
• Website migrations to new domains, content and features
• Mobile apps redesigned for branding alignment
• Advertising and content production for all media types
• Broad-reaching PR and external communications to announce changes
• Hundreds of facilities rebranded with signage systemic changes
• Associating sub-brands transitioned

These costs depend on the breadth of markets reached. But with so many customer and stakeholder touchpoints affected, enterprises plan for significant investments.

Total Enterprise Rebrand Costs

• Start-Up Investment: $5M-$30M+
• Ongoing Annual Costs: $500,000+

The world's most significant brand transformations, like Accenture’s $100M+ rebrand, shape perceptions across continents. Rebrands introducing radically new positioning, like Airbnb’s movement to an all-encompassing travel brand, require even greater upfront and ongoing investments to permeate markets. But all enterprise rebrands demand multi-million dollar commitments to shift perceptions entirely.

How to Estimate Your Potential Rebrand Investment

Not sure where your brand falls or how to estimate potential rebrand costs? Consider:

1. Define Current Brand Scope

Analyse current branding and how many customer touchpoints exist both internally and externally. This defines reach.

You can create a visual brand ecosystem map tracing every branded interaction and asset category requiring change during rebranding. Online rebrand calculators also help quantify volumes like printed collateral types.

2. Gauge Brand Complexity

More complex brand architectures with multiple sub-brands, international reach and diverse products multiply required efforts. Consider current complexity.

3. Weigh External Reliance

Do customers engage your brand primarily online or offline? Does the brand permeate physical environments like retail, facilities, packaging or signage? Real-world applications demand more significant implementation efforts.

4. Consider Professional Agency Use

Agency fees for strategy, design and management support can exceed $500,000 for significant brands. Defining needs here directly impacts budgets.

You can further break down estimated volumes and requirements for every implementation category, from packaged goods to digital channels. Applying appropriate cost assumptions based on scale and complexity while factoring potential agency fees helps approximate overall investment.

Just ensure you scope broadly enough. Hidden rebranding costs often include secondary brand communications, retail environments, partner integration, licensees and overlooked areas that compound budgets.

The Breakdown: Factors Driving Rebrand Costs

To summarise critical levers determining rebranding costs:

Strategy and Design Fees

Professional branding agencies provide strategic insight, creative ideation, and design based on brand scale, complexity, and positioning needs. Their fees are directly tied to the total hours and level of talent required for your brand transformation vision.

Typical Agency Cost Ranges:

• Small Business: $15K-$60K
• Mid-Size Company: $150K-$500K
• Enterprise Brand: $500K-$5M

Research and Discovery Phases

Robust quantitative and qualitative research to inform rebrand strategy carries costs but provides invaluable consumer and market insights that shape successful transformations. Typical activities include:

• Customer surveys: Gain perspective on brand perceptions, preferences and insights on optimal positioning.
• Focus groups: Facilitated discussions with key customer segments to help assess reactions to brand concepts and identify unmet needs.
• Expert interviews: External perspectives from industry insiders, analysts and marketing experts provide a critical contextual understanding of branding goals.
• Competitive audits: Examine competitor brands and market offerings to identify white space opportunities and areas of differentiation.
• Employee engagement surveys: Internal stakeholder input ensures branding aligns with organisational culture and capabilities.

DIY online surveys and informal customer conversations can replace paid research studies for small businesses. But the more a company invests in upfront research, the more it mitigates downstream risk and redirects efforts based on actual market feedback.

Implementation and Integration

Implementation encompasses updating every branded touchpoint and asset to embody new branding. This includes digital channels, advertising, packaging, interiors, fleet branding, apparel, supplies, and more based on brand scale. Mid-size to large companies rely on outside creative and development talent to handle implementations across initiatives like:

• Print and collateral: Business cards, letterhead, sales sheets, brochures, and signage are all updated.
• Retail and spaces: New in-store branding, displays and signage throughout facilities and trade show booths.
• Products and packaging: Labels, wrappers, bags and product aesthetics aligned to new identity standards.
• Digital channels: Website design/development, SEO migration, email templates, social branding, and apps transitioned to new experiences.
• Advertising: Refreshed design aesthetics and messaging aligned across video, display, radio and print campaigns.

Implementation costs are compounded based on the volume of branded touchpoints affected by the design, production, and installation expenses associated with refreshing each.

Initial Launch and Reveals

How a brand shares its new identity publicly carries costs as well. Typical launch activities include:

• Media kits and PR outreach: Professionally designed kits introduce branding to press outlets. Outreach secures coverage.
• Launch events: Large-scale unveiling events at branded locations make a splash for employees, influencers and the press.
• Paid advertising campaigns: Post-launch ads expose new branding to customer demographics and start shifting associations.
• Social media updates: Fresh social channels and content show the world your transformation.
• Customer communications: Direct customer emails, signage at locations, and website pop-ups all help seamlessly transition audiences to your evolved brand.

Altogether, first-year launch activities require around a 15% budget allocation to set rebrands up for success.

Long-Term Stewardship

Rebrands continue evolving years beyond initial transformations through ongoing expression refinement and audience engagement. Maintaining consistent branding year-over-year means structuring budgets beyond initial capital investments.

Audit all templates, guidelines, websites, inventory, retail materials and assets during conversions, establishing quantities that require future reorders. Then, estimate needs based on usable life cycles.

Assign dedicated personnel as brand stewards responsible for consistency and adherence internally. Allocate budget annually for refreshed branded items alongside new marketing materials and activations called for.

This long-view stewardship role keeps rebrands as transformative corporate assets rather than one-off initiatives lost over time. Brand momentum builds through ongoing investment.

Overcoming Rebrand Cost Concerns

For smaller businesses with fundamental budget limitations, the costs outlined for professional rebranding can deter change, even when needed for growth.

Despite solid leadership desire and rationale, lack of funding remains the most common barrier preventing rebranding initiatives.

What options exist for businesses recognising rebrand needs but facing financial constraints?

Prioritise Brand Strategy

DIY logo design and visual rebranding only succeed with sound guiding strategy and positioning. So rather than emphasising creative development first, invest any available funding into strategic groundwork.

Experienced consultants or brand strategists–even working minimally for initial orientation–empower strong foundations for everything that follows.

Visual design breathes life into strategy, not the reverse. Lead with strategy.

Phase Initiatives Over Time

Complete rebrands in gradual steps as budgets allow. Good transitional launches still raise the visibility of evolved branding in each phase.

Start with brand naming and identity if most in need of refresh. Then follow with priority customer touchpoints like location signage or digital channels as funding allows over quarters. It cohesively comes together publicly through well-planned multi-phase revelations.

Insource Support Early

Equip in-house teams to handle branding continuity post-rebranding to avoid recurring agency costs. Develop personnel skills to maintain guidelines, adapt branded assets, and steward touchpoints impacted downstream. Many remote training resources exist across design platforms, and branding best practices are accessible for modest investment. But dedicating internal players to brand ambassador roles fuels tremendous continuity.

Common Rebrand Questions

Does rebranding increase sales?

When grounded in thorough research and strategy, rebrands that modernise messaging, enhance differentiation in the market and improve audience targeting can boost conversion rates and revenues. But flashy visual changes alone won’t directly impact sales without communicating greater relevance strategically. Still, well-executed rebrands allow companies to outperform competitors. Fresh approaches to poise brands for market leadership when modernising visuals and messaging to current customer needs observed through research.

How long does rebranding take to complete?

The timeline varies based on company scale and prioritisation. Some break transformations into multi-year initiatives addressing high-impact spots first, then phasing across other assets. But ideally, branding shifts permeate environments relatively quickly after launch through nimble yet strategic implementations. Timed transitions limit market confusion if overhauling a complex global enterprise, while small business rebrands may take under 90 days.

Can we rebrand internally or by using DIY services?

Companies can manage rebrands internally through dedicated stewardship or affordable self-service branding tools. However, strategic rigour and creative potency are only adequate with external experts. Many that initially rebranded independently ultimately hire agencies later to boost impact. Still, those with certain aptitudes manage independently–and more power to them!

The best route depends primarily on internal capabilities and access to reliable brand strategy help. But DIY branding works better for simple branding needs rather than transforming elaborate brand architectures across regions, languages and complex products while breaking through market noise. As they say, you often get what you pay for.

How can leadership sell rebranding investments within organisations?

Rebrands almost always require executives selling boards, stakeholders, and budget gatekeepers to justify benefits since significant investments often draw sceptics. Convincing data around urgent needs based on dated perceptions, negative brand studies, declining conversion rates or recent market mishaps helps. Looking at rebranding as a revenue-driving initiative–not just a superficial facelift–also resonates. But leading with an enthusiastic vision around strategic growth potential, increased competitive advantage, and other tangible upsides tends to inspire buy-in!

The Bottom Line

Allocating adequate resources to rebranding remains challenging but almost always pays dividends through sustained implementation. How budgets get approved and managed separates successful brand transformation from ill-fated ones.

But by spending adequately on strategy, research, multiphase implementation and continuity, costly rebrands shape companies for decades–futureproofing names, messaging and visuals systems to ingrain brands competitively across markets. And that makes investment more accessible to justify at all levels. Brand relevance must keep pace with change.