Ebook: Transformative Rebranding

What great leaders know about the power of brand change and the proven tools that make it happen.

Proven tools for brand change.

Wisdom, wherever found, should not be kept a secret. What we learn from each other’s mistakes and successes can save time, expense and embarrassment. Useful data amassed by trained and dedicated researchers can fill in the Xs and Ys of our own equations. If the goal in business is to finish first, then nothing helps more than a head start.

Which brings us to a nifty tool called the Corporate Brand Matrix.

The Corporate Brand Matrix is a team project from consultants Tony Spaeth in New York, and Tom Vanderbauwhede in Antwerp, Belgium, both of whom agreed to share their work here.

Their CorporateBrandMatrix.com was previewed at BrandCamp in Bucharest, Romania on November 22, 2006, and was launched online from Antwerp on March 13, 2007. It is based on the in-depth analysis of 92 significant corporate rebrandings, compiled in collaboration with each corporation’s leaders.

Put simply, the Corporate Brand Matrix is a tool for planning, sourcing, budgeting and staffing institutional rebranding programs and to help clients, consultants and designers speak the same language.

Spaeth and Vanderbauwhede explain that, “by plotting the historic mix and importance of a rebranding’s drivers, which are, in essence, the leadership intentions; against the tools actually used, with the benefit of hindsight, we can identify what usually works best and why. We can then better understand the strategic issues, creative opportunities and process requirements of a potential future rebranding.”

We all look for patterns, cycles and intersections where businesses can learn from one another. Identifying a universal menu both of drivers and of tools for rebranding, as the matrix has done, helps guide selection of the tools others have successfully used to achieve any given mix of purposes.

Aligning the data

In physical form, the matrix is a one-page checklist and data entry form. Its vertical axis lists all 17 potential drivers of a rebranding, whether structural (to accommodate merger, acquisition or spinout); strategic (to change direction, broaden or narrow a corporation’s scope, change its internal culture, etc.) or functional (to deal with name weakness, design weaknesses, etc.)…..

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