Recently Facebook have faced animosity towards their new changes, the time line has been met with the most unfavourable reaction yet. Past changes have been disagreeable however they were eventually accepted by the social networking community. This time the heat is being felt.
Are changes, in particular rebranding, always a good idea?
The following examples suggest that sometimes listening to the public is the best idea for your brand.
Even giants like coca cola can make dire mistakes. Coke launched New Coke in 1985 to combat Pepsi’s latest campaign and the fear that Pepsi would over take them in the market. The CEO changed the formula of coke and this disastrous decision was short lived, after three months Coke Classic was reintroduced, outselling Pepsi.
Gap similarly made a mistake that had its customers tweeting with rage. The clothing brand didn’t predict such an adverse reaction when it changed its logo to simple black lettering on a white background and a small blue square in the right hand corner. The new logo was pulled only a few days after the launch and the disgruntled public won.
Not all rebranding results in outrage and a swift U-turn. When the chocolate bar Marathon Americanised its name to Snickers in 1990 it was a move that made sense as Snickers was its global name. The name change didn’t diminish UK sales, and the chocolate bar was recently named the all time best-selling chocolate bar in the world, quite a title.
A brand new palindrome was bought to our attention when Norwich Union rebranded itself as Aviva in 2008. This change was smooth due to it already being known as Aviva in overseas markets. The renaming was a success after a wide-reaching advertising campaign featuring celebrities who had changed their names before they were famous and polls following the name change also suggested it had boosted brand recognition.
There are many more examples in the vaults of bad business decisions, can you recall any other disastrous changes or rebranding?
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