Understanding The Power of A Brand Restage

Sometimes, brands can grow stale over time. If not tended to and managed properly, a brand will drift away from what once made it great, or times can change so quickly that a once fresh and novel brand becomes outdated and awkwardly positioned. Even if the product or service remains great, and liked by customers – the brand may be a hindrance and cause a lack of sales and drop in market share. So, when you notice that times have changed but your brand has failed to adapt, what can you do? Thankfully, there exists an effective solution for this very challenge  – a brand restage. A brand restage is strategically driven based on the brand’s declining performance. It can modernise the identity of a brand, repositioning it in the eyes of the consumer without needing a complete overhaul of the brand. 

What Is A Brand Restage?

A brand restage is a chance to refresh your brand without needing to alter or move away from the brand’s core values. Think of redressing a table at a restaurant – the table and chairs will remain – while a new set of cutlery and a clean tablecloth might be swapped in to appeal to a new group of diners. This process is analogous to restaging a brand – the table and chairs which are unchanged, represent the core values of the brand, while the tablecloth and cutlery might represent the brand’s visual assets or packaging. 

An example of a brand restage we undertook was the restaging of LifeStyles; research found that the brand and packaging was perceived as dated in the eyes of the consumer. We updated the visual assets of the brand, in order to appeal to a younger and broader demographic and in this case we did not need a complete rebrand – as it was already an extremely trusted and established brand with a long history of success in the market.

Why Is A Brand Restage Important?

Brand restaging is important because it can help brands to stay relevant in fast moving markets and keep pace with changing customers attitudes. Naturally, almost any brand will become stale over time if it’s not properly managed or cared for – even if customer sentiment towards that brand is consistently positive. A brand restage is also important to regain sales and market share. Without a restage, the brand may continue to lose sales and eventually become redundant.

In cases where a brand feels like it is getting left behind or not adapting with changing times, marketers might jump immediately to a rebrand. However, rebrands can be costly, time consuming and risky (see Jaguar’s recent controversial rebrand) and for some brands they may be overkill or unnecessary. In many cases, in order to modernise a brand may need a lighter touch – staying true to the values that have (and continue to) serve you well, but making the little details more fresh, modern and exciting, 

In order to determine whether a restage could be valuable for your brand, we recommend you undertake a brand audit – a brand audit is essentially the analysis of your brand through three key lenses – internal, external and customer/user experience. This can help uncover the strengths and weaknesses of your brand, and will help you to determine if restaging is required. A brand audit is essential even if your business is performing well, as it could empower your brand to perform even better.

The Difference Between a Brand Restage, Brand Repositioning and Rebranding

While brand restage, brand repositioning and rebranding are all methods to change something about a brand, they represent distinct approaches and are appropriate in different scenarios. 

A brand restage respects the brand’s current values and identity, and may refresh the visual, messaging  or packaging aspects of the brand while staying true to its core. Alternatively, a rebrand will typically aim to change the identity of a brand, with a clear break from the past and its previous values. Usually,  rebrands of large companies will generate many headlines and column inches in the media (See Twitter’s rebrand to X). While a restage may be less obvious and generate less fanfare than a rebrand – in the right scenario it is no less effective. 

A repositioning is arguably closer to a restaging than a rebrand is – as a repositioning will still respect the brand’s core identity and values, just like a restaging will – but it will explicitly attempt to reposition the brand in the market. For repositioning, think Spotify during COVID which under threat of losing subscribers, repositioned from a music streaming platform to a music and podcast streaming platform. In Spotify’s case, nothing visual or core to the brand changed – but the offering did.

Signs Your Brand Needs A Restage

One obvious sign your brand needs a restage is simply that it has existed for a long time. With time, some brands become stale. However not all brands will need a restage, so it is important to look for the signs that your brand might need a restage. 

Some clear signs of needing a restage might be:

• Sales and business performance have declined
  • When sales and business performance have declined, it is the first sign of the need for a brand restage. A restage may be an opportunity to re-engage customers and generate new sales.
• Inconsistent branding
  • As new product lines are added, or new marketing channels are developed sometimes branding can become inconsistent.
• Brand that looks and feels dated
  • If it’s been a while since you’ve adjusted your brand, the brand may be dated in the eyes of the customer – particularly if many competitors have entered the market since launch.
• Audience or market has changed or expanded
  • In the modern day, markets and audiences change quickly – in many times more quickly than a brand can respond – if conditions have changed in your industry lately, it may be time for a restage.
• Your business has changed
  • Your business may have changed, but the brand has not kept up and adjusted – this can be a big driver of necessary restaging  for fast moving companies.
• Evolved product or service
  • Your product or service has evolved and the current branding no longer aligns with the new offering.

While these are some typical indicators of brands that might benefit from a restage, each brand is unique and your brand may still benefit from a restage even if none of these conditions are met.

How To Conduct A Brand Restage

A brand restage typically involves a few steps to successfully complete, these are: 

1. Conducting a brand audit: This is an essential first step to understanding your brand and whether a brand restage is required. As stated above, analysing your brand through three key lenses – internal, external and customer/market focused will help you to understand the strengths and weaknesses of your brand, and where you might improve things.  Brand audits should not only be completed on struggling brands, and extremely successful brands can benefit from brand audits – in many cases this will help them to stay successful.
2. Refining brand positioning: Adjusting how the brand is perceived in the market.
3. Updating visual identity: Refreshing logos, color palettes, typography, and packaging.
4. Revamping messaging & tone: Aligning brand voice with evolving consumer expectations.
5. Product or service enhancements:  Improving offerings to meet new market demands.
6. Marketing & communication strategy shift:  Changing how the brand engages with its audience.
7. Create new brand guidelines documents: In order to stay true to your brand restage, it is important to create a brand guidelines document. This document codifies a set of rules about your brand around how you present to the public – including how your brand looks, how it sounds and how it acts to the public. When writing this document, always consider your core values – they should be the undercurrent to any brand guidelines document.
8. Implement new brand guidelines (e.g. messaging or packaging): Once the document has been completed, execute on it – apply your guidelines across all channels your brand appears in and all messaging from your brand. In product-driven brands, this may involve updating packaging or may simply be refreshing your marketing communications.
9. Rollout and unveil to the world: Once you’ve created your guidelines, and applied them across your brand consistently – it is now time to unveil your restaged brand to the world. 

Obviously, each brand is unique and there may be some specifics that change – but in general, this is what a brand restage would look like..

Examples Of Brand Restages

There are many brands that have completed restages and completely rejuvenated their brand – often, as customers we may not be consciously aware of these examples, particularly as they don’t always generate all the headlines that a flashy rebrand might.

One example of a successful restage is Pepsi; Pepsi had a slick refresh in 2023, and unveiled a bigger and bolder look and feel, that was more flexible across digital and physical mediums. In their unveiling, Pepsi paid respect to their brand’s history – and saw this as merely a continuation of their identity as a fresh, challenger brand. Without using the words, Pepsi restaged their brand!

Reddit is another digitally focused example of a brand restaging; referencing the need for their mascot and typography to evolve with the internet and their own users. In this instance, Reddit rendered their previously 2D mascot in three dimensions and also introduced some new clear and easy to read fonts. Again, in this instance, the values of Reddit did not change – they just realised that they needed to evolve slightly in a competitive market. 

Ultimately, it’s clear that brand restages are an effective way to refresh and revitalise a brand, without needing the investment of a total rebrand. If you feel like your brand could benefit from a restage, or if you have any questions on the process at all please reach out to us – we would love to help out.