How to Lead a Successful Organizational Rebrand

How to Lead a Successful Organizational Rebrand

(And Avoid an Epic Fail)

I remember when The Gap tried to rebrand with their terrible new logo that everyone hated. Much has been said about that, and similar rebrand failures (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, etc). It's clear that a rebrand can be painful. So, how do you get it right?

Six years ago, I was party to what I believe was the most thoughtful rebrand I've seen. It was the update of the Boise State Public Radio network's on-air identity across multiple separately branded stations to one singular, cohesive brand. We set out to strengthen listener loyalty and increase brand awareness, but ultimately we found ourselves with the opportunity to heal decades of hurt feelings and bridge a connection from our brand's storied past to a hopeful and honorable future.

The Backstory

By the time I arrived at Boise State Public Radio, the university-owned network reached across most of southern Idaho. We had multiple stations, under multiple call signs, including KBSU (music), KBSX (news), and KBSW (a combo of news and music), as well as about 20 ancillary stations called "repeaters" each with their own call letters. Our network spanned a good portion of the state, and the alphabet.

In our case, we branded each station by its call letters, but I was soon surprised to learn that a station's brand and its call sign don't have to match. For example, the actual legal call letters for the local station I knew as KISSFM were not in fact KISS, but instead, KSAS. The legal call letters for our local oldies station, Kool FM, were KKOO. In some cases, the legal call sign had nothing in common with the brand, like with KSRV, which was branded as BOB FM. Legally, a call sign for a station only needs to be stated once every "top of the hour" in order to be in compliance with the FCC. The rest of the time you can label the station whatever you want.

Similar to how companies try to get a matching stock ticker, a radio station will usually try to get a legal call sign that matches their public brand, but since call signs in the United States must be unique for each station across the country, they may not get one that matches. What further muddies the water is that many stations run national or regional programming across multiple stations, as part of a cohesive network. So, although you can hear KISSFM programming across the US, the stations and the call letters would be different for each broadcast area.

History of Brand Confusion

Because each station must legally state its call letters once every hour, and because we had originally started with only KBSU and had slowly grown over many years without a guiding brand strategy, the end result was that each station's brand had grown independently, and just matched its call letters out of convenience. When the whole network later took on the moniker of "Boise State Public Radio" to more closely align with the university, that new brand became just one extra throwaway line we would add once in a while on air.

A Reason To Change

For any organization, it's a lot easier to remain the same than to change. In fact, that was the very reason we were in the pickle we were in. I haven't yet explained the reason it was a pickle, but I will now.

Even with public radio stations that benefit from public funds and donations, brand attribution is important when it comes to getting funding. You have to show the people giving you money how many listeners you have. For terrestrial radio (FM and AM), the only way of tracking how many listeners you have is when someone fills out those little surveys that come in the mail sometimes. A radio station just hopes you remember that you listened to them and when, and that you state it accurately. That is why a brand is so important to a radio station, and why they say it so often. They want to make sure everyone remembers their brand long enough to fill out that survey (I just thought of this, but it's probably also why they are always telling you the time, too).

In our case, we had multiple stations across the region playing local content, as well as content from National Public Radio, and each station of course had its own unique legal call letters. We were saying "KBSU" on one station, "KBSX" on another, and "KBSW" on another, as well as each of the 20 repeater station call letters at the top of every hour. We were also saying "National Public Radio" and "NPR" a lot, and then we were adding "Boise State Public Radio" sporadically, and even the acronym "BSPR" sometimes. You could not ask for a worse scenario. We were basically daring anyone to try to remember our name and then giving them every reason not to!

Brand Fail Awareness

Around the time I arrived at the network, we were coming up on the 40th anniversary of our first station, KBSU. The branding situation had metastasized for all those years, and was so embedded in our day-to-day that we didn't realize it was an issue. For any change to take place, there needs to be an awareness of the problem. In our case, that awareness came soon after I showed up.

During an on-air donation drive, we let donors leave a voicemail testimonial after their donation, so we could play it on air. I was in charge of editing the voicemails for playback. Across hundreds of testimonials, I heard what at first was just a minor frustration for me personally. I was having to edit out where the person called us PBS, or KBOI or some other brand or call sign that wasn't us. It was happening over and over, until it became worrying. I soon realized this was a major issue.

The reality hit me, that these were people who had just seconds ago donated money to a station they love, after listening to us make the case on air about the brand's value. They were the very people who should know us the best out of anyone, caught at the height of their brand-awareness. You could not ask for a more brand-loyal, brand aware, self-selecting group, and yet with their best effort, they couldn't get our name straight. How bad was it, really? We could only guess, but based on the voicemails, we knew we had to do something to address it.

Making the Case

Newer to the BSPR universe, I was not as steeped in the culture and history of the network. It was easier for me, mentally, to grasp that a change needed to take place, and also easier for me emotionally. I didn't yet have any habits or feelings built up over many years as some people at the network did. So, I knew I needed to make an irrefutable case for a brand refresh.

I scheduled a meeting with the top decision makers in the organization - General Manager Tom Michael, Program Director Paul Stribling, and Assistant Program Director Erik Jones. I knew they didn't have a reason to trust my opinion yet, so I also brought my best ammo. I had mixed together a bunch of clips of people saying our name differently, and most of them wrongly. I shared this clip with everyone in attendance:

I said, "These are the people that love us the most and support us - our most important stakeholders - and they are telling us they don't know our name." When everyone heard the clip, they, too, understood the issue, but we still lacked clarity on exactly how to fix it. We needed to do some research.

As a group, we all started looking across the US to see how other similar networks branded themselves. I was asked to tune in to a couple stations that were part of an NPR affiliated network in Minnesota, the unofficial public radio capital of America. What I heard there was a cohesive theme, which correlated perfectly with our own network's brand, and would serve as our guidepost going forward. The Minnesota NPR news station referred to themselves consistently as "Minnesota Public Radio News," and the classical music station referred to themselves as "Classical Minnesota Public Radio." I recorded multiple of these instances, and shared them with the team.

When we all met again, it started to become clear that since our facilities and licenses were owned by Boise State University, and a significant portion of our funding was either from the university or because of our connection to it, we should lean toward further embracing the Boise State brand. We decided to go with Boise State Public Radio News for our news station, to take a note from Minnesota.

But then we reached a sticking point. In our case, our music station, KBSU, wasn't just classical music. In fact, calling it "classical" was a touchy subject, as many of the listeners and longtime employees remembered when it switched from a student-run eclectic station to an NPR affiliated station, then to mostly classical when we acquired our second license and transitioned NPR to that one. Some people were still a little hurt about how those moves had happened. We couldn't just start calling it "Classical" and alienate all those loyal listeners and employees. Assuming we wanted to change the brand, we would need to be inclusive of all genres of music.

This is when an idea hit me. I remembered Apple Music. I said to the group, "What if we were to own the brand of music itself in the Boise area?" Other stations had specific genres, but KBSU had blues, funk, Americana, jazz, classical - we even had an entire hour every week dedicated to The Grateful Dead. If any station represented the full range of music, it was us! I suggested the idea: Boise State Public Radio Music. It would match the News brand, and both brands could strengthen each other.

It took a bit to sink in that we could own the brands of News and Music in the Treasure Valley, and in particular it felt long and clunky trying to say the full names of either of the two stations. "Boise State Public Radio News" had nine syllables, and subbing "News" for "Music" added one more. But if Minnesota could do it, we decided we could too (theirs was even one more syllable than ours).

I remember one day, Paul, our Program Director, coming out of the studio excitedly, and telling me "I've got it! It's: Boise State... Public Radio News!" I listened to him say it a few times and practiced myself. Sure enough, the slight pause after Boise State made it work. We had the beginnings of a brand.

The next step, however, was going to be the most important and difficult one. How could we get the longtime employees to use the new brand on-air, and how would we transition the audience who had listened to us for 40 years, and who had a special connection to the original student station, KBSU? Some of our long-time loyal listeners had worked there back in college when it was just a student-run station, and they remembered the dramatic era of the move to a public station.

Honoring the Past

Throughout this time, Erik Jones, along with help from me and a student employee Alex Ravella, had been working on an audio documentary about the history of the network for it's 40th anniversary. We were sifting through hours of interviews, old recordings, and articles from the university's student newspaper dating back decades. What started as a historical chronicle of the growth of the station across 40 years began to reveal itself to be something much different.

The station had begun in the mid 1970s, as a student-run station started by a student named Gary McCabe. For ten years, it ran as a student station, until the mid 80s when the university decided to convert it into a public radio station with NPR programming. This change was seen by some of the student employees and former employees as a hostile takeover, and the ensuing drama reached a peak with one student barricading himself in the studio and broadcasting his manifesto, then climbing out the window. Someone printed bumper stickers with the words "I USED to listen to KBSU." It was messy, dramatic, and - for us - a great story. We restructured the entire documentary around that era, just because it seemed by far to be the best content we had. Everyone we interviewed had an opinion about it!

Erik had the idea of calling the documentary "I Used to Listen to KBSU" as a tribute to that time. With all the recent rebranding talk in mind, I realized this could be an epic tribute to not only that time, but also the history of the network, and the KBSU brand itself. It could act as a triple entendre, honoring the people who were part of that story, honoring our longtime listeners, and honoring the loss of a beloved brand. I suggested adding "An Origin Story" to the end as a subtitle to bridge into the future. And so that's what we did. We called it: "I Used to Listen to KBSU: An Origin Story." We made a bunch of promos (radio ads) and played them constantly on all our stations to promote the doc, then played the doc itself a few times on air, and posted it on our website with a little photo gallery.

Listen here (it's good):

I Used to Listen to KBSU: An Origin Story

We dedicated the last quarter of the doc to the current and future Boise State Public Radio, but we did it tastefully, with a lot of references to the past and even made sure to give the last word to Gary, the station's original student founder. At our 40 year anniversary party, we played clips from the doc on a loop and printed shirts for the employees with the original KBSU logo.

KBSU Logo

Credit: Boise State Public Radio

The result was everything we could have hoped. The comments from the founders - the very people whose opinions we cared most about - were perfect. Statements like "Thank you... for setting the record straight" (David Peckham A.K.A. Frisenger), and "Good job tackling a subject that is still emotional for a lot of us" (Charlotte Mixon Lanier A.K.A. Carlotta). The one I'm most proud of though, is from the OG, Gary himself:

Stepping into the Future

It took some convincing for some of our hosts to adopt the new on-air brand. I remember a particular moment that Erik had to stand there in the studio and talk a host into it. The reluctance was understandable, but the momentum was already too strong. One by one, the last holdouts gave in and adopted the new name.

To be honest, I too, had mixed feelings about it. In particular, I liked the funky old KBSU logo. But at the end of the day, what matters is that we helped to strengthen an institution that means so much to so many people, even if it is now under a different name. And if it's any consolation, at every top-of-the-hour, you'll still catch the legal call sign "KBSU" (as well as the others, depending on the station you're listening to).

Over half a decade later, the brands "Boise State Public Radio News" and "Boise State Public Radio Music" can be heard on the airwaves every break (with a brief pause after "Boise State"). When I listen in, I'm proud of the work we did, but especially of the way we did it. We took a branding problem and turned it into an opportunity to connect with our audience and our past on a much deeper level.

Try that, Gap!

The Takeaways

If you're thinking about tackling a rebrand, here are the steps that worked for us:

How Not to Fail When Rebranding:

  1. Identify the Problem: Listen closely to your most loyal supporters. If they can’t remember or say your name correctly, your brand isn’t working. Gather qualitative signals - confusion, misnaming, low recall - and compile the evidence.
  2. Build the Case Internally: Don’t expect people to trust you or your opinions. Gather hard proof of the problem - audio, video, screenshots, quotes - and bring it to the decision-makers. Make it impossible to ignore.
  3. Don't Reinvent the Wheel: Look at how similar organizations solved the same problem you are facing. Borrow ideas that are working for bigger players, maybe even in a different market. Learn from others.
  4. Build From Your Known: In our case, we needed to keep the Boise State brand, because that was our strongest asset. We turned that brand into a platform, with News and Music being natural extensions of that brand. What is your known?
  5. Honor the Past: Your past is important. Integrate it into your story. Honor the effort that got you where you are, and you will earn the trust and respect of the people who helped you get there.
  6. Be Patient: Don't expect everyone to love a big change right away. If you did all the above steps right, the process should take a while, and so should adoption. Give your team space to play with the changes, and take the time to explore with them.

That's how to do a rebrand right.


FAQs:

Rebranding a company without losing existing customers involves a strategic approach that emphasizes continuity and clear communication. Begin by articulating the reasons for the rebrand, ensuring they align with customer values. Engage customers through surveys or focus groups to gather feedback. Maintain core brand elements that resonate with your audience, and gradually introduce new aspects to avoid alienation.

Effective rebranding requires a structured process: conduct a brand audit to assess current perceptions, define clear objectives for the rebrand, research your target audience, develop a new brand identity, and implement the changes across all channels. Consistent messaging and internal alignment are crucial throughout this process.

Managing organizational change effectively involves clear communication, stakeholder engagement, and a well-defined change management plan. Identify the change's impact on various departments, provide training and support, and establish feedback mechanisms to monitor progress and address concerns promptly.

Communicating a rebrand to employees should be transparent and inclusive. Share the vision and reasons behind the rebrand, involve employees in the process to foster ownership, and provide training on new brand elements. Regular updates and open forums for questions can ease the transition.

Ensuring brand consistency during a rebrand involves developing comprehensive brand guidelines that cover visual elements, tone of voice, and messaging. Train all employees on these guidelines and monitor all communications and materials to ensure adherence to the new brand standards.

Common pitfalls in rebranding include neglecting customer input, inconsistent messaging, inadequate internal communication, and failing to align the rebrand with the company's core values. Avoid these by conducting thorough research, involving stakeholders, and maintaining transparency throughout the process.

Measure the success of a rebrand by tracking key performance indicators such as brand awareness, customer engagement, sales figures, and market share. Conduct surveys to assess changes in customer perception and monitor social media sentiment for qualitative insights.

Company culture plays a pivotal role in a successful rebrand. A culture that embraces change, encourages innovation, and aligns with the new brand values facilitates smoother transitions and greater internal support for the rebrand.

Aligning a rebrand with your company's mission and vision ensures authenticity and coherence. Reevaluate your mission and vision statements to ensure they reflect the new brand direction, and integrate these elements into all aspects of the rebrand strategy.

To retain brand loyalty during a rebrand, communicate changes clearly to customers, highlight the benefits of the rebrand, and maintain elements of the brand that customers value. Offering promotions or loyalty programs can also reinforce customer commitment.

Handling negative feedback involves active listening, acknowledging concerns, and providing clear explanations for the rebrand decisions. Engage with critics constructively and use their feedback to make necessary adjustments, demonstrating responsiveness and commitment to customer satisfaction.

Stakeholder involvement is crucial as it ensures diverse perspectives are considered, fosters buy-in, and enhances the relevance of the rebrand. Engage stakeholders through consultations, workshops, and regular updates to keep them informed and involved.

Rebranding on a limited budget requires prioritization and creativity. Focus on high-impact areas such as digital presence and customer communication. Utilize in-house resources, seek cost-effective design solutions, and phase the rebrand implementation to manage expenses.

Legal considerations include trademark searches to ensure the new brand elements don't infringe on existing trademarks, updating legal documents, and notifying regulatory bodies of the changes. Consulting with legal professionals can help navigate these complexities.

To avoid confusing customers, communicate the rebrand clearly and consistently across all channels. Provide explanations for the changes, highlight what remains the same, and ensure that the transition is gradual and well-supported with customer education materials.

Market research informs the rebrand by providing insights into customer perceptions, market trends, and competitive positioning. This data guides decision-making, ensuring the rebrand resonates with the target audience and differentiates the company effectively.

Involve customers by soliciting feedback through surveys, focus groups, or social media engagement. Sharing prototypes or concepts and inviting opinions can foster a sense of inclusion and increase acceptance of the new brand.

Signs include declining market relevance, outdated brand image, shifts in target audience, or changes in company direction. If the current brand no longer reflects the company's values or offerings, a rebrand may be necessary.

Train employees through workshops, brand guideline documents, and interactive sessions that explain the new brand elements, messaging, and expected behaviors. Ongoing support and resources help reinforce the training.

Digital presence is critical, as it's often the first point of contact for customers. Updating websites, social media profiles, and digital marketing materials ensures consistency and reinforces the new brand identity effectively.

Storytelling connects the rebrand to the company's history and values, making the transition more relatable. Sharing narratives about the brand's evolution can engage customers emotionally and foster loyalty.

Track metrics such as brand awareness, customer engagement, sales performance, website traffic, and social media sentiment to assess the rebrand's impact and identify areas for improvement.

Maintain morale by involving employees in the process, communicating openly about changes, recognizing contributions, and providing support to adapt to new brand elements.

A typical rebrand can take several months to over a year, depending on the scope. This includes planning, development, testing, and implementation phases, each requiring careful coordination.

Rebranding a company with multiple sub-brands involves creating a cohesive brand architecture that defines the relationship between the parent brand and sub-brands. Consistency in messaging and visual identity across all brands is essential.

Challenges include resistance to change, preserving brand equity, and aligning the new brand with longstanding values. Address these by honoring the company's history and involving stakeholders in the rebranding process.

Test new brand concepts through focus groups, A/B testing, or pilot programs. Gathering feedback allows for refinements and increases the likelihood of a successful full-scale launch.

Leadership sets the vision, drives the strategy, and models the behaviors associated with the new brand. Their commitment and communication are vital for internal alignment and successful implementation.

Audit all existing materials, prioritize updates based on visibility and impact, and systematically replace old branding with new elements. Ensure consistency across all platforms and touchpoints.

A brand style guide ensures consistency in visual and messaging elements across all communications. It serves as a reference for internal and external stakeholders, maintaining brand integrity.

Consider cultural nuances, language differences, and local market preferences. Adapt branding elements as necessary while maintaining core brand values to ensure global consistency with local relevance.

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