Brands are living and breathing entities that are born, grow up and then need to change. Change may be a tweak of a logo, change of font or something more radical. In the era of social media, however, re-branding takes on entirely new challenges. Ask the Gap and Vegemite, among others. This presentation covers: - the dos and don'ts of re-branding in the era of social media - examples of successes and failures - how re-branding should be used to inject social media into the core of a brand's DNA to bring about real change.

1. Rebranding with Digital Platforms:
Success Stories & Pitfalls
March 16th 2012
By Xie Qing

2. Agenda
1. The Brand Ecosystem
2. What is a Rebranding Social Media Strategy ?
3. Why Should You Have One?
4. Formulate Your Strategy
• Assess the Brand’s Social Assets
• Decide the Reasons to Rebrand
• Design the Best Way to Communicate the Transformation
10. The Social Rebranding
11. Key Take Aways
12. Questions

3. The Brand Ecosystem

4. All places in the brand ecosystem…
Brand
Ecosystem
Internal Social Media Search Paid Media Owned Media
Communications
Email Blogers/Forums Google Paid Search Brand Websites
Intranet Earned Media Partners Partner Sites
Earned/Paid
Partner Extranets Display Ads Micro Sites
Social CRM
Micro-targeted Ad WAP sites
Owned
Brand Bloggers Soacial Ads Mobile Apps
Moble Ads SMS Messaging
YouTube
Paid Owned
(Youku)
Facebook
(Sina
Weibo)
LinkedIn
Flickr
Twitter
Owned/Earned

6. The rebranding strategy
Rebranding is far more than just a change in visual identity and must be reflected across
the brand ecosystem.
Rebranding is far more than just press release announcements and must be
communicated across the brand ecosystem.
Rebranding is far more than a one-way message and must be part of a on-going two-way
conversation using the target audience’s preferred methods.

7. Why a rebranding strategy?
Without a rebranding social media strategy, you could damage your
brand, your reputation, and even your business.

8. There will always be COMPLAINTS,
CHANGE never comes easy
“Ugly…”
Stupid…
A generic “bargain brand”
Do any of these package-design people actually
shop for orange juice?
The new cartons “stink”

9. “You used to wait to go to
the water cooler or a cocktail
party to talk over
something.”
“Now, every minute is a cocktail
party, you write an e-mail and in
a couple of minutes, you’ve got a
fan base agreeing with you.”

10. Formulate Your Strategy

11. Social Assets
Rebranding Reasons
Communicate
Conversation

12. GAP redesigned its logo, but why?

13. GAP redesigned its logo, but why?

14. GAP turns to
crowdsourcing,
but why?

15. GAP reverts to original logo 7 days later
“We’ve learned a lot in this process. And we are clear that we did not go
about this in the right way. We recognize that we missed the opportunity to
engage with the online community. This wasn’t the right project at the right
time for crowd sourcing.
There may be a time to evolve our logo, but if and when that time comes,
we’ll handle it in a different way.”

16. What did GAP do wrong ?
Social Assets:
1. Know very little about its audience on
social media platforms due to lack of in-
depth engagement.
2. Poorly executed rollout
Reasons to Rebrand:
1. Think they can shortcut the brand
evolution by changing the visual identity.
2. Assume that they can carry the customers
with them during the journey, but they
failed to convince themselves internally.

18. Assess the brand’s social assets 1
1. The number of active social media channels.
2. The number of active fans and their preferred content form and tone of voice.
3. Indentify and evaluate influencers and brand supporters

19. Decide the reasons to rebrand
2
1. Rebranding to shed a negative image.
2. Rebranding due to emergent situations
3. Rebranding due to a new cooperative adventure.

20. Tap into daily conversations
3
1. Communicate the rebranding
message in a two way conversation
manner.
2. Be consistent and honest
3. Identify loyal supporters and
build a close relationship with
them. Have dedicated supporters
on your side; it is easier for you to
rally their support during a crisis.

21. Starbucks’ new logo – Combining Starbucks’ history
and future

22. “ This is not just, let’s
wake up one day and
change our logo. It is a
mirror change of the
“rebranding” strategy.”
-- Howard Schultz (CEO)

23. Starbucks’ new logo – Combining Starbucks’ history
and future
Facebook
Company website Youtube
Twitter

24. The Pepsi 25

25. The Pepsi 25

26. The Social Rebranding
*Coca cola brand strategy term

27. From “boring” to “innovative”
There’s something happening here at
Ford.
It's new. And it’s called Ford Social.
You will be surprised at what we’ve
already accomplished, but you’ll be
amazed at what we have planned.
Our story is for you to share.

28. From “boring” to “innovative”
Ford posted its highest annual income
in more than a decade – CNN on Jan.
28, 2012
33% of survey respondents are more
willing to consider buying a Ford…. -
Bloomberg News, May 1, 2009
Ford has taken over the U.S. as the
most popular automaker. –
Bloomberg, Mar. 2010

30. From “Chavs” to “Trendy”

32. From “Chavs” to “Trendy”

33. Key take-aways:
1. Know your social assets. Engage your audience on social media platforms on an
on-going basis.
2. Formulate your social media strategy to communicate the rebranding message in
the preferred content form.
3. Social rebranding: You have to make sure what you do is right for the moment you
live in.

34. Thank You… Questions?
Xie Qing
Regional Digital Strategist | Ogilvy & Mather, Hong Kong
EMAIL qing.xie @ogilvy.com
TWITTER MissXQ
SINA WEIBO MissXQ