Brand repositioning is the process of changing how your brand is perceived in the market — shifting its position relative to competitors, targeting a different audience or claiming a different space in the mind of the customer. It may or may not involve changes to the visual identity.
When the current positioning no longer reflects the business, when you’re targeting a new audience or entering a new market, when competitors have moved to occupy your existing space, or when the positioning is limiting growth.
Not always. Repositioning can sometimes be achieved through messaging and communication strategy without changing the visual identity. In other cases, the visual identity needs to change to signal the new positioning credibly.
The strategy phase typically takes four to eight weeks. Implementation — updating materials, communication channels and sales approaches to reflect the new position — takes considerably longer.
Through tracking changes in brand perception, monitoring how target audiences describe and respond to the brand, and measuring commercial outcomes — enquiry quality, conversion rates and customer profile — over time.
This is a genuine risk and one that should be assessed before committing to repositioning. Research with existing customers helps establish what’s at risk and informs decisions about the pace and nature of the change.
Yes. Moving upmarket is a common repositioning objective. It typically requires changes to pricing, messaging, visual identity and the types of clients and projects the business pursues, all of which need to be consistent with each other.
Senior leadership, sales and marketing are the core team. Customer insight — gathered through research — should inform the process, as repositioning without customer validation carries significant commercial risk.
Yes, and it often should. The most durable repositioning is one that reflects genuine changes in how the business operates and what it values, not just how it presents itself. Culture and brand need to be aligned.
Moving too far from existing strengths and losing existing customers without successfully attracting new ones. Repositioning is most successful when it’s a credible evolution of existing distinctiveness, not a wholesale reinvention.