Rebranding relevance: How PR can breathe new life into tired brands
Communicators need to stay on top of trends to keep brands fresh.
Few brands remain at the top of their field forever. They can coast on your past reputation for a while, but eventually, it will lose its luster. Then, creative communicators need to find new ways to show their value to new generations who might see them as old-fashioned or not think of them at all.
Public relations should be at the forefront of any reinvention strategy, according to Jacqueline Babb, a senior lecturer at Medill School of Journalism, Media, Integrated Marketing Communications at Northwestern University.
“Brand and reputation go hand-in-hand,” Babb said. “Being able to reshape stakeholder (customers and investors) perceptions is going to be critical to the success of any rebranding efforts.”
Breathing life into a tired brand
Sometimes a brand loses its cultural relevance – whether it’s because the imaging is a bit tired or perhaps the product itself feels antiquated.
That was the case for Anne Marie Squeo’s PR team while she was chief communications and brand officer Xerox from 2019 to 2021. She described the company as having “receded from the zeitgeist for many years.”
In response, Squeo’s team decided to shift its messaging focus from its printers – “which weren’t very exciting” – to the colors they could create. With a series of videos that connected to relevant events, such as the US Open tennis tournament, holidays, fashion, etc., the team featured its print experts alongside external ones discussing various topics such as the perception of metallics and the real color of a tennis ball.
Taking a page out of paint companies’ playbook, Xerox announced it’d chosen “clear” as its 2020 color of the year. The revamped approach generated press coverage and brought a refresh to the brand, said Squeo, founder and CEO of Proof Point Communications.
Squeo said it aimed to “signal to the world that we were waking up the sleeping giant.”
Xerox experienced an immediate brand excitement, Squeo said. However, it struggled to sustain that success in part because the overarching brand failed to adapt its business model to consumer trends, leading to struggles and a “reinvention” of the company’s business operations.
This is a reminder that even great PR can only do so much in terms of driving sales. It’s important that communications objectives should flow from organizational objectives.
Reacting to a changed cultural landscape
One product Babb believes has done a great job reacting to changed cultural preferences is Crocs – the famously ugly, utilitarian clog that took the world by storm in the early 2000s.
The company originally found great success with its focus on comfort and practicality. However, after concerns about foot health risks stemming from the shoe and ridicule of its no-frills design, the company was on the verge of going belly-up by 2009.
When Andrew Rees became CEO in 2017, he shifted the brand’s focus to making clogs cool and raising awareness about its other options, such as sandals.
The brand has turned to more over-the-top and silly product designs – such as clogs with heels and specialty themed footwear geared toward children, such as the “Wednesday Addams” edition. Crocs recently released footwear for dogs which sold out the same day.
“(Crocs) embraced ‘ugliness’ as part of its ethos, emphasizing joy and its unique style for leaning into a more unconventional aesthetic,” Babb said.
All social media images feature playful messaging that mirrors the relaxed, “who cares?” vibe of the products it now offers. The company also tapped into a relationship with a range of influencers, such as musician Carter Vail and singer Post Malone – leading to a reemergence of the brand, especially among teens.
PR pros can use this as an example of taking a step back to look at their product and showcase how it best relates to the current cultural landscape.
The value of a brand
Babb described brands as “intangible assets with tangible value” for companies. A positive brand identity is likely the reason a consumer wants to associate with a company and makes them feel comfortable paying for a product.
A bad reputation will have the opposite, negative effect.
Abercrombie & Fitch is an example of a brand that has experienced both ends of that spectrum over the past few years.
After being voted America’s most hated retailer just eight years ago, Abercrombie worked to move away from an over-sexualized image, which didn’t resonate with Gen Z or even the millennials that had grown up with the brand. The brand’s PR leaned into shared media to announce #AbercrombieIsBack on social media, knowing the importance of changing customer perceptions of their reputation. Posts featured new, more relaxed fit clothing, such as sweaters and trendy cargo pants.
And in that transition, the company managed to restore millennial love for the brand.
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“They decided to dig deep into customer insights about the millennial audience that grew up with and loved Abercrombie and are now young professionals,” Babb said.
However, much of that good work is now being undercut by a scandal involving its former CEO, Mike Jeffries, accused of various sex crimes. Its stock price has suffered.
Abercrombie has sought to distance itself from Jeffries and his association with the company. In social media posts, A&F highlighted that Jeffries hasn’t worked there in nearly 10 years and the company also has moved on from the image he created for the brand.
Babb expressed a belief that those types of efforts to distance from unsavory elements of a brand’s history are important to withstand continued blowback.
“In a world where everything is an ad network, from the top of a taxi to the televisions in Walmart, authentic messages from humans are essential,” Babb said.
Casey Weldon is a reporter for PR Daily. Follow him on LinkedIn.
