As a franchisor, your franchises may have had the same identity for years. However, with changing markets and consumer tastes, you may consider adopting a new look or name. Nevertheless, rebranding your franchise can be a complex process. First, you must outline your goals and ensure you prepare your franchisees for the change. Hence, this article will outline how you can successfully rebrand your franchise.
This publication provides you with the fundamentals for franchising your New Zealand business, including set up, branding and management.
What Might a Rebrand Involve?
If your company has outgrown its design and logo, you may want to change it. You can also change your business name while ensuring it still reflects your brand identity. Consequently, you may need to update your:
- email templates;
- packaging;
- brand colours;
- website;
- business cards;
- fit-out; and
- uniforms.
When changing your logo, you need to go to the Intellectual Property Office of New Zealand (IPONZ) and request an alteration of your logo. If the request is accepted, your new logo will have a trade mark registration. However, if it is not accepted, you may be able to apply for a new trade mark registration on IPONZ.
Outline Your ‘Why’
Before attempting to rebrand your franchise, you must outline why you are executing such a step. You can determine your ‘why’ and goals through research. Hence, you can better organise your rebranding strategy and ensure you lead your franchises in the right direction.
You may choose to reinvent your business to:
- differentiate yourself from your competitors;
- target a new market;
- aim at international expansion;
- update your brand;
- better align with your mission; or
- align your brand with your new product and services.
Review Your Franchise Agreement
You cannot force a franchisee to spend money to conform with your new branding unless you have a contractual clause that entitles you to do so. Therefore, you should carefully check your franchise agreements with your franchisees before embarking on a rebrand to ensure this is contractually possible.
Inform Your Franchisees
Once you know your rebranding goals, you can begin to inform your stakeholders, including your franchisees. Discussing the changes with your franchisees may be difficult, and you must be prepared if they ask questions. You can discuss the potential rebrand with your franchisees during your research phase. As a result, your franchisees can give feedback on how they think the new brand may affect their business.
Furthermore, it would help if you aimed to share the following with your franchisees:
- your rebrand recommendation and changes;
- reasons for rebranding;
- roll-out plan;
- support for franchisees; and
- when changes may apply.
Moreover, you can create a timeline for your franchisees to help them understand the process. Hence, they can see when changes may occur within the company culture, marketing costs, training, and business activities. Finally, you must ensure that your potential rebrand fits within the clauses of the existing franchise agreement.
Testing the New Brand
Before rolling out the new brand in all your franchises, testing it in one location is best. Then, you can update your signage and marketing materials in one area and expose them to your consumers. Thereafter, you can measure the response to the new brand through sales, profits, or units sold. The last step would be to measure the results against the sales and profits of your previous brand to understand what works better.
Publicising the Brand
After testing, you can tweak the brand and determine the final product that all franchisees will adopt. It would help if you aimed to communicate transparently with your customers through several means, such as:
- social media;
- press releases;
- media agencies; and
- advertising.
Your franchises may experience increased traffic and interest through publicising the new brand. This is due to consumers better understanding the brand and feeling open with the company.
When publicising your brand, ensure not to make deceptive or misleading claims. Otherwise, you may breach your obligations under consumer laws. Moreover, it would help if you clarified with your consumers whether there are price changes regarding your products and services.
Key Takeaways
The first step to rebranding your franchise is to outline your goals through extensive research. Next, you need to understand why you are rebranding to formulate your brand strategy better. After that, you can inform your franchisees of the potential changes and gather feedback from them. You will need to test the initial rebrand in one franchise before fully publicising the new brand to your customers.
If you need help rebranding your franchise, you can contact our experienced franchise lawyers to assist as part of our LegalVision membership. You will have unlimited access to lawyers who can answer your questions and draft and review your documents for a low monthly fee. Call us today at 0800 005 570 or visit our membership page.
Frequently Asked Questions
You can try and apply for a trade mark alteration if your logo changes are minor. However, if your application is rejected, you must apply for new trade mark registration.
You can use social media, press, media agencies, advertising, and public relations.
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