It has been a few months now since we lastly rebranded our business. Today, we can confirm that this change was one of the best decisions the organization has made and is here to stay.
Rebranding is always a strategic move. Rebranding is always made with the intention to place an organization in the best position for success. When we first rebranded the organization from CodeLumen to CreatesGroup, we did not have the success we expected. In fact, we learned strong lessons:
Mistake 1. People got confused with two brands in the market. Rebranding always requires a lot of planning, design, and production time. That is to be expected, and acceptable. What is not acceptable however, is having customers see both the old brand and the new brand at the same time.
After the first rebranding, we confused our customers when they saw both CodeLumen (lighting) and CodeStones (stones) combined into one brand, CreatesGroup. We confused them when the new brand and the old brand were presenting conflicting messages on the email campaigns, social media posts, or even on our webpage. They probably thought the company was unprofessional because it was inconsistent.
Mistake 2. Changing people’s minds is hard. Assuming the first brand operated with some sort success, people have built up an expectation of what comes from the brand. They expect the logo and the features of the product or service. When we switched from CodeLumen to CreatesGroup, we were in a position in which the customer cannot find what they expect. In other words, CodeLumen was and has been a company focused in lighting.
However, when we changed to CreatesGroup, we immediately created confusion on our audience and customers. “Customers are generally not able or motivated to keep up with the change,” says branding thought leader, David Aaker, in his book Aaker on Branding, “and often resent something that removes the familiar.”
Mistake 3. Rebranding into a new market and new industry. We were into trouble because we were trying to speak to an entirely new set of people or start competing in a different industry, the stone industry. When we were CreatesGroup we were offering both solutions lighting (CodeLumen) and Stones (CodeStones). We lost identity and aspects of the CodeLumen brand’s public perception.
REBRANDING ONCE AND FOR ALL FROM CREATESGROUP TO CODELUMEN.
After analyzing and studying the two time periods of the organization performance, the initially branded CodeLumen vs the rebranded CreatesGroup periods, it was clear that the rebranding CreatesGroup was just no working. Given our circumstances and environment at the time, we decided to go back to our roots and rebrand the organization once again, now back to CodeLumen.
Rebranding was necessary. We compare it sort of like rebooting your computer; it was necessary to bring our original brand CodeLumen back to life and focus on what our passion is, lighting. Rebranding took time and proper planning. We needed to change the organization’s name, logo, colors, and other structural parts of the brand identity to move away from undesirable feelings and brand associations we had with CreatesGroup.
Today, after working some months under our new brand CodeLumen, we have increased our audience and engagement with our customers like never before. This is reflected in more leads, projects, and thus more sales. We are still learning and implementing new strategies to keep growing our audience. Rebranding the organization once again and for all from CreatesGroup to CodeLumen has been one of the best decisions we as an organization have made.
Interested in learning more? Contact us: info@clumen.com