Rebranding is one of those decisions that looks straightforward from the outside and turns out to be anything but. A brand refresh done well can breathe new life into a product and open it up to new audiences. Done badly — or done when it wasn’t needed — it can alienate loyal customers and create confusion in the market. The question is never really “should we rebrand?” but “why, and what exactly needs to change?”
There are clear signals that something needs to shift. If the brand feels visually dated compared to where the market has moved, that is worth addressing. If the business has genuinely evolved — new audience, new values, new product range — the packaging should reflect that. But if the motivation is simply boredom, or someone at the top fancies a change, that is rarely a good enough reason to disrupt something that customers already recognise and trust.
My rule of thumb: evolve, don’t erase. The best rebrands retain the equity that has been built up over time — the colour, the mark, the general personality — while modernising the execution. Customers should feel the brand has grown up, not that it has been replaced by a stranger.