On this, slightly different, episode of Build Better Brands, Danielle Clarke is joined by Michael Janda (and a live audience) to discuss big branding mistakes that companies make. They cover several examples of rebranding failures, such as the Leeds United and Gap rebrands, as well as the importance of valid reasons for rebranding and why businesses should be careful with brand research. They also talk about the importance of building a community for your brand, choosing the right social media channels, and the fear of social media and personal branding. Michael and Danielle also touch on the topic of recession and how brands can survive during a recession. They emphasise the importance of speed to market and choosing the right brand name. Overall, this episode provides valuable insights into branding and marketing, highlighting the importance of avoiding mistakes and making informed decisions when it comes to rebranding, social media, and building a community for your brand, especially for business owners and marketers looking to enhance their branding strategies and avoid costly mistakes. KEY TAKEAWAYS Leeds United’s rebrand, changing their logo was a mistake. The Premier football club has a rich history and heritage going back about 100 years, which is something that fans really care about. In January 2018 they unveiled their new crest after 6 months of research, questioning about 10,000 people, and it received a huge backlash from the fans. 77,000 fans started a petition to reverse the rebrand. So, if you ever decide to rebrand it’s really, really important to make sure what your true fans really want. GAP spent $100 million dollars on a rebrand on their new logo, and it was up for six days before they bailed on it because the backlash was so massive. They got 2,000 negative comments on Twitter, 14,000 parody designs were posted on the make-your-own-gap-logo website. I love when people hijack a trend like that! They’d seen slumping sales, nothing dramatic, but they’d made an assumption that a rebrand was required to solve that. Some reasons to rebrand: If you want to appeal more to a different audience, if the data suggests you should rebrand (slumping sales, losing market share to a new competitor), if you’re still hobbling along with your startup brand but you business has taken off and it needs to level up so it reflects the company as it is today – like Google did with its ugly serif font logo. In 2001 Royal Mail spent £1.5 million to rebrand to Consignia and it was such an epic fail they really did their best to cover it up and make people forget it happened. No one knew how to say ‘Consignia’ and that the public thought was ridiculous, it was too long, too fussy and just didn’t feel comfortable to say. Within just over a year they completely scrapped it and spent another £1 million to get it back to where it was before. The moral of that story is pick a name that people can say and feel comfortable saying and that aligns to what you already do, especially if you have the history and position you have in the market.   BEST MOMENTS ‘There’s a difference between you audience and who your ‘true fans’ are.’‘When doing research sometimes people feel like they have to answer in a certain way to ‘pass the quiz’. If you don’t do your research right and ask non-leading questions, you can have massively skewed results in your research.’‘Why are you doing a rebrand in the first place? Oftentimes we’ll find with a client that they have brand fatigue – they’re sick of their own brand – and will want to change it to the detriment of their own business.’‘Don’t kneejerk, take your time, think about it, do some brand strategy, don’t confuse your customer.’ ABOUT THE GUEST Michael Janda: I am an award-winning creative director, designer, agency owner and author. In 2002, I founded the creative agency Riser, which provided design and development services for clien