Rebranding gives businesses a new lease of life

Workers from Pelican Signs Company erect new signboard on the NSSF building during its rebranding exercise on September 12, 2012. Photo/SALATON NJAU  Nation Media Group

By Boniface Ngahu

In Summary

The grasshoppers live beyond their means by borrowing and saving less. Be inspired by the NSSF and Unaitas intentions and adopt more ant-like behaviours.

There has been an increase in the number of organisations that are rebranding.

These corporate makeovers are part of a bigger plan to redefine their businesses. Rebranding helps them to send a message of their new corporate intentions.

A Coca-Cola executive defined change as that ability to change while remaining the same.

He meant that by changing, there is an element of making your brand relevant to a dynamic environment by refreshing the way you present it to the world while remaining true to self.

It is similar to the way a reptile sheds its old skin or an aging eagle goes up the mountain and sheds off the old beak and feathers by dropping itself down the mountainside. This enables the reptile or the eagle to have a new look that lasts them for some time while enabling them to live longer than would have been possible in the old skin or feathers.

It can also be a painful process since it involves moving away from business as usual. British Airways learnt it the hard way when they re-branded by replacing the Union Jack with some ethnic designs derived from the various parts of the UK.

During the launch of the re-branded airline, the former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher expressed her displeasure at the new look by saying, “we don’t fly these funny things we fly the Union Jack”. The airline went back to the union jack as their corporate identity.

Some of the recent re-branded organisations in Kenya include Unaitas and the National Social Security Fund (NSSF).

The Unaitas case was a serious corporate makeover. It is a good case of a Saul-to-Paul Damascus experience. Rebranding from Muramati Sacco to Unaitas sent a good message of its corporate intentions.

First, it sounds global as opposed to the previously local name — targeting the many Kenyans in the diaspora who are looking for a safe haven to invest their money back home.

In one of their advertisements they show an old jacket, whereby the pocket was where the sacco used to keep members’ savings when it was founded. They also tell a story of how members sold their chickens in turns to pay workers when the organisation grew bigger.

The Unaitas story also covers the intergeneration interaction where the sacco is run by young people while members are much older.

This helps them to have the benefits of both worlds, the fresh thinking of the youth and the wisdom of the old. As their slogan states it is all about you and me. By rebranding they have sent a message to the world on their aim to unite us regardless of where we come from.

For NSSF, they changed their corporate look without changing their name. The intention to convert to a pension scheme is also implied in their new look.

They will have to reach out to the Kenyans in the informal sector who also need social security.

The green look is sign of life while the design portrays a heritage of nurturing and protecting your savings signified by the gold coin in the middle of the logo. NSSF have also adopted new behaviours like holding the first member-driven annual general meeting.

The intention to increase members’ contribution to six per cent of their salary should be taken positively. As the first pillar of the social security NSSF needs to be more ambitious in helping Kenyans to take care of their social security.

Are you an ant or a grasshopper? As Market Talk highlighted in the past your financial behaviour can either be similar to that of an ant or the grasshopper. The ants store some food for tomorrow everyday characterising a great saver.

On the other hand the grasshoppers are the happy go lucky spenders who eat the green grass during the season of plenty store nothing for the future. This results to great suffering and deaths when the dry spell strikes.

The grasshoppers live beyond their means by borrowing and saving less. Be inspired by the NSSF and Unaitas intentions and adopt more ant-like behaviours.

 

Mr Ngahu is the marketing director of SBO Research. E-mail: bngahu@sboresearch.co.ke.