When the brand name is not the problem
A brand name seems relative, until a company decides to change it.
Many rebranding decisions start with a recognisable irritation. The name feels dated. The visual identity feels too familiar. The market has changed, the company has grown, and internally the impression emerges that the brand no longer keeps up. That reasoning sounds logical, but it often starts from an internal perspective.
The market looks differently. What feels repetitive internally can still work externally as recognition. What feels familiar, or even tired, to a management team can be the memory cue that makes the brand accessible to customers, distributors, employees or future buyers.
A company should therefore not rebrand when the existing brand still carries valuable recognition. Rebranding is only justified when the strategic reason is stronger than the brand equity at risk.
A name carries more memory than it seems to carry
David Aaker described brand equity as a set of brand assets and liabilities linked to a brand name and symbol, which add to or subtract from the value of a product or service. Brand equity does not exist in the abstract. It attaches itself to concrete elements that people recognise, remember and use again.
The brand name is a particular element in that system. It is often the most verbal part of a brand. People pronounce it, search for it, pass it on, use it in buying conversations and remember it as an entry point into a company, product or service.
A strong brand name must therefore do more than sound good. It must fit strategically, work linguistically, travel internationally and remain legally defensible. That is why naming is not a separate creative exercise, but a strategic choice with legal consequences.
At the same time, even a less perfect name can carry significant brand equity. Some names have grown historically. Some feel local. Some might not make the same shortlist today. They can still be strong because they have been used, bought, seen and repeated for years.
A name gains value through use. Through packaging. Through distribution. Through habit. Through the fact that people know what to ask for, search for or recognise.
When a company changes a name, it does not only touch language. It touches memory.
Recognition rarely sits in one brand asset
A logo is often reduced to the brand name. In reality, it usually consists of at least four recognition elements: name, colour, emblem or graphic element, and typography.
Those elements work together. Sometimes they also become strong signals on their own. Coca-Cola is not only recognised by its name, but also by red, script lettering and bottle shape. IKEA carries recognition through blue and yellow. Ford in a different colour field would still retain something of Ford through typography and form, while part of the familiar system would disappear.
That does not make the name less important. It shows that strong brands build multiple memory cues.
Byron Sharp and Jenni Romaniuk describe such elements as distinctive brand assets: non-name cues such as colours, logos, shapes, packaging, patterns, symbols and sounds that help people notice, recognise and retrieve a brand. Their value does not lie in visual originality alone, but in the connection with the right brand.
A colour only becomes a brand asset when it is correctly attributed. An emblem is only strong when it does not merely stand out, but is recognised. Typography only becomes strategically relevant when it has been used consistently enough to build memory.
That is why it is risky to let go of too many recognition elements at once during a rebrand. The market then has to do more than get used to a new style. It has to relearn which signals belong to the brand.
Attention is no proof of brand building
Strong brand assets can attract a lot of attention when they are taken out of their normal context. Levi’s can trigger conversation with a blank tab. Spotify can create discussion with a disco ball or temporary visual gesture. adidas can activate immediate recognition with three stripes. Levi’s itself confirms that some products deliberately carry a blank tab and that the shape of the tab is protected as a brand asset in itself, separate from the name that appears on it.
Such examples show how much recognition a brand can build beyond the name. They also show the limit of that principle.
A campaign can attract attention by playing with absence, ambiguity or recognition. That can be creatively strong. Guerrilla marketing can be particularly relevant when it connects online visibility with offline presence. The problem does not sit in creativity.
The risk appears when a campaign mainly tries to prove how little branding a brand still needs.
A blank emblem remains blank for anyone who does not recognise the tab. Three stripes are powerful, but not every context or audience will automatically attribute them correctly. A disco ball can create conversation, but it only builds brand equity when the link with Spotify remains clear enough.
Strong campaigns usually do not win by leaving brand assets out, but by making them work better together. If the name can be visible, use it. If the emblem strengthens recognition, give it a role. Name, logo, colour, typography, packaging, tone of voice and product codes together make the brand easier to retrieve.
I wonder whether the Cécémel route was considered for all markets. Louis-Philip Cattoir, IP & Brand Strategist, Remarkable Europe
Cécémel shows how carefully a name change can be handled
The transition from Cécémel to Chocomel is interesting because, at first sight, it seems to revolve entirely around the name. After decades, Cécémel disappears as the Belgian name and becomes Chocomel, the name already used in other markets. The official brand page explains how Cécémel originated in Belgium because Chocomel could not be launched under that name at the time.
From a brand portfolio and international scalability perspective, the choice is understandable. One name across markets simplifies a portfolio and reduces exceptions in communication, packaging and management.
The strongest strategic choice lies in what is preserved.
The yellow packaging remains recognisable. The product remains the same. The familiar taste remains central. The slogan “De enige échte” remains present. The official communication speaks about a new name for a product that does not change.
Whether Chocomel is the best name for Belgium remains a relevant question. The name is more internationally coherent, while Cécémel carried local memory. The more interesting lesson lies in the way the change is absorbed. The verbal asset changes, while the other recognition elements consciously continue to carry memory.
That makes a name change less fragile. Not because the name has little value, but because the brand understands which other assets are needed to transfer recognition.
Nalu shows how a new name gains meaning
Nalu follows a different logic. There was no historical brand name that had to be protected. A new name had to be developed for Coca-Cola’s feel-good energy drink, with distance from the aggressive codes of classic energy drinks. The name Nalu was inspired by the Hawaiian word for wave movements and supported a fresher, more positive energy experience.
A fantasy name such as Nalu creates strategic space. It does not describe the product literally and can therefore be filled through positioning, identity, packaging and use. That openness is valuable, provided the brand consistently builds meaning around the name.
A new name is therefore not an endpoint. It is a starting point for memory.
That is why a name must fit within the brand strategy, work within a visual and verbal system, and be legally available and defensible through Legal Brand Protection. Since 1989, Remarkable has combined those strategic, creative and legal dimensions in-house.
A new name creates freedom. That freedom only gains value when the brand fills it consistently.
Radical change asks for more than visibility
Jaguar shows how sensitive that balance becomes when a brand consciously breaks with many existing codes. The recent repositioning was presented as a new phase, with a new visual language, new brand codes and a distinctive platform around “Copy Nothing” and “Delete Ordinary”. Jaguar itself speaks of “New name. New era.”
That choice deserves nuance. Jaguar wants to take a different position as a luxury electric brand and comes from a complex strategic context. Sometimes a new position requires a clear break.
The broader lesson remains relevant. When many recognition elements change at the same time, the assessment shifts. The public does not only look at the new direction. It also searches for what still connects to the brand it knew.
A radical rebrand must therefore do more than stand out. It must build new memory structures strong enough to replace the old ones. That requires more than a first wave of attention.
Attention can emerge quickly. Brand equity asks for repetition, recognition and proof over time.
Evolution can be more strategic than renewal
KFC shows another route. The recent refresh preserves the recognisable elements: red and white, Colonel Sanders, the bucket and the broader visual language people already know. According to It’s Nice That, JKR did not try to make KFC look like a new brand, but sharpened and systematised the existing assets.
That is often the stronger form of rebranding. Not starting from the question of what can all be different, but determining which elements already carry value and how they can work better.
Some assets deserve more weight. Others need to become simpler. Some have become noise. The quality of a rebrand lies in that selection.
That selection is strategic, creative and legal at the same time. The stronger a colour, shape, packaging or emblem becomes, the more important consistent use and protection become. A recognition element can only become an asset when it is distinctive enough and consistently connected to the brand.
Structure. Create. Protect. That logic does not only apply to new brands. It is just as decisive when an existing brand changes.
When rebranding becomes the wrong reflex
Rebranding is rarely the right solution when fatigue mainly sits internally. A brand that feels familiar in a presentation can still be clear, recognisable and valuable in the market.
A rebrand is also risky when the real problem sits in the brand architecture. An unclear brand portfolio does not become clear by itself through a new name or visual identity. A weak positioning does not become stronger through a more modern system. Inconsistent use is not solved by new guidelines when the underlying choices remain unclear.
There are moments when rebranding is necessary. In a merger. During international expansion. In a repositioning. When there is legal vulnerability. When a name can no longer travel, no longer fits or is no longer defensible enough.
Then change is not a cosmetic exercise. It is a strategic choice.
The first question is therefore not how striking the new identity can be. The first question is which recognition already exists, what value it carries and which elements the brand can afford to let go.
A brand does not become stronger by renewing everything. It becomes stronger when it is clear what must remain.
