What Is Rebranding — Why Companies Change Logos and Names
"Sberbank became Sber", "Mail.ru became VK", "Twitter became X" — every few months another major brand announces a "rebrand". But the word covers wildly different things: from a tweaked shade in the logo to a complete change of name and strategy. Let's unpack what rebranding actually is, when it's justified and what it costs.
Rebranding is a change of brand positioning: how a company wants to be perceived and by whom. A new logo is just the visible tip. If only the picture changes, that's a redesign (or restyling), not a rebrand. Valid reasons for a true rebrand: a changed business model, a merger, new markets, a damaged reputation, or a name the product has outgrown.
Rebranding vs redesign vs restyling
Often confused, fundamentally different:
| Term | What changes | Example |
|---|---|---|
| Restyling | cosmetics: shades, type, mark details | Google 2010 — shadows cleaned up |
| Redesign | the logo and visual style as a whole | Google 2015 — new type and system, same brand |
| Rebranding | positioning: name, audience, brand promise | Sberbank → Sber: from a bank to an ecosystem |
A simple test: if after the change the company answers "who are we and for whom" differently — it's a rebrand. If it answers the same but looks fresher — it's a redesign. We covered gradual redesigns in the Apple and Yandex stories.
When a rebrand is justified
- The business outgrew the name. The classic: Sber dropped "bank" from its name because the company became an ecosystem with delivery, music and cloud services (details in the Sber logo history). For the same reason Mail.ru Group became VK — see the VKontakte logo history.
- A merger or acquisition. Two brands need one face — or the acquired brand dissolves into the parent.
- New markets. The name is unreadable, unpronounceable or means something embarrassing in the new market's language.
- A reputation crisis. Sometimes it's easier to change the sign than scrub the old one. Works only alongside real change — otherwise the audience transfers the negativity to the new name within months.
- A new owner with a new strategy. The record‑setter: Twitter becoming X. Elon Musk replaced one of the planet's most recognizable marks (the blue bird) with a letter, declaring a shift from social network to "everything app". Brand‑value loss estimates ran into billions — a case we touched on in the most expensive logos.
"The CEO is bored of the logo" is the worst reason. Recognition is accumulated capital: audiences spend years linking a mark to a company. Burn it only for a strategy the old brand genuinely cannot hold. If the mark just looks dated — restyling is enough.
What a rebrand consists of
The full cycle is not "draw a new logo" — design sits near the end of the sequence:
- Audit. Research: how customers, employees and the market perceive the brand. What works, what hinders.
- Strategy. New positioning: audience, promise, character, differentiation.
- Verbal identity. Name (if changing), slogan, tone of voice.
- Visual identity. Logo, palette, typography, graphics — everything fixed in the brand book. Choosing the mark type: types of logos.
- Legal work. Clearance and trademark registration — before launch, not after.
- Rollout. The most expensive phase: website, apps, signage, packaging, vehicles, documents, merch. For a national retailer, replacing signs can cost more than all the design work.
- Communication. Explain to the audience what happened and why — or people will assume "their" brand simply vanished.
What it costs
The order of magnitude depends radically on scale. A freelancer and a template restyling cost tens of thousands of rubles; a mid‑size business rebrand by a studio — hundreds of thousands to several million; a national brand with research, strategy and full rollout — hundreds of millions (public estimates for Sber's 2020 rebrand started at 2.5 billion rubles including signage and hardware). A detailed price breakdown for the design part is in how much a logo costs.
Checklist: how not to fail a rebrand
- State the reason in one sentence. "We are rebranding because …" If what follows is "the old one got boring" — stop.
- Budget the rollout before you start. Design is 10–20% of the cost; the rest is replacing media.
- Clear the name and mark legally before the announcement: a taken trademark turns a launch into a disaster; we cover how to check and register a mark separately.
- Plan a transition period. Old and new marks coexist for a while: redirects, a "we changed our name" banner, updated social profiles (platform requirements: logo sizes for websites and social media).
- Don't burn capital for nothing. Evolution usually beats revolution: Sber kept its green and circular motif, VK kept the blue and the monogram. A clean break like X is the extreme, expensive path.
Mini‑cases from the catalog
- Sber, 2020 — the benchmark "evolution": a shorter name, the checkmark became a gradient chevron, the green stayed. Goal: from bank to tech ecosystem.
- VK, 2021 — a holding‑level rebrand: the product's name became the company's, the network's mark became the umbrella brand.
- X, 2023 — revolution: name, mark and positioning changed at once; the textbook example of what that costs.
- T-Bank, 2024 — a forced rebrand: Tinkoff Bank changed its name after parting ways with its namesake founder, keeping the yellow shield and its recognition.
Current logo versions from all these cases are in our catalog: SVG and PNG, free, with each brand's exact colors.