Brand relaunch: Common mistakes and how to avoid them

A brand relaunch is a complex strategic repositioning – not just a redesign. It often fails because of missing governance, weak implementation, or unclear change management. This guide shows how to steer clear of the major pitfalls.

Why brand relaunches often fail

A brand relaunch is far more than updating a logo or introducing a new color palette. It’s a strategic realignment of your brand – with impacts on perception, internal and external representation, and brand value. In practice, many relaunches fail due to operational, creative or governance based hurdles. The result: employees become overwhelmed, the relaunch drags on, and your brand ends up appearing inconsistent.

Studies show that in everyday brand communication mismatches frequently occur: for example, only 76 % of externally‐sent documents and presentations follow the brand guidelines – approximately one third of all communications therefore deviate from the brand strategy. That discrepancy underscores how great the challenge is and how important thoughtful preparation and consistent execution are for a successful relaunch.
In this article we will explain the primary sources of failure in a brand relaunch, and provide you with a guide to how you can avoid them.

Brand relaunch: The most frequent mistakes

In many relaunch projects we see recurring mistakes – grouped here into five central categories:

1.    Lack of strategic foundation

Many brands kick off a relaunch project with a purely visual perspective – logo, colors, fonts – without sufficient strategic grounding: brand architecture, audience insights, competitive advantages. A brand relaunch without a mature strategy runs the risk that while the outcome may look “nice,” it is neither relevant nor differentiating.

2.    Creative Ddecisions without a brand foundation

Once the strategy is defined, many teams launch into creative work too early – without a clear link to the brand identity. Trends or aesthetics dominate instead of brand value and brand perception. The result: design that appears modern yet lacks a clear identity.

3.    Underestimating operational complexity

A brand relaunch does not end with a new logo or a new website – it begins with the rollout across all touchpoints, documents and systems. In many organizations the focus is largely on the launch day of the new brand. The communication of the launch is meticulously planned. But what comes afterwards? What happens with existing content in the old design? Who takes responsibility for the migration? How do teams ensure that outdated templates are not still being used?

If systems, templates or tools are not prepared, a break in the brand image becomes unavoidable: outdated slides, parallel design worlds, wasted time and high manual correction efforts.

4.    Lacking governance and missing quality assurance

Governance means: responsibilities, processes, tools and controls. The study shows that 58 % of respondents regard following brand guidelines in presentations and documents as tedious and time consuming. Without clearly defined roles, rights and verifiable standards no relaunch can be executed consistently – especially within large organizations with decentralized teams or international locations.

5.    Insufficient change management

A relaunch affects not only the external appearance, but the behaviour of employees. If change management is neglected, “shadow brands” emerge – employees resort to their own solutions, templates continue to be created ad hoc, guidelines are ignored. Instead of brand embedding, you end up with a pattern of inconsistency.

How to make a brand relaunch successful

A successful brand relaunch integrates strategy, creativity and operational implementation. Here are five practical steps:

1.    Strategic preparation

• Conduct brand, competitor and target group analyses
• Define a clear target vision and KPI framework (for example: brand awareness, brand fit, design compliance)
• Review and adjust brand architecture, positioning and story

2.    Creative translation of the brand strategy

• Develop a core brand idea, design principles and tone of voice
• Ensure consistency across all touchpoints
• Build a scalable corporate design system with modular building blocks rather than individual applications

3.    Technical implementation and systems launch

• Harmonize and integrate tools used in daily work (for example: Microsoft Office templates, presentation software, DAM systems)
• Introduce automated templates, central brand assets, version control

4.    Rollout strategy

• Global versus local rollout: prioritise central touchpoints first
• Create an operational playbook with a timeline, migration of old assets and responsibilities
• Pilot the rollout in selected teams and extend gradually

5.    Change management: Treat the relaunch as a culture moment

• Provide training, internal communication, brand champions
• Use gamified onboarding, social sharing of successes
• Measure adoption: How many employees use the official templates and brand assets? How many individual presentations deviate?

How branding solutions like empower^® facilitate brand relaunches

As a provider of solutions for brand and document creation and control, we support organizations in the operational rollout and technological enablement:

• Reduction of operational complexity through central templates and asset libraries as well as integrated brand guidelines
• Ensuring brand consistency via automated design checks and AI features
• Scalable brand governance, even in global organisations
• Company wide rollout of new brand assets - distribution of templates and email signatures with one click

Our approach: As an enabler, not a control element, we support you in transferring the brand relaunch not only visually but sustainably into brand management.

Real-world example: Bayer’s relaunch success

A good example of operationally successful brand rollout is provided by Bayer.
The starting situation: The new brand had been launched, templates were ready – but in practice presentations were still often incorrectly or incompletely executed.

The solution: Bayer supplemented the PowerPoint master with an automatic start slide featuring five clear tips for correct use of the new templates – right at the point where employees begin their work.

Among others:

• Begin presentations directly in the official templates or convert existing slides to the new design with one click
• Save time by accessing both modern and classic Bayer templates
• Use the integrated design check to ensure colours, fonts and layouts are brand compliant

This simple measure showed major impact:

• Template usage increased by 66 %
• Use of brand graphics rose by 43 %
• Overall use of brand compliant content grew by 46 %

This was enabled among other things by empower^®, which integrates such features directly in the master – but the approach is adaptable regardless of the tool: brand management succeeds when orientation takes place where the work is done, not in the intranet, but directly in the tool where employees begin (e.g., PowerPoint).

In our interview, Sven Theobald from Bayer discusses how the company broke down rigid structures and made brand management more agile.

Takeaway: A brand relaunch as an opportunity for clear, modern and resilient brands

A brand relaunch is a strategic opportunity – for new relevance, more efficient processes and consistent brand governance. Yet in practice the focus often remains on visible elements like the logo or website, while implementation in everyday workflow is neglected.
What matters is that strategy, design and operational reality work together – only then does a relaunch become a sustainable new beginning.

Focus on:

• a clear strategic foundation,
• creative execution with substance,
• operational systems that function and trained teams
• and measurable brand effect in day to day operations.

Because 93 % of those surveyed say that consistent design fosters trust – consistency is not a detail but a competitive advantage.

What does this mean for your next brand project? Find out how empower^® can support your brand relaunch in Microsoft 365. Request a free consultation today!

Bonus: When is a brand relaunch worthwhile?

Before you embark on a relaunch project, a well founded assessment is required. Typical triggers include:

• Market changes or disruptive competitors
• Mergers or acquisitions (M&A)
• Outdated brand image that no longer fits the corporate strategy
• Loss of image or trust in the target group
• Growth into new markets or segments that demand a new brand architecture

At the same time a relaunch is not automatically the solution for every brand problem. Often a targeted brand refresh (for example: adjusting brand messages or touchpoints) is sufficient – a full relaunch can be over‐scaled and resource intensive.

Ask yourself:

• Are we changing our strategy, audience, or business model?
• Are there clear problems with our brand image?
• Do we have the people and tools to manage a relaunch?
• Is our brand strong enough to carry this change?

If yes, a relaunch can move your brand forward. If not, consider a smaller refresh.