Rebrand or refresh? How to know what your business actually needs
Brand strategy
SEO
13 Nov 2026
Dan Masters
SEO executive
If your brand is lagging behind your competitors, you might be considering overhauling your branding. Knowing when to commit to an overhaul is one decision but understanding the difference between a brand refresh and a rebrand can ensure that your branding project is as successful as possible.
Updating your branding can be a long and costly process, and if not handled correctly can be detrimental to your business. So, what is the difference between rebranding and refreshing? And how can you make sure that your branding project lands with your target audience?
Key takeaways
- The key difference: A rebrand is a complete overhaul of visuals, messaging and values. Sometimes this includes a change in brand names. A brand refresh updates existing assets
- Outdated branding costs trust and sales: 75% of consumers abandon purchases because of an outdated brand
- Consistency matters: 52% of consumers prefer small updates every few years, whereas 17% welcome frequent changes
- Purpose: Branding changes need to be grounded in reason. Don’t change because it feels like the right time, change because you have the right data to prove you need to
- Decide on scope before you start: Understand how much your branding project needs to cover before you begin
What's the difference between a brand refresh and a rebrand?
Where a rebrand can include a complete overhaul of a brand's visual identity, values and messaging, a refresh is a less drastic approach focusing on bringing a brand’s visuals up to date with modern trends.
Rebranding
Rebranding is a way of wiping the slate clean and starting afresh with completely new visuals and messaging. While usually as consumers we can only see the visual standpoint, it can also affect the internal strategy and positioning. This can include:
A brand new logo
- New colour palette
- Overhaul in typography
- Completely new brand messaging
- A new website
- A change in mission, vision and values
- A new name
Many of these elements are built again from the ground up, with the intention of repositioning a brand so that it can better resonate with its target audience, or a new target audience entirely. A rebrand can also help to better reflect a brand’s values.
Brand refresh
Refreshing a brand is more about updating existing assets and messaging to keep it modern and relevant while maintaining its core identity. While it’s a much less intensive process than a full-on rebrand, it still requires a visual overhaul. A brand refresh might include:
- Updates to pre-existing logos
- A refreshed colour palette
- Revised brand messaging
- Changes to the visual elements of a website
- Revised mission, vision and values
The core difference of the two is the level of changes needed. Both projects involve a lot of the same elements, but where a brand refresh often revises pre-existing elements, a full rebranding takes on a larger scope, starting anew.
Why do a brand refresh?
Brand refreshes often take on an “If it isn’t broke, don’t fix it” mentality. By keeping what works in your current branding and updating it for modern audiences, it saves your brand from being left behind. With 75% of consumers abandoning purchases due to outdated websites and visuals, outdated factors like these could mean that users are less likely to trust a brand, and therefore less likely to make a purchasing decision.
A report from Clutch indicates that 52% of consumers prefer small updates every few years, over 17% who welcome frequent changes. From this, we can infer that audiences want consistency in a brand’s look and feel, and constant changes can reduce trust. Therefore, it’s vital to ensure that branding changes be undertaken in one consistent project.
When should a business rebrand?
The key to successfully rebranding is knowing when the time is right. This shouldn’t be based on when your competitors have rebranded, a change in leadership and it especially shouldn’t be done based on “vibes”. Research shows 80% of consumers are influenced by brand consistency, and only 51% have a positive reaction to it. A fully-fledged rebrand should be led with purpose.
Similar to a refresh, you might want to rebrand if the current brand appears old-fashioned. Other reasons could include a change in direction that no longer fits with the current branding, such as a change in target audience or products and services.
Another key reason behind a rebrand is issues with a brand’s current image. If a business has been affected by a scandal, crisis, or just low consumer trust, a rebrand can help distance it from the past.
At Cartwright, we took on a rebranding project in 2025, indicating a shift in our offering to include a mix of digital marketing and PR. We completely overhauled our visual branding, website, messaging and more.
"We did the rebrand for a number of reasons - definitely because we wanted people to visually understand that we were now a national and full-service agency, not a regional PR agency, but it was also to show our personality and difference instantly. You get a feel for who we are and therefore what it is like working with us."
"This is much better for finding the right client match and employee matches too. It was also part of the change of our company structure that included the creation of the new founder and joint MD roles."
- Rose Hayes, Managing director at Cartwright
How do you decide between a brand refresh and a rebrand?
Before starting a rebranding project, you first need to reason why you are doing it. If you are rebranding without true purpose and backing, you’re falling over at the first hurdle. Establish your core reasons for rebranding, point out where your brand is failing and use this information to lead into the next steps.
Next, decide on the scope of your project. If you’re looking at rebranding due to outdated or confusing visuals, then consider if a refresh project may be better. If you build on pre-existing branding, then you can maintain some pre-existing trust from your current audience. If you’re experiencing a major shift in direction or audience, then a complete rebranding may be in order.
How do you rebrand your business?
Once you’ve decided on the scope of your project, you’ll need to invest resources into updating your assets, messaging and overall strategy. Changes to branding aren’t limited to what your consumers see but how your business operates. Updates to messaging mean that your internal approach may need to change as well.
Explain these changes to your wider team, and how it directly affects them. Timing a rebrand with major operational changes can help roll out these changes all at once. Transparency around rebranding is key to reducing scepticism from consumers and clients, so positioning this rebrand to your audience is key.
Overall, a successful branding project is driven by purpose and executed clearly. A refresh should be consistent with previous branding, but updated for more modern tastes, whereas a rebrand needs to be purposeful and transparent.
If you’re looking for an ally to help with your rebrand or brand refresh, get in touch. We can help you make the right decisions for a successful branding project.
