The rebrand tax

Background and Methodology

1. Visual Credibility

In 2006, researchers tested how quickly people form a judgment about the credibility of a web page. Participants shown a page for 50 milliseconds, one twentieth of a second, reliably reported whether it looked credible. A separate group given unlimited time reached substantially the same verdicts, indicating that the slower assessment largely confirms the instant one.

A 2002 study by the Stanford Persuasive Technology Lab, conducted with Consumer WebWatch, examined what people cite when evaluating credibility. Among 2,684 participants, 46.1 percent of coded credibility comments referred to visual presentation alone, ranking ahead of the information on the page.

2. The Key Findings on Memory and Attribution

• 87 to 92% Recognition: In a 2008 study published in PNAS, participants viewed 2,500 photographs once each. Months later they recognized nearly nine in ten of them.
• 15% Correctly Attributed: In 2023, Ipsos, working with Jones Knowles Ritchie, tested more than 5,000 brand assets with more than 26,000 consumers. Approximately 15 percent were both recognized and tied back to the correct company.

The Role of Memory

The recognition finding works in a company’s favor. A single clear exposure to a strong image is retained, and the same image repeated over years builds into recognition, which buyers commonly treat as a proxy for reputation when assessing an unfamiliar firm.

The attribution finding is the problem. The remaining 85 percent of spend produces a vague, favorable memory of the category rather than of the company, and that memory tends to benefit whichever competitor the category recalls first. A company that teaches the market a look it will not keep is, in effect, advertising for the market leader.

The Cost of a Rebrand

Viewed against these findings, a rebrand functions as a liquidation of an existing asset. Whatever recognition the previous look had accumulated is discarded, the count of exposures begins again from zero, and the half-remembered impressions the market was still carrying are handed to the category leader. The company then spends approximately two years buying back an asset it previously owned. The design fee is the smallest part of the cost.

Implications for Your Business

• Choose Once: Select a look deliberately, make it simple enough to apply consistently, and keep it regardless of how tastes change.
• Consistency Over Preference: The company will tire of its own look long before the market has finished learning it. The firms that win on recognition retain their look after they are bored with it, deliberately.
• Repetition Over Expense: The research does not indicate that the look must be costly. It indicates that the look must be repeated.

In Conclusion

The evidence from perception, memory and attribution research converges on a single point: recognition is built slowly through repetition and destroyed quickly through change. The cost of a rebrand is measured not in the design invoice but in the years of accumulated recognition it discards. For most businesses, the conclusion is not a better rebrand but a look chosen once and maintained.