Rebranding for Manufacturing Companies.
A rebrand here starts with the decision about what the company stands for and ends with an identity built to carry it. Positioning takes about a month. Positioning through a full identity system takes about three. The full brand package, covering positioning, messaging, identity design, and a launch plan, is $40,000, and the price is on this page. Identity design is also sold on its own, scoped on a call.
Most rebrands start at the wrong end
The call usually opens with the logo. It dates from 2009, the website says "quality and service," and every quote still comes down to price. So the owner asks for a new look, the agency delivers logo directions in month one, and eighteen months later the company is competing on price with a fresh coat of paint on the same problem.
The most expensive rebrand in manufacturing is the one done twice, because the logo came before the strategy and had to be redone once the company figured out what it stood for. A rebrand is a decision about what the company stands for, made visible. When that decision has changed, or needs to, the rebrand pays for itself. When it has not, you are buying paint.
So we run it in order. Fix the positioning. Rebuild the message. Then design the identity. Then rebuild the website and the sales materials on it. Then roll it out everywhere your buyers look. The long version, with when to do it and what to fix first, is in our guide to rebranding a manufacturing company.
What a rebrand includes here
The positioning. Which buyers you serve, why you cost more, and how you prove it, decided with you and written down. You get a strategic positioning document your sales team can use on Monday morning. The mechanics are on our page for brand positioning for manufacturers.
The message. The sentence your reps, your website and your quotes all say the same way, and the messaging matrix behind it, so the identity has something to carry.
The identity system. A logo system with minimum sizes worked out from building signage down to a phone screen, a color palette, typography, and brand guidelines your team and your vendors can follow without calling us.
The launch plan. Brand rollout is where strategy meets the shop floor. The plan sequences the visible switch around your inventory, your trade show calendar, and your customers' reorder cycles, and it puts the same words in the crew's mouth, the sales deck, and the website.
Identity on its own. If your position is already sharp, we design the identity system by itself. Same system, same standards, scoped on a call.
After the package. The website and the sales materials get rebuilt on the new position. The website is separate from the package and scoped on its own, once the identity is settled, so nothing gets designed twice.
Keep the name
We rarely suggest a client change the name. A new name brings a domain, a trademark search and filing, new signage, new packaging, updated registrations in every customer's purchasing system, and a year of reminding the market who you are.
Naming always takes longer than the rest of the work, and most of the time the name was never the problem.
The one exception is a name that has to overcome terrible press. When the market has attached something to the name that the company cannot outlive, the name changes, and the rebrand is built around getting clear of it. Outside that case, keep the substance and change the expression.
What it costs and how long it takes
Almost nobody in this category publishes a price. Ours is here.
Executive Brand Coaching
For the owner whose year-one cash is committed to the business, Executive Brand Coaching runs the same positioning work weekly, with you. The rebrand becomes a decision you make later, with evidence in hand.
$1,500/mo.
month to month, with no minimum.
Brand Foundations
The full brand package, covering positioning, messaging, identity design, and a launch plan.
$40,000
Positioning alone, identity design alone, and the website are each scoped on a call.
Positioning takes about a month. Positioning through a full identity system takes about three months. If the name changes, plan on longer, because naming always takes longer than the rest of the work.
Identity design on its own. When the position is already settled, we design the identity system by itself. Scoped on a call. The website is separate from the package and scoped on its own as well. If you would rather work week to week with a person than commit to a package, that is our brand strategy consultant engagement.
Four things move the price, at any agency. How far past positioning you go, because identity adds design time and a full rollout across trucks, signage, packaging and trade show assets adds production cost that has nothing to do with the agency and everything to do with your footprint. Whether the name changes, which always adds time. How many audiences and product lines the brand has to carry. And how much of the old brand is already in the pipeline, which is a timing question more than a money question.
For context, the agencies that publish ranges land well above ours. Grant Marketing puts a simple refresh at $25,000 to $40,000 and a comprehensive B2B rebrand at $50,000 to $100,000 and up. Ignyte tells small and mid-size businesses to expect $150,000 to $350,000 over six to eight months. Those are their numbers, on their own sites, for programs built for companies with a marketing department to run them.
This is for you if
You run an owner-led B2B manufacturer, roughly $5 million to $50 million in revenue and 20 to 150 people, and you will be in the room for the work.
Your best customers are a different kind of company than the ones your brand was built to attract. You moved upmarket, added a capability, or found the segment that values what only you do well.
The market reads your dated brand as a dated company. Engineers and purchasing managers judge a website in seconds.
Two companies are becoming one and need a single brand to sell under.
The next generation has stepped up and needs a brand it can run without the founder in the room. Keep the foundations, change the house. We wrote about that version in Branding for Family-Owned Manufacturers.
You are two to five years from selling, and the company needs to be worth more than its customer list.
Who this is for, and who it is not for
This is not for you, and we will say so on the call, if
You just bought the company. Announce first, keep the seller involved, and put your energy into who hears the news in what order. The plan is in How to Announce New Ownership to Customers. The rebrand is a decision you make later, with evidence.
You are listing the company for sale within the year. Change nothing visible before a sale.
Nobody can say what should change except the look. If the honest answer to "what will the new brand say that the old one does not?" is silence, the problem is upstream, and we start there.
The real problem is operations. A shop that misses dates or ships rework cannot rebrand its way to premium prices. Fix the floor first.
What it looks like when it lands
Stone moves industrial materials. Materials recovery, processing, shipping, transportation, transfer, delivery, and maintenance, with fully integrated systems that touch every step of the process. Before any of that became a logo, it became a position, and the position starts with one sentence.
"We exist to keep businesses moving."
Everything visible followed from it. The logo system was designed to hold its identity from prominent building signage down to the compact display on a phone, with the right version chosen by its minimum size. The colors are bold on purpose. The typography carries the same voice at every size. The full system, and the how and what that sit under the why, are in the Stone case study.
Croze Nest is the same order of operations from the other direction. An artisan barrel maker set up to compete with barrel factories on volume and price was repositioned toward craft and micro-distillers, the market the giants ignored. The identity, the messaging, the website, and the trade show presence were all built on that one decision. Croze Nest grew from selling one barrel to one customer to handcrafting more than 500 custom barrels a year, and the owner later turned down a generous buyout offer because, in his words, "it just wasn't good for the brand." The story is in the Croze Nest case study.
The rest of the identity work is on the logofolio.
“They listen well and really take the time to get to know your business and your market. They teased out not only where our business is today, but where we are headed.”
Christopher Harris, Simple Automations
“Wit & Craft provided us with a visual representation of the company we’ve built. It now says in one visual the values and distinctions of our company.”
Mark Italia, Launchpunk
“Wit & Craft didn’t just help me build my brand. They helped transform my business. I never make any decisions without considering how it will further the brand.”
Joe Smith, Croze Nest
Is a rebrand your problem? Six questions.
Answer honestly.
Would your best three customers describe the company the same way your website does?
Does the current identity hold up on the side of a truck, on a quote sheet, and on a phone screen without looking like three companies?
Can your sales team say in one sentence why you cost more than the shop across town?
Has who you serve changed in the last five years while the brand stayed put?
Is there a date coming, a trade show, an anniversary, a move, a handoff, that the current brand will embarrass you at?
If a stranger saw only your logo and your homepage, would they know what you make and who it is for?
Three or more answers you did not like, and the rebrand is worth a call. If the trouble is all in questions one, three and four, the problem is positioning, and we would start there. If the position is solid and the trouble sits in questions two and six, the identity can be scoped on its own.
What happens on the call
Thirty minutes. Bring the current brand, the customer that matters most, and the date you are working toward. We will tell you whether you have a positioning problem, an identity problem, or both, what order to do it in, and whether the name has to change, which is rare. If the logo is already at the sign shop, bring that instead.
Change the expression. Keep the substance.
Bring the current brand and the date you are working toward, and we will tell you what to change, in what order, and whether the name comes with it.
FAQs
-
Almost never. We rarely suggest a client change the name. A rebrand is a decision about what the company stands for, made visible, and the name usually carries the new position fine. The one exception is a name that has to overcome terrible press. A new name adds a domain, a trademark, signage, packaging, and updated registrations in every customer's purchasing system, and naming always takes longer than the rest of the work.
-
Only if the substance changes or the switch is fumbled. Customers keep buying from the people and the quality they know. The launch plan sequences the visible change around your inventory, your trade show calendar, and your reorder cycles, and it gives your crew and your reps the same sentence to say when a customer asks.
-
Positioning takes about a month. Positioning through a full identity system takes about three months. If the name changes, plan on longer, because naming always takes longer than the rest of the work. The website and the rollout across your physical footprint follow, on a schedule set by your trade shows and your inventory rather than by us.
-
The full brand package, covering positioning, messaging, identity design, and a launch plan, is $40,000. Positioning alone, identity design alone, and the website are each scoped on a call. Executive Brand Coaching runs the same positioning work weekly at $1,500 a month, month to month, for the owner who wants the rebrand to be a later decision.
-
No. The buyer community's own doctrine is right on this one. Defer the big visible changes, keep the seller involved, and put your energy into a sequenced plan for who hears the news first and in whose voice. Rebrand later, once you know what the company is becoming under you and there is evidence to build on.
-
Yes. Identity design is sold on its own, and when your position is already sharp it is the right purchase. If the position underneath is unsettled, we will say so before we open a design file, because a logo designed before the strategy is the one that gets redone.
