Rethinking Rebranding
If you’re considering rebranding, don’t start with your logo, colors, or fonts. Look within.
If you work in marketing or branding, you’ve all seen Oatly and Stanley’s rebranding case studies.
Both are good examples of growth through rebranding.
Between 2019 and 2023, Oatly grew from $200M to $800M (Source: Stock Analysis). In the same period, Stanley increased its revenue tenfold, from $70M to $750M (Source: Statista).
Oatly’s unlock started with packaging, then its logo and messaging. For Stanley, a 110-year-old brand selling green thermoses to outdoorsmen and blue-collar workers, it was not about the logo or packaging. The strategy shifted the target audience from men to women and rebranded a failing product with new colorways.
While Oatley and Stanley case study provides useful insights and good content for viral LinkedIn posts, they are fairy tales that may not be applicable for most brands.
Hoping for sudden growth through rebranding is like an inexperienced retail investor wishing to find the next pre-2020 Nvidia stock: It doesn’t happen to most.
A family business making $35,000 (~ 5 million JPY) a year and dormant for decades or centuries isn’t an obvious case study for rebranding. Add ‘shrinking industry’ to the mix, and the prospect of this business growing in the coming years is as slim as a raindrop filling a well.
But wells do start with single drops.
According to an article in Nikkei X Trend, a Japanese business publication, Mekari Shrine, an 1,800-year-old shrine in rural Japan, grew from $35,000 to $1 million a year (~140 million JPY), almost 30 times bigger over a decade, by rebranding.
Its rebranding didn’t start with changing its name or logo.
Laying a foundation for a business to survive for decades requires a gradual and measured strategy. The case study of Makari Shrine provides actionable rebranding lessons for building long-term brand resilience.
How it started vs. how it’s going
It started with saving $2 (~300 JPY) daily.
We’re discussing an organization here, not personal savings.
Kazunobu Takase is the owner of Mekari Shrine, which has an 1,800-year-old lineage, passed down from his father, who inherited it from his father. In 2009, at 25, Takase joined his family practice. The following year, he took over as the 32nd priest of the Takase family.
“I was unaware of my family business’s state until I joined my father.”
With little to no growth prospects for his family business, he could only start by saving change day by day before increasing revenue.
He saved $1,500 over two years—a minuscule amount for any business.
He considered using this fund to close the shrine, move, and start another career. It would have been a sensible choice because the annual revenue, $35,000, came in the first three days of the New Year, a common time for Japanese people to visit shrines for New Year wishes and give change.
He used this tiny capital as an investment to make small but visible fixes to the shrine, attracting visitors outside the three days.
This small enhancement isn’t considered a rebranding activity. When we think of branding or rebranding, we think of new logos, names, colors, typefaces, campaigns, and taglines. CMOs and marketers prefer splashes, not tiny raindrops.
In the following decade, Takase made small improvements to his practice, including learning to build a website using off-the-shelf services. They were never sudden or drastic, but each provided an incremental expansion for his business and brand.
A family practice that started with $35,000 a year has grown to over $1 million in revenue, a 30x increase.
In the case of Mekari Shrine, rebranding wasn’t just a marketing makeover. Takase reconsidered his practice’s fundamentals from business and brand perspectives and reflected them in the presentation of its products and services.
This required outside help for objectivity in Takase’s practice.
When Takase had enough funds in his savings, he engaged an external consultant for an objective view of his practice and to assess his business and brand. In their rebranding approach, there were three key elements.
1. Rearticulating its mission and vision
While Mekari Shrine’s mission as a Shinto practice was clear and timeless, its vision, as an 1,800-year-old practice, had become less relevant in the contemporary age.
Many brands fall into this trap regardless of their maturity. I come across many established brands and businesses without clearly articulated mission or vision statements that resonate with their organizations.
Whether you’re a young start-up or a long-standing operation, regularly revisit your mission and vision statement to ensure it is resonant and relevant.
2. The power of subtraction
Mekari changed the products’ appearance. They were Shinto amulets and charms for good luck, fortune, health, and various occasions. There’s a cottage industry of manufacturers producing these items, and Mekari, like other shrines, sourced from these vendors at low costs.
Takase did two things. First, he developed original items instead of procuring them from a common vendor. Second, he cut down the items from over 30 to three.
The output was a set of original, unique, and differentiated offerings available only at Mekari Shrine and its website.
The lesson? Subtract and elevate.
3. Productizing its services
Over a decade ago, when Takase took over his father’s business, he knew he was not the only one facing the challenge of staying afloat.
In 2024, Japan has about 78,000 Shinto shrines compared to 15,270 Starbucks stores in the US (Source: ScarpeHero). There are almost five times the number of shrines than Starbucks in a country that could fit into the size of California. By 2050, an estimated 30,000 will disappear.
The mission of his shrine—or any Shinto shrine—isn’t to outdo others and win. It’s to coexist. In 2022, Takase decided to start a consulting practice to offer its services as products to other shrines to help them survive and thrive in their communities around Japan.
The key takeaway is that “productizing” doesn’t always mean relying on software or tech to scale your business, nor do you need to worship algorithms. Package your service so it is replicable and easy to buy.
If you’re considering rebranding, don’t start with the outside. Look within.
That will be more effective and lead to bigger returns than changing your logos, colors, and fonts.
Thanks for reading. Please hit reply with any feedback, thoughts, or questions. I’d love to hear from you.
Completely agree. The logo/appearance of the brand should only be used as a tool to communicate to your audience "we have evolved", but the evolution should be deeper than the appearance itself. Especially if you want more than a 1x purchase. Thank you for providing an interesting new case study I haven't seen.
Great case study. I am curious to see those case rebranding studies of Oatly and Stanley? And if and how those rebranding efforts really contribute to those successes.