When a Rebrand Actually Works: Eye-Tracking Insights on New vs. Legacy Designs

Rebrands are high-risk, high-reward. For every success story, there’s a redesign that ends up doing the opposite and erodes sales. Eye-tracking helps quantify whether a redesign truly improves performance, and we’ve had more than a couple of clients who were a part of that second group, confidently launching a design that was well-liked using traditional testing methods (if testing was done at all). What Successful Rebrands Have in Common

When a Rebrand Actually Works
  1. Higher Noticeability

New designs should outperform legacy versions in time-to-first fixation. This is to say, the new design should be able to capture shoppers’ attention more quickly and in greater numbers.

  1. Faster Recognition

Shoppers should identify brand and flavour faster, not slower.

  1. Stronger Variant Differentiation

Better colour coding reduces confusion.

  1. Improved Claim Readability

Claims should be easier to find and understand.

  1. Preserved Brand Equity

Don’t change recognizable shapes, colours, or framing without purpose. And when multiple SKUs are involved, the new design should be at least as cohesive as the current design, meaning that the SKUs should all look like they belong together, and effectively create a larger billboard when placed side by side. 

We’ve seen redesigns that look beautiful and modern, but perform worse because they removed crucial anchors that shoppers relied on.

Sources

Müller & Cornelissen (2020). Rebranding Strategy and Consumer Response.