This is my first post for HubSpot Admits – and it is probably the most ambitious mission for a single post. I am not a fashion designer, nor am I a business writer. But no one brand can survive on its success alone. This is why rebranding is so necessary for any company today, be it a local business or a global multinational.

Rebranding is the process of redesigning your company’s brand for the current and future needs of your customers. By learning what this new, improved brand should look like, you can prevent a team from thinking about and starting a new logo design process in the first place.

Last October, HubSpot Admits began testing a reinvented brand on the micro-marketplace Mixpanel, where it tested 54 various logos, by anyone, as if it were a brand new “new” brand. The real brand was now uncovered, and a team of 2 million people wanted a role in it.

I am going to share my opinion on how to build a rebooted brand that will inspire your best customers, rather than scare them. The trick is to be as simple and coherent as possible, keeping the core of the brand intact but repositioning your company’s identity in a way that keeps your company relevant in the years to come.

I will reveal the recipe of rebranding that is the absolute most successful business branding strategy that I have ever seen and used. The purpose is simple: to retain existing loyal customers. It’s not about the rebranding; it’s about what the design should look like and how it should relate to your previous designs. I will also share what makes one successful than another, and the different tricks to score in rebranding the same way one can score in corporate competitive games like the Corporate Challenge.

The number one mistake rebranding practitioners make is to concentrate too much on the logo, because it can make or break a successful brand. I have found that even someone such as Sir Mix-A-Lot, has found this out to his chagrin. But he is not alone, as Forbes.com described how they were celebrating 25 years of Play Station together with Sainsbury’s! Oops.

Revamping a brand does not mean completely changing everything, and just about everyone is doing it.

Let’s take a look at some examples:

At TripAdvisor, they have retained their logo based on the old design, but have tweaked the imagery so that they look more contemporary. The intention is to make the site more approachable, as well as giving their readers a more personal and trusted travel experience.

Tom Cruise debuted the new Dolce & Gabbana logo at the Milan Fashion Week in 2017. The refreshed version of the iconic circle symbol seemed to allow the shape to also flow, form complex strokes, and offer a more dynamic appearance. Of course, it has to look good too, and it looks pretty good.

Many times, companies choose to have a brand shoot, because it’s a great way to ensure your new identity and logo is born into the zeitgeist, in a style that inspires our generation. Pepsi Twist is a classic example of this kind of branding in motion: a time was that all companies would feature their logos in popular campaigns and campaigns, such as Coca-Cola famously did with the playing of the “Hilltop” with Time Square, with the names, colors, and logos of all the different drinks displayed. But not everything is so easy.

Pepsi Twist went in the opposite direction and created a new logo specifically for a new category. But more importantly, they launched a new website called Twist.com that would showcase the new brand across thousands of screens, on mobile devices, and in all forms of digital, real time advertising. The Twist brand is designed to shake up a market dominated by sugary cola drinks.

So you can judge for yourself whether one should still seek out a company’s iconic logo or move on to something fresh, like the ticker symbols and colors we are all familiar with these days. It’s how you choose to think about branding that really matters. A logo or a symbol is just the hand-holding tool you use to bring your business up to speed.