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Why an employer rebrand doesn't have to be like a bad sequel!

Employer branding and its importance is everywhere and when it goes through a re-brand it can experience the same effects as a bad sequel.

One of the most iconic films of a generation has revealed talk of a sequel. Trainspotting 2 is expected to feature four of the main actors who have confirmed that they want to take part.

Trainspotting was a film that defined a generation. It’s hard-hitting and taboo content put British films on the map, winning multiple awards and highly acclaimed by a number of critiques, but what does a sequel mean for a film with so much significance?

Only recently Google, too, revealed to the world their own version of a sequel of a cult classic – the rebrand of the Google logo.

Since 1998, the Google logo has gone through the bear minimum changes, keeping its distinguishing serif-style all the way through until only recently. The new logo has adapted a much-conformed style, taking on the ‘flat icon’, sans serif design that many companies are adopting.

So, is this Google rebrand, and any company rebrand for that matter, a good call or just another bad sequel?

Just like the reputation an iconic film like Trainspotting holds, Google needs to do everything it can to ensure people enjoy and even praise the new brand more than the last.

The most important thing to justify is ‘why’? – Why has this rebrand taken place and what benefit does it hold? Why would anyone make a sequel of something that holds so much significance for its time?

The justification circulating is the new generation of millennials that have little to no recollection of the iconic model before this new design. Trainspotting’s themes play specific reference to the time and place, and have little significance or relevance to Generation Y.

Google’s new branding needs to play its cards just right in order to appeal to its new target audience; the graduates who have grown up in the digital age and are the prime candidates for Google’s army of new recruits.

The key to a good rebrand is to still place focus on what made the brand great in the first place, without ‘over-doing’ it. Trainspotting will have to be equally as careful to appeal to its older generation of loyal followers whilst still being able to attract a new and younger audience.

Google will have to be just as careful to keep its appeal, just as much for the mature and experienced recruits as it does for its new wave of twenty-something hires.

It’s a risky game to take something that defines the knowledge of a generation and try to re-suit it for a new generation. However, if worked around both the old and the young, there is no reason why Google (and Trainspotting 2) can’t succeed.

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