An investigation into rebranding as a successful strategy for high-street retailers: The case for the UK clothing market

This research investigates why and how the UK's high-street retailers can implement differentrebranding campaign strategies to successfully gain competitive advantages and more marketshare in the age of fast moving high-street retail market. The literature review chapter gives acritical synthesis of prior studies, theories, and research findings on rebranding, competitiveadvantages, and the effects of digitisation on retail businesses. Building on theoreticalpremises, the theoretical propositions and conceptual framework provide a set of strongpropositions regarding the strategic nature of rebranding and the imperative of the process forachieving competitive advantages. This research looked at how rebranding goes beyond themarketing concept by integrating rebranding into business strategies, making it moreresponsive to the emerging market dynamics and consumers’ needs.In this business research, the researcher used interpretivist philosophy, employing abductiveresearch approach. Here, the researcher used qualitative research design by doing a casestudy method. Rebranding campaigns of five high-street retailers in the UK have beenselected for case study analysis. The researcher follows pattern matching during thecase study analysis. The retailers include Zara, Boohoo, Marks and Spencer, Next PLC, andH&M. Eleven propositions were developed from the literature review, which were thencategorised under three main themes to find answers to the research questions.The collective case study analysis presented that there are similarities in the nature ofrebranding of the case studies, where all four except Next have done evolutionary rebranding.The extensive case studies helped in assessing that rebranding is not merely a change in theoutlook but has to be a profound and tactical work. All five cases used the CombinedRebranding Strategy via One Umbrella Brand as rebranding campaign. In the case ofrenaming, only Next PLC changed its name from Next Direct to Next Online, but all otherbrands kept the same brand name as they are. For instance, Boohoo kept the same name asDebenhams after purchasing it, and M&S did the same with Jaeger.It is evident that rebranding involves the modification of brand name, logo, colour, andslogan and is a unique strategy in the high-street retail industry. Through brand revolution orevolution of nature, rebranding pertains as an atypical marketing technique, which followsstrategic campaign processes to ensure that the firms can build strong brand image, brandidentity, and consumer perception. Based on the findings, analysis, and critical discussion,the conclusions drawn in this research paper present both the theoretical and practicalcontributions of the study. The potential implications of strategic rebranding campaigns in theretail industry were examined in this research, and sound recommendations have been givenfor high-street retailers that might be helpful for planning on strategic rebranding as aneffective means for gaining competitive advantages in the retail market of the UK.