Bed Bath Rebrands & Beyond

Summary

Bed Bath & Beyond has undergone a significant rebranding by merging with Overstock, providing lessons on the importance of names, customer focus, creating opportunities, moving past the past, and perseverance.

Abstract

The article discusses the rebranding efforts of Bed Bath & Beyond following its merger with Overstock, highlighting the importance of a strong brand name, customer loyalty, the creation of new opportunities, and the ability to move past previous setbacks. The author draws parallels with their own rebranding experience, emphasizing the value of personal branding, sincerity, and resilience. The merger serves as a real-time case study demonstrating that despite challenges such as poor marketing or bad press, brands can reinvent themselves by focusing on their strengths, catering to their audience, and never giving up.

Opinions

Names Matter: The author believes that a brand's name significantly impacts its perception, using Overstock's decision to adopt the Bed Bath & Beyond name as an example.
Customer Loyalty is Key: Bed Bath & Beyond's loyal customer base is seen as crucial for its comeback, with the author stressing the importance of always considering one's audience when rebranding.
Opportunity Creation: Both Overstock and Bed Bath & Beyond are commended for not succumbing to failure but instead creating new opportunities through their merger.
Learning from the Past: The article suggests that brands should not be hindered by past mistakes but should use them as lessons to move forward.
Perseverance: The author admires the determination of both brands to continue striving for success despite previous failures, drawing a personal connection to their own journey as a writer and creative.
Value Over Branding Elements: While acknowledging the importance of branding elements like names and logos, the author asserts that the value provided to customers is ultimately what leads to greatness.

Overstock is now in bed with the formerly popular home décor closeout store. Here’s what it taught me

Photo Source: Flickr

Rebranding is a dirty job, but someone has to do it. As someone who started a rebrand earlier this year, I know this firsthand. After years of primarily writing content for others, I finally decided to focus on building my personal business, which I have literally been neglecting for years.

There’s nothing quite like knowing you want to move forward but not being sure of the direction you choose. So, as I continue to tweak and make alterations to my own brand, I am often compelled to read the stories of others for inspiration.

Enter Bed Bath & Beyond

I find Bed Bath & Beyond’s rebrand to be incredibly fascinating. This is primarily because I always felt like it was a great store with poor marketing and a horrible layout.

On the other hand, Overstock is a horrible name for any brand. It just sounds like a warehouse looking to unload broken, irregular goods. Although I found a few great deals on the site over the years, I could never bring myself to even subscribe to the website.

Seeing these two brands merge and demonstrate how to proverbially “eat the meat and spit out the bones” is a fascinating real-time case study we can all learn from.

Here’s what I’ve learned so far:

Names matter: Overstock has always had great products but a horrible name. However, rather than picking a new one, they simply borrowed one from someone else. As far as my first LLC is concerned, I considered coming up with something super creative but eventually decided to use a variation of my own. Moral of the story: sometimes, the most obvious choice is the best one.

Always cater to your customers: Bed Bath & Beyond never had it all, but they’ve always had a loyal customer base. When the store closed, many were sad to see it go, and this is what enabled the store to make a comeback, albeit under new management. When it comes to my personal brand, I’ve had the same experience. I’ve had lots of blogs under various titles over the years. What has never changed is that I always bring myself to the table. People enjoy my writing because I am always sincere and boldly say how I feel, no matter what. So, even though I am rebranding and expanding, I will always keep my supporters in mind when making decisions.

Create your own opportunities: When rebranding, sometimes you must create your own opportunities. Both Overstock and Bed Bath & Beyond could have cowered and faded into oblivion. However, they decided to come together to create their own opportunities, which will likely lead to even better opportunities in the future. I can relate to this; I had been scared to focus on my brand for years. However, when I started to pivot and create my own opportunities to display my work and creative prowess, I began to attract opportunities from others.

Leave the past in the past: Owning a brand can be frustrating. You won’t always get it right, but you can’t let that stop you. On the one hand, Overstock received bad press in the past that negatively affected the brand. On the other hand, Bed Bath & Beyond was a victim of everything from stiff competition to bad investments. Personally, I can relate to all of this. However, you can choose to get bitter or better; there’s nothing you can do to change anything that already happened.

Never give up: Lastly, this is a classic example of how things can improve when you’re bold enough to keep going. Despite past missteps, each brand still believes in itself enough to try. On the one hand, Overstock clearly believes in its products and business model enough to revamp the business and press forward. On the other hand, Bed Bath & Beyond clearly believes in the power of its name and brand overall, even though it lost majorly in the past. As a writer and creative, there were plenty of times I almost gave up altogether. But at the end of the day, I fully believe in my skills and ability to succeed. I think that’s the basic foundation of every successful brand: knowing what you have to offer and that you are just as deserving of success as other successful brands.

What’s in a name?

The bottom line is that while names do hold some weight, so do your products and services. You may choose the wrong name, location, color scheme, logo, etc., but as long as you work on providing your customers/supporters with value, you can always achieve greatness.

I am certainly nowhere near where I want to be in life, but I am a long way from where I used to be, and I am actually a lot further than I thought I’d get in such a short period of time. Best of all, I’ve started attracting opportunities I used to only dream about.

I’ve learned to embrace the magic of new beginnings; you might not know exactly where you’re going, but as long as you keep working on it, you will likely end up somewhere better than you ever imagined.

How do you feel about rebrands?

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