A new logo doesn’t make a rebrand

McLaren and Newcastle United’s recent identity changes have got people talking. Different sectors, same challenges. Beyond whether we like the designs, there’s a bigger conversation about brand and the commercial value it can bring.

Whenever a familiar logo changes, everyone has an opinion. We compare it with the old one, pick apart the details and decide whether it’s better or worse. Before long, it’s being called a ‘rebrand’.

I’ve seen plenty of this around McLaren and Newcastle United recently. Yet evolving a visual identity doesn’t, on its own, make it a rebrand.

That matters. Because when we think of brand as just how a business looks, we miss so much of what it can do.

Two identities. Different ambitions.

Newcastle United calls its change a new club crest. It explains that details in the previous design became blurred on screens, broadcast and merchandise. The recent work updates the crest while protecting the heritage supporters care about.

And there’s ambition here too. More than two years of supporter consultation led to a poll with 27,348 completed responses, with 64.8% choosing the winning crest as their first choice. That shows the care and investment behind evolving such a meaningful symbol.

For me, the crest project is focused on how the club looks, with a clear understanding of what that appearance means to people. The monochrome palette feels cleaner and slicker, giving it a slightly more elevated feel while keeping its connection to the club’s heritage.

Alongside this, Newcastle has updated the separate identity for St. James’ Park, following what it describes as “significant investment in the stadium this summer”. The club points to the venue’s role beyond football, hosting meetings, conferences, celebrations, music and international sport.

That's commercial intelligence. Giving the stadium its own distinctive presence, at the same time as evolving the club's visual identity, helps people see it as a destination in its own right. There’s an opportunity to reach more audiences and get greater value from an asset the club already owns. The identity helps tell that story and supports the wider investment.

McLaren takes the conversation further.

It describes an evolved identity connecting Racing and Automotive. Its teams explored shared archives, symbols and stories, with the new wordmark inspired by Bruce McLaren’s family service station. It also talks about storytelling, richer experiences, personalisation and community.

What I see is McLaren bringing its past and present together, finding renewed energy in the spirit that started it all and carrying that forward.

To my eye, the new look feels more premium and aspirational. It makes McLaren feel like a more attractive brand to be part of, whether you’re buying a car, following the team, working there or partnering with the business.

But what I like most is how far the thinking reaches. They’re looking across their brand world, exploring how the story connects the businesses and how it can come through in the experiences they create.

For me, that goes deeper than a visual update. It’s a broader brand evolution. They’re showing ambition, and I like it.

The story beneath the symbol

Brand is the DNA of a business. A logo is an expression of it.

It’s the thinking beneath the surface that connects what a business believes with what it does and the value it brings to people.

Storytelling helps make sense of those connections. It gives people something to understand, care about and feel part of.

That’s what interests me about McLaren. Its history gives its future ambition meaning. The opportunity now is to carry that story through its products, people and experiences, so it becomes something people can feel for themselves.

Brand deserves the investment

Brand is a commercial asset. Strengthening it should be a business priority.

Nielsen’s analysis of thousands of campaigns found that, on average, a one-point improvement in brand measures such as awareness and relevance drives a 1% increase in sales.

Kantar’s Blueprint for Brand Growth adds to that commercial case. Drawing on more than 6.5 billion data points about what people think and how they shop, it found that brands seen as meaningfully different by more people achieved up to five times the market penetration of brands with low meaningful difference - in simple terms, reaching a greater proportion of buyers in their category.

Together, these findings reinforce why brand deserves investment. Being recognised matters. Giving people a meaningful reason to choose you is where that recognition becomes commercially valuable.

It deserves investment in understanding your customers, making your value clear and giving people an experience that backs it up.

Treating brand as a quick visual fix can leave you with more questions than answers. What are you promising? Can the business deliver it? Does the team understand what it means for them?

If you want to look premium, the experience needs to justify the price. If you promise simplicity, you need to make life easier. If you’re bringing businesses together, the people need a shared direction as well as a shared design.

The commercial opportunity comes from giving people a clear, credible reason to choose you, then delivering on it.

This is where brand becomes the commercial operating system of a business. It connects strategy with decisions, people, products and experience. Visual identity and storytelling make that direction visible and compelling.

Newcastle and McLaren have evolved how they express themselves. The useful question is what those expressions preserve, communicate and make possible.

For any business considering change, that is where the conversation should begin.

A logo gives people something to recognise. The business gives them a reason to choose it - and keep choosing it.