ABC Family Rebranding Outline

On October 6th, ABC Family Worldwide announced in a press release that they would be rebranding ABC Family as “Freeform” beginning in January of 2016. Tom Ascheim, the president of ABC Family stated that this rebrand is in response to the evolution of the company’s business strategy. The station is turning slightly from its current/old consumer sect and super serving a group of consumers they have labeled “Becomers.” Becomers are defined as a group of people a bit younger than the millennials, but spanning ages span from 14-34. Ascheim claims that the title Freeform “evokes the spirit and adventure of our audience” and that the channel will deliver new original content which will coincide with the name change. In Keller’s book on strategic brand management, he gives guidelines of 10 things to consider when creating a brand. Assumedly, this will apply to rebranding just the same. There were three of these statements that really applied to this specific rebranding effort by ABC. The first statement Keller makes is, “It is importation to have a brand strategy that provides a roadmap for the future.” ABC Family sees this rebrand as serving future needs. They clearly have new …show more content…
When branding, you need to know your customer and build an appropriate brand strategy around them. He also states that, “Brands are owned by customers, not engineers.” These are the two statements that I believe make Freeform a bit of a strange move for ABC Family Worldwide. ABC Family has been so named since 1977 and is available in over 94 million households. Consequently, ABC Family does have a set fan base that they can draw on as far as viewership is concerned. The moniker “ABC Family” assumes a stigma of family programing. This perception is most likely the reason behind the rebrand. ABC Family is looking to appeal to an older generation, a generation of millennials and those just a bit