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TL;DR: Most rebrand surveys ask the wrong question. "Do you like the new logo?" tells you almost nothing about what happens to sales. The questions that predict trouble are about recognition and findability: what do customers already know you by, can they still find you when it's gone, and is the right audience answering at all? Mastercard, Tropicana, Dunkin' and Jaguar each show one piece of that. Below is a 12-question survey built around those pieces, plus rules for reading the answers.
Start typing "rebrand survey" into Google and it finishes the thought: rebrand survey questions. Type "rebrand questions to ask customers" and it offers rebranding questions to ask customers. The people searching are usually marketing leads, not designers, who have been handed a rebrand, or are about to pitch one, who need evidence before leadership signs off on new packaging, signage and a year of media.
The instinct is to show customers the new work and ask what they think. That's the weakest research you can do: it measures taste in a setting nobody shops in. What you actually need to know is what you're about to give up, and whether the people who pay you will notice it's gone.
In January 2019 Mastercard dropped its name from its logo in many uses and let the red and yellow circles stand alone. It didn't do that on a hunch. Mastercard's Beatrice Cornacchia told Communicate the company spent around 20 months researching across multiple markets. Working with banks, sponsored events and retailers, it tested "everything from digital screens and billboards to store window decals." In both developed and developing markets, more than 80% of participants recognized the symbol without the word "Mastercard," without being prompted.
Two details matter more than the 80%. First, the test asked people to recognize the mark, not rate it. Second, the change was partial. Mastercard said it would keep the full name on most corporate and B2B communications, on its premium silver mark, and in developing markets where it was still building recognition. The research told it where it could let go, and where it couldn't yet.
How to apply it: Before anyone opens a design file, list every asset you might change: name, logo, color, package shape, mascot, tagline, sound, storefront. Then test each one with the brand name removed. Show your logo, color or package with the name blurred, and ask people to name the brand. Anything most of your buyers recognize unprompted is an asset to protect or evolve slowly. Anything few people recognize is fair game.
In January 2009 PepsiCo relaunched Tropicana Pure Premium in a new carton. According to BevNET, the redesign put a glass of juice on the front and displaced the brand's well-known image of an orange with a straw in it. Less than two months later, after consumers reacted negatively, PepsiCo said it would scrap it.
The sales data came out later. Ad Age reported, citing Information Resources Inc., that Pure Premium unit sales fell 20% between January 1 and February 22. Dollar sales fell 19%, roughly $33 million. Over the same period, unit sales for the refrigerated orange juice category as a whole were flat, and Minute Maid, Florida's Natural and Tree Ripe posted double-digit unit gains. Tropicana's spokeswoman told Ad Age there were "no dots to connect here." Analysts quoted in the piece called the gap unusual.
Our read: a carton's main job is to be found in seconds by someone who has bought it fifty times, and the orange with a straw was that cue. A survey asking whether the new carton looked fresh and modern could easily have come back positive. It wouldn't have shown whether a regular buyer could still find the product in a crowded cooler.
How to apply it: Test the new design where it will be seen. Put it on a mock shelf, in a cluttered social feed, or on a small phone screen next to competitors, and time how long it takes people to find you. Run the same test with the current design. If the new one is slower to find, you have a problem, however much people like it.
The research behind Dunkin' dropping "Donuts" from its name started with something customers had been doing for years. In August 2017 the company told Nation's Restaurant News it would test "Dunkin'"-only signage, starting with a new store in Pasadena, California, and then other locations. A spokesperson noted the brand had referred to itself simply as Dunkin' in its advertising for more than a decade, since the "America Runs on Dunkin'" campaign. The company said it would decide whether to make the change permanent later.
It made that call in September 2018. Its announcement said customers had long called the brand "Dunkin'," that the pink and orange colors and the font introduced in 1973 would stay, and that the brand had "tested the new logo extensively," including on exterior signage at stores over the past year. Signage changed only on new and remodeled stores.
How to apply it: Before you write a survey, look at what customers already say without being asked. Read reviews, social comments, search terms and customer service transcripts. Note the nickname, the shorthand and the product they mention first. If customers already use the name you're considering, the change is just catching up with them. If you'd be asking them to learn something new, budget for it. Then run the new identity in a few real locations before rolling it out everywhere.
When Jaguar unveiled its "Copy Nothing" identity in November 2024, research firms ran public polls within days, and the answer depended on who was asked. Focaldata surveyed 1,096 people. It found 81% preferred Jaguar's older "It's Good to be Bad" ad and 83% preferred the old logo. It also found that 79% could pick out the old leaping cat from four fake Jaguar logos, which is exactly the kind of recognized asset Mastercard's research looked for. Higher-income respondents were more supportive than average but still preferred the old work by large margins.
Attest asked 1,000 consumers in the UK and US and found 42.7% reacted negatively to the launch ad and 30.9% positively. But among people planning to buy an electric car in the next 12 months, a statistically significant number said the ad made them feel much more positive about Jaguar. Then in June 2025 Jaguar said in a presentation, as MarketWatch reported, that the launch had more than doubled website traffic and lifted Google traffic from higher-income people by 24%. It also said the share of surveyed people who called Jaguar worth paying more for rose 20%.
All three can be true at once. Much of the general public disliked the work, likely EV buyers responded better, and attention rose. What Jaguar's case shows is that a rebrand survey answers only for the people in its sample. Whether the new identity is working won't be clear until it's measured against the buyers it was designed for, over a period long enough to show up in sales.
How to apply it: Decide who counts before you field the survey. Split respondents into current customers, likely next buyers and the general public, and set your success measure for each group in advance. If your current buyers are about to be left behind, that needs to be a decision you made on purpose, not something you discover on social media after launch.
Run it twice: once before you change anything (your baseline) and again on the shortlisted new identity. Keep the samples split by customer type.
Block 1: what people already know you by (before showing anything new)
Block 2: can people still find you?
Block 3: what the change says
Block 4: behavior, not taste
"Do you like it?" isn't on the list. Liking rarely predicts buying.
A rebrand is a bet that a new identity will earn more than the familiarity you give up. Research tells you what that familiarity is worth before you trade it.
If you're weighing a rebrand for a consumer brand and want help with the research, brand strategy and the campaign that introduces the change, J2 Marketing is happy to talk it through.
