Establishing the Brand Foundation for Nakheel's Corporate Rebrand
Ahead of a planned corporate rebrand, Nakheel needed a clear, evidence-based understanding of how its brand was perceived in the market. Without that foundation, any rebrand decision would rest on creative intuition rather than real audience insight. Nakheel needed to understand current brand perception, awareness, and sentiment across business, consumer, and non-consumer audiences, and to translate those findings into actionable strategic input to guide the rebrand's direction.
challenge
Sarah Lakhani Consulting was engaged to oversee and manage the research process end-to-end, working closely with an appointed research agency. Our involvement went well beyond project management. We developed and refined the research framework to align with Nakheel's business and branding objectives, shaped the B2B interview guide, the quantitative questionnaire, and the semi-structured focus group guide, and actively participated in all focus group discussions. We worked with the research agency to validate early data, ensuring alignment with the desired respondent mix and insight quality, then conducted our own independent analysis of the raw and tabulated data to surface additional insights beyond the agency's standard reporting. We developed the final recommendations, connecting findings to brand, marketing, and operational strategy. Deliverables were tailored for four distinct internal audiences: the Marketing and Brand team, the leadership team, the CEO, and the Board of Directors, with customized presentations ensuring the insights, language, and recommendations were relevant to each group's decisions. All senior-level presentations were delivered directly by Sarah Lakhani Consulting.
approach
The research produced a detailed picture of Nakheel's brand perception, associations, and differentiators across all target audiences. The findings gave Nakheel a clear, evidence-based foundation for its rebrand, grounded in real audience understanding rather than internal assumption.
results
The insights from the brand health assessment directly informed Nakheel's rebrand, shaping its new positioning, messaging, and creative expression. By bridging the gap between research and decision-making, Sarah Lakhani Consulting ensured that the rebrand was guided by data-driven understanding of audience perception rather than creative intuition alone.
