Forest sees 35% uplift in ‘spontaneous brand awareness’ following rebrand

Forest, the London-based shared e-bike service, has seen a significant uplift in brand awareness since rebranding from HumanForest.

The company undertook a rebranding exercise in Summer 2023, with the intention of improving brand association by simplifying the company’s identity.

Recent results from Forest’s rebrand have shown a 35% uplift in “spontaneous brand awareness”.

“Spontaneous brand awareness”, for shared e-bikes, refers to a bike rental user being asked to recall bike rental companies in London, without being prompted by visual aids or brand names.

Daniel Eddy, director at Waveform Insight, said: “Spontaneous awareness is a key indicator of brand health, as being able to recall a brand without prompting makes it easier to choose it ‘in the moment’, this is especially important in the bike-sharing sector, and in such a competitive category it is not an easy measure to shift.

“That Forest has been able to execute an impactful rebrand in such a short space of time is encouraging and shows the brand is building momentum in a sector that continues to evolve.”

Helped by the shorter name, precise recall of ‘Forest’ has improved substantially, with half as many imprecise references to the brand name compared to when the company was called ‘HumanForest’.

Incorrect brand names associated with HumanForest pre-rebrand included ‘Natural Forest’, ‘Urban Forest’, ‘Forest Green’ and ‘Rain Forest’.

The range of incorrect recitals of the brand name dropped from 10 while being named HumanForest, to four when named Forest, in the four months following Forest’s rebrand.

Alongside the name change, Forest adapted the company slogan to ‘the bikes that look like trees’ to make clear the association between the bikes and the name ‘Forest’.

The company app icon was streamlined from three characters, to one tree-like icon, all in a bid to further lean into its sustainable credentials.

The hardware changes included adding brown air tyres to the bike, again to help link the bikes back to the notion of each bike being a tree, and a collection of them becoming a forest.

Finally, the company’s tone of voice was consolidated with a focus on simple messaging and a conversational, honest and sometimes cheeky tone.

Joe Rampley, Forest head of brand, said: “Our goal with this rebrand was to equip Forest’s identity for longevity in multiple cities across Europe, and beyond. We’re thrilled with the results and delighted that our users and the wider community are already finding it easier to connect with our proposition.

“We may have lost the human in our name, but we’ve made sure we didn’t lose the humanity within our brand identity. This is reflected not only in our ‘say it as you see it’ tone of voice, but also in the photography that accompanied the rebrand, which featured 100% real riders as models.

“These are real people with stories to tell about why they choose to cycle in London. Our decision to put them centre stage represents the brand we’re trying to build.”

Forest commissioned independent research consultancy, ‘Waveform Insight’, to survey 1,000 recent bike rental users to measure brand awareness and perceptions of bike rental brands.

Two rounds of 500 interviews were conducted in April 2023, and October 2023 in order to measure the success of the Forest rebrand.