You thought this was going to be a post about how Republicans are trying to change the packaging without changing what's inside, didn't you?
Nope. In fact, let's assume for the moment that our friends in the GOP really, truly, sincerely want to change their policies and not just their image (I know, but still…)
My point is that even if this were true, any "rebranding" they might attempt—even if perfectly executed—likely wouldn't have much effect until after Hillary Clinton's second term.
Rome wasn't built in a day. And neither are brands. Flip over for more…
A marketing expert I know likes to say "Brand is expectation." That's a good way of putting it. If someone wants to show you their new Lexus, what kind of car would you expect to see? Not some frugal little tin box, which is why Toyota had to launch a whole new brand to enter the luxury car market (snobs in the car business call it a "marque" instead of a brand, but it's the same thing). Nobody expects a Toyota to be luxurious. And that's the power of branding.
Launching a new brand is hard. It takes a long time and costs a ton of money (partly because a thousand other brands are constantly screaming for our attention).
But even harder than launching a new brand is re-making an existing one. Not only does the consumer have to learn the new message, they have to un-learn the old one. And that's a devilishly difficult communication problem (never mind the near-impossibility, in politics, of getting all your old stalwarts to sing from the same new hymnal).
The only examples of totally re-made brands I can think of are Marlboro cigarettes and Miller beer. Both products used to be mainly aimed at women. Then decades-long, saturation advertising campaigns featuring the iconic Marlboro man and appropriately sweaty blue-collar swells succeeded in changing their brand images and making it "safe" for manly men to buy them.
So the Republican message, reinforced for decades, resonates mostly with bigoted old white men. People expect that. Getting them to change their expectations overnight? Don't make me laugh.