The rebranding of Forest, completed over Summer 2023, yielded a remarkable 35% increase in “spontaneous brand awareness”. “Spontaneous brand awareness” in the context of shared e-bikes, pertains to a user of bike rental being asked to name bike rental companies in London, without the aid of visual prompts or brand names.

Daniel Eddy, Director, 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.”

A significant factor in this success was the company’s name shortening. There was a notable improvement in the precise recall of ‘Forest’, with a reduction in imprecise mentions of the brand name. Prior to the rebrand, when the company was known as ‘HumanForest’, incorrect brand names like ‘Natural Forest’, ‘Urban Forest’, ‘Forest Green’, and ‘Rain Forest’ were common. Post-rebrand, the number of incorrect brand recitals dropped from 10 to 4 within four months.

In addition to the name change, Forest revised its slogan to ‘the bikes that look like trees’, aligning the bikes more closely with the name ‘Forest’. The company's app icon was also simplified from three characters to a single tree-like icon, reinforcing its commitment to sustainability.

Updates to the hardware included the introduction of brown air tyres on the bikes, further emphasising the connection to the concept of each bike representing a tree and collectively forming a forest.

Furthermore, Forest honed its tone of voice to be more straightforward, engaging, and sometimes playfully irreverent.

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. 500 interviews were conducted in April 2023, with the same exercise repeated in October 2023 in order to measure the success of the Forest rebrand.