Friday 4 March 2016

Meet the New Name - Why I Launched a New Identity for an Existing Business

I re-named my company in late-2015. A new name was not essential - the “new” company is basically an evolution of “Sociable Communications,” a business that I ran successfully for six years. However, I felt the name “Kazolu” provided a clearer articulation of the core services that I had been providing. It’s a clean-slate designation, with no meanings attributed to it other than the business itself. Oddly, the word “communications” in my earlier moniker’s often caused misunderstandings (“so, do you sell cellphones?”), and I must admit that it’s now a lot easier to type kazolu.com into a database than sociablecommunications.com, so there’s that. Still, I hesitate to call this name-change a “rebrand” because many of my company’s assets remain fundamentally the same.

If we agree that a “brand” is the sum-total of all assets that an organization has, then the forward-facing elements (like name, logo, graphic design) can shift - and should shift - if they are not aligning well with the core promise of the brand, the expectations it communicates, and the long-term goals of the business.

The key to my change is that my core service is consulting, and while I offered “virtual marketing agency” services for years, people didn’t understand the “virtual” part very well. If I have no full-time employees, then it means I am fundamentally a consultancy. I strongly advocate truth and simplicity in communications, so presenting the illusion of being a larger company - even if it was not intentionally misleading - was violating my own rules of simplicity and authenticity. When I launched “Sociable Communications,” it was with the hope that I would require staff some day, but working with a variety of third-party people’s talents proved to be a better business model than keeping a few people in-house. As the business evolved, the assets and impressions of the brand evolved, and the original name wasn’t as resonant. 

Brands evolve, and you can’t be afraid of making front-end changes - even big ones - if your brand assets have evolved away from your brand’s representation. As I was preparing an updated strategic plan, it became apparent that the timing was appropriate to consider a name-change that would better-clarify my services and the expectations that may come with it. Choosing the name was the easy part (it relates to my three children), and I developed the collateral required to support the change. This included a logo, letterhead, various templates, establishing URLs, new social media handles, and I revised the old website prior to the launch of the new name.

A consultancy’s business development will frequently be built with online tools. Even if your business is primarily referral-based (which mine is), online representation provides powerful reassurance to potential clients that you are “real” and that you can be trusted as an authority in your field. A lot of expectations are developed or reaffirmed with websites and online tools, and brands are nothing if not bundles of expectations - so I wanted to be sure that my new website, blog, and social media platforms were clear reflections of my existing brand assets, and supportive of my goals.

When I launched the new business name, its website was intentionally plain - a stripped-down evolution of the old website rather than a completely new direction. I determined that my website is a tactical device, not a strategic imperative, so I felt no rush to build a new one prior to the launch. Knowing that it would take a few months to come up with a website design that I liked - and one that made sense as I balanced how my new brand assets were falling into place - it made sense to be patient, and start with a placeholder. The site’s content was newly-written, but it was otherwise sparse in its design.

When your website is your storefront, and your most public-facing brand representation, there can be some logic in taking time to get it right. A simplified placeholder allows you to proceed with your business, as long as the site does not hinder your brand and its attributes in any measurable way. It is a delicate balance to achieve, but if you wait for everything to be “perfect,” you may be waiting a long time. More to the point, a brand launch will often reveal brand strengths and weaknesses that you didn’t anticipate - elements that may fundamentally influence how your primary tactical tools should be used. A good strategy requires excellent field research, and sometimes you can’t learn much until you get your feet wet - so sometimes you need to build flexibility into your early tactics.



Three months have now passed since I launched my new business name, and with clearer confidence in how my new brand’s assets are aligning, I launched a shiny new responsive website this week at www.kazolu.com. Responsiveness is important - I increasingly consume web content on mobile devices, and I notice the difference in my viewing and interaction experience when responsive web design has been applied. I also wanted a more modern interface, and I needed its navigation to be intuitive and simple. I think the new design provides both. Finally, my services have really grown in the direction of providing creative content (video in particular), so I wanted the site to focus on visuals as much as on written content.



My core business is consulting on brand development, so it felt like a stressful thing to flip my business identity - but when core truths work better, and are resonating, things don’t stay stressful for long. Change for the sake of change isn’t always a good thing, but if your core purpose is made stronger by embracing your brand’s evolution through a shift in identity, then it is a worthwhile thing to do.

I am fortunate enough to have a business that aligns nicely with my personal life. So, as my personal life evolves - kids getting older, and time constraints shifting - I need to acknowledge how those elements will shape the kind of business that I can build over the coming years.


My guiding professional principle is articulating a brand’s foundational clarity, so articulating a more personal, straightforward representation of my own services makes sense as I plan for the future. There’s no textbook that accurately says when it’s time to “re-brand” - you have to do your research, but you also need to listen to your gut. If the timing makes sense, if your reasoning is sound, and if your core attributes support a new direction, then it may be time to take the leap. I’ll let you know in a year or so how it all worked out for me.