Know-How Exchange : Branding

You have a B2B company with large clients. These clients are your source of business and main concern. Do they know your name and the products you offer? If they do you do not have a big problem. My advise is to make any name change gradually and that includes your logo unless you have a big business problem and need to make a dramatic change. From your description it does not sound as such. Make sure you get a good graphic designer with experience in cases like yours to guide you during the process which I insist should be gradual.
Hope this helps.

Tena,

Brand Transition is a fairly methodical process and can take time. Think about it like you're trying to teach a new language. Libro and book are quite dissimilar. To get the "new" word into someone's mind, the first thing you do is place them side-by-side: Book: Libro. You say them both. Then you ad some images with them. Next, use them in a sentence with other words you know: Tengo uno libro rojo. You write the word. Etc. The idea is to use multiple exposures to drive the concept home.

The concept is the same in Brand Transition. The process is done in stages. For example, this could be executed with first, the new name is added subordinate to the old name. Next, the new name is promoted to equal. Then it's new name, old name subordinate. Finally, the old name is dropped. Press releases and vendor/customer/partner announcement - yes, these are a must! Each change requires ALL business cards, letterhead, brochures, website etc to be purged as the new ones are brought on. You don't want to have any conflicting material out there.

The reason why the "big" companies do it over time is because it takes a while for brand changes to "sink in." They take hold by multiple exposure over time. It has little to do with the size of the company or number of customers so much as the time to bring the change along.

Of course, if you believe you are so small and that you have promoted your brand so little that there are no mental image of the old name, then you don't have any concerns! Just switch. It won't affect anyone any way you do it. The decision to take the time and expense to do it "all the way" versus not worry about it depends on the dollar (pound, yen, etc) value you place on your brand image. If you have none, then the money to transition it won't pay back!

As far as a guideline on time - I've used six months per phase. However, that's not a cut and dried answer. A survey of customers would tell you how you're doing. See if they are making the association the right way and when they are, you can change to the next phase.

With respect to changing to your product name - OneStop with or without Corp and OneStop On Demand - your company name should reflect your long term strategy - who you want to be when you grow up. If your corporate strategy is to be a OneStop Source, then this would make sense. For your product name, consider where you go from OnDemand - does your product strategy include other products that aren't "on demand - like BackUp and OffSite?" Or will all the products be on demand such that you might look at OnDemand Manuals, OnDemand AccountRecords, OnDemand Production, and OnDemand Personnel. How will you handle upgrades in the future? OnDemand 1.0, OnDemand 2.0? These are considerations for choosing a names.

I hope this helps.

Wayde

Wayde has given you good advice. The specifics of what you can and should do will depend to some degree on your name and product category, and the purchase cycle for your product/service. Generic advice is ... well, it's generic. And your situation is specific, not general.

You probably ought to engage a branding consultant to look at your specific situation, lay out the pros and cons of the various alternatives and make a recommendation.

Feel free to contact me offline if you want some recommendations.