Sorry for not posting for a while. We’ve had our heads down, working on rebranding Virgin Radio.
We had to do the whole thing in 60 days, because they have to hand the Virgin brand back 90 days after buying the company. If you’ve ever worked on a rebranding, you know that’s pretty aggressive. There's a lot to do.
The new name was announced to VIPs (registered website users) by email and SMS yesterday, and on-air this morning by Christian O’Connell.
And the new name is Absolute.
Image used under Creative Commons license from James Cridland.
Some people have commented that the “sandal-wearing marketing folk” have really pulled off a trick this time, as the new brand name was also the name of the new management team’s consultancy Absolute Radio International Ltd.
Well, the story is that we did come up with some cracking names (IMHO), but whenever we were talking about what the new brand should stand for, our clients always kept underlining one name in particular on their pads. The one that was already printed at the top!
So Absolute met one of the most important criteria for a new brand name – that the people who work for the company like it and feel that it signals their ambition. It also met another criteria for the new owners – that it was available as a domain and trademark internationally. Plus, as James points out, it will appear first in the list of stations on DAB radios, and DAB is the future.
So what exactly have we been doing then?
- Creating their ‘open way of doing business’ strategy, including building and maintaining their staff blog onegoldensquare.com.
- Defining the new brand platform and endline – ‘discover real music’.
- Designing the new brand identity.
- Working with them on the ‘crossfade’ launch strategy. (You’ll notice on air that the station is now being referred to as “Virgin Radio, soon to be Absolute” Keep listening and see how that evolves…)
- Writing and designing a newspaper-style ‘brand book’ for the trade (advertisers, media agencies, commentators).
- Working with their online team on the new website design (to be launched soon).
- Developing an integrated launch campaign for later in the year.
Phew. After a pause for a quick glass of Champagne it’s straight back to work. There are only 30 days until Mr Branson wants his brand back and there’s still a lot to do.
A pure heart allows all others their dance and unfolding, even if the others end their incarnation in death or disease.
Posted by: Jordan Accolades | 09/03/2011 at 03:12