Work

Contact

Left column

Services

Naming a company

Rebranding and renaming

Middle column

+31 (0)20 623 85 55

LinkedIn

General conditions

Privacy & cookies

Right column

About

Insights

Asset

Assets

Build your brand on a solid verbal brand identity, so all your communications are distinctive, consistent and full of personality. It includes your brand name and the brand story. It’s based on your brand’s positioning and company ambitions, connects emotionally with your audience and is ownable. Often taglines are included as well, and guidelines for brand architecture (including proposition naming) and implementation.

Verbal brand identity

Projects

Byondis

How can a verbal identity immediately show the why, how and what of a brand-new company working at the cutting edge of cancer breakthroughs?

In April 2020 a new globally active pharmaceutical company was launched, focusing on intractable cancers and autoimmune diseases.Based on proprietary technology, it creates new precision drugs with a broad development pipeline, including anti-HER2 ADC [vic-] trastuzumab duocarmazine (SYD985) for breast cancer.It is a spin-off from Synthon Pharmaceuticals, a multinational that focuses mainly on high-quality generic and hybrid medicines.

Together with Designbridge (then VBAT) we developed the verbal and visual identity. We did this by interweaving our processes, with us being responsible for positioning and brand story, brand essence, brand name and tagline, while Designbridge was responsible for the logo and visual identity.

Interwoven process

The founders, especially Jacques Lemmens, turned out to be remarkably good storytellers. We quickly experienced the rich corporate culture of parent company Synthon. Their wealth of inspiring stories always showed their deep commitment to outsmart cancer and autoimmune diseases.As a brand personality a passionate and daring explorer emerged, working in laboratories with extremely stringent quality and safety requirements. Yet he offers patients in a seemingly hopeless situation the prospect of a solution.Globrands formulated the brand essence expressed in the promise &#039;Make hope real&#039;.

Make hope real

The name Byondis was developed by the international Globrands network. It clearly expresses the character of the brand, while meeting all linguistic, trademark and domain name requirements. It was received very positively by both employees and investors.The name exudes the ambition and pioneering spirit so characteristic of this brand, as Byondis emphatically associates with &quot;beyond this&quot;.

The name

For a new brand like Byondis, it is important to make clear what the domain is. It was important to do this in a distinctive and progressive way, while still being serious, reliable and objective.This led to the tagline &#039;creating precision medicines&#039;.

The 'what'

Project

A complete verbal identity for leading-edge cancer medicine

Everything starts with your brand positioning. It tells what the brand contributes to the world, where it stands today and where it wants to go. It makes clear how the brand stands out. Naming is immediately related to it. It forms the basis for everything the brand does.

Brand positioning

Geldmaat

How can a consortium of large Dutch banks connect with users of ATMs to build trust and clarity, without suggesting that there is another banking brand?

Nowadays, less and less people pay with cash, which is why the use of ATM’s is declining. To keep cash available for everybody, ABN AMRO, ING and Rabobank are working on a more efficient, bank-dependent network of ATM’s. This way, cash will remain available, affordable and safe for everyone. From 2019 onwards, the ATM’s of three Dutch banks will slowly make place for the ATM’s of Geldmaat. These ATM’s will be evenly spread out in The Netherlands so that everyone can stay withdrawing and easily depositing their money.

<h3>Recognizable, familiar and iconic</h3>In Dutch, Geldmaat means ‘money mate’. It also sounds a lot like ‘geldautomaat’, the Dutch word for ATM.Most people withdraw cash because they want to feel physical ownership of their money. Therefore, it is important that these withdrawals can be done in a trusted way at a familiar ATM. The new ATM is supposed to become an icon in the Dutch streetscape, similar to the orange street mailbox of PostNL. However, the ATM’s do not have one specific endorsement brand, such as PostNL. This is why an own brand identity is needed for people to recognize and trust the ATM’s.<h3>It does not sound like a bank</h3>Besides an own brand identity, it has to become clear that Geldmaat is not a new bank. Geldmaat is an ATM where people can withdraw money of their bank account whilst everyone is still a customer at their own bank. That is why we chose for a clear wording: a name which could also become a dictionary term.<h3>Name proposals to explore various brand strategies</h3>During the naming process, a lot of name alternatives were also considered which represented an alternative strategy. For example, we decided not to choose an international name because Geldmaat is targeted solely to Dutch people. Also, a more associative name would not fit with the public task of the money services of The Netherlands, which is providing service for the customers of the major Dutch banks.

Why is ‘Geldmaat’ called ‘Geldmaat’?

Since the search was for a name that makes clear what the product is, the number of options is limited. For instance, few Dutch realize that ‘’pinnen’’ (Dutch for paying by card) is not synonymous with withdrawing money. ‘’Pinnen’’ means paying with your bank card in general, which includes things you buy in the store. This is why the word “pin” immediately was ruled out. Moreover, a descriptive name cannot always be protected.  In order to register a name as trademark, it has to be distinctive from everything else that is already offered. For example, a baker cannot claim the name ‘’Baker’’ for himself only. Besides, for descriptive names, the domains are often not available.Geldmaat makes it clear where you have to be to withdraw money. Supported by the friendly and distinctive visual design by DesignBridge, a new iconic brand is introduced in the Dutch streets. Geldmaat is registered as trademark in the Benelux trademark register and the relevant domain names are registered for the Dutch money service.

Clarity, for everyone in the Netherlands

Ownable word for a new, accessible national ATM

Rebranding involves a repositioning so profound that it leads to changes in how the brand looks and feels, sometimes even including a name change. Reasons for rebranding can include brand expansion (internationalisation, broadening the offering), mergers and acquisitions, connecting with a new audience or reconnecting with existing ones.

Nouryon

How can you fundamentally build on employee pride during a spin-off? Here’s how naming served as the key differentiator in a rebranding of AkzoNobel Specialty Chemicals into Nouryon. For this rebranding we teamed up with Design Bridge (then VBAT) and VIM Group.

When it was announced at the end of March this year that the US-based Carlyle Group was going to acquire AkzoNobel’s Specialty Chemicals branch together with Singaporean investment fund GIC, a lot of preparation had of course been going on behind the scenes.AkzoNobel had announced in April 2017 that it wanted to sell its Specialty Chemicals branch, and preparations for this demerger were set in motion shortly afterwards. Because a spin-off of Specialty Chemicals meant a new name and a complete rebranding of the industry.

Rebrandings of this magnitude are often prepared in fairly small circles, sometimes even only at management and Board level. The management of AkzoNobel Specialty Chemicals thought differently and wanted as many employees as possible to be involved in the process. Under the leadership of Vivi Hollertt, Chief Communications Officer and Jasper Jansen, Head of Communications Netherlands &amp; Germany, a careful process for this was worked out. VIM Group was called in to assist with agency selection, impact analysis and implementation of the corporate identity to be developed, Globrands was selected for positioning and naming and VBAT for the design and corporate identity of the new brand.After a thorough external analysis looking at the positioning of competing chemical companies and gathering input from employees, the basic ingredients of the new positioning were identified. Then, some 15 focus groups worldwide, formed from employees from all levels of the company, formulated a common purpose in several sessions. That purpose ‘Your partner in essential chemistry for a sustainable future’ would serve as a guideline for all communication throughout the rebranding process and was an important part of the naming briefing.

Involving employees in rebranding

Vivi Hollertt, Chief Sustainability & Communications Officer at Nouryon

At the first orientation workshop at the head office in Amsterdam, various possibilities for naming were discussed by exploring different directions using so-called Moodwords. On this basis, it became clear that for naming purposes, the company’s history was also one of the important routes to be further elaborated.

This meant the team had to delve well into the past, scrutinising past company names, brand names and key people associated with the companies. Given the global use of the brand name to be developed, native speaking creatives from different countries in the Globrands network were involved in the process.At Globrands, the search resulted in many hundreds of names and name concepts. Of these, after initial trademark screening in the more than 80 countries where the company operates, checks on the availability of ‘web domains in those countries and primary linguistic suitability, enough remained to be submitted to the project group with substantiated advice.From two such creation rounds and presentations, a longlist for further research was determined in consultation with the international project group.That longlist was then subjected to further trademark searches for comparative and potentially conflicting trademarks and trade names and linguistic checks in all relevant languages.In the end, a shortlist of names remained, from which, after careful consideration, the name Nouryon was chosen that met all communicative criteria, was globally available under trademark law and of which all urls were available. More importantly, it was a name that everyone involved was comfortable with.

Setting a direction for the future by referring to the past

Meanwhile, design agency VBAT had already started to investigate the development of the brand properly, including design and the identity the brand should stand for. As the new name had to be kept strictly secret while the trademark registration process was still ongoing, VBAT was initially given only a dummy name and the first letter N.VIM Group prepared the implementation of the Nouryon name and corporate identity across the various brand carriers, both digitally and offline, so that everything was ready to be implemented.On 9 October 2018, the time had come and Nouryon presented itself to the world and its employees for the first time. By the end, more than 200 people were involved behind the scenes preparing the name, brand, and new materials such as the website.Here, CEO Charles Shaver underlined the link of the new name with the old Noury &amp; van der Lande – the two entrepreneurs from Deventer in the 19th century who discovered how chemistry could contribute to better flour and bread and would become part of a multinational company operating in 80 countries in essential chemistry: Nouryon.

A strictly secret operation

Retaining employee pride in the renaming of AkzoNobel Specialty Chemicals

A clear brand architecture improves brand strength and consistency. It&#039;s particularly helpful in deciding on naming an visual identity for ranges and offerings within a brand portfolio. It establishes the relationship between the main brand, any hero and/or sub brands, propositions, variants and features.

Brand architecture

A consistent naming system is based on your brand architecture. Its logic helps your audience recognise your brand and differentiate your offerings. This results in clarity and distinction, thus improving brand strength.As a part of the brand book, verbal brand guidelines improve brand clarity and consistency by including directions for consistent use of naming as well as brand promise, tagline and tone-of-voice guidelines for branded copy. The naming guidelines provide clarity about the implementation of brand names and descriptors of offerings and often instructions on the type of naming required for new offerings.

Naming system and verbal brand guidelines

Interpolis

Insurance companies are not known for their clear communication. Except Interpolis, whose brand essence is 'crystal clear'. For more than 20 years, this has been the guiding principle in everything they do. So what does that mean for the naming of their offerings?

Co-designed by Globrands, Interpolis has incorporated strategy into their naming as soon as they embraced clarity as their main differentiator. All their naming is descriptive - but distinctive within the insurance world.Interpolis offering names follow a format that lets them clearly describe the product&#039;s function or purpose, but in wording you don&#039;t find in dictionaries like that. For clarity&#039;s sake and Interpolis being a Dutch company, all names are in Dutch.This leads to Globrands-created names like Alles-In-Eén polis (All-In-One policy)for a comprehensive insurance package, or the BuitenDeDeur insurance for property during outdoor activities. ZorgCompact and ZorgActief are slightly different health insurance policies and AutoModus is a care insurance policy.We call this kind of descriptive names in a distinctive language format semi-descriptive names. In this context, it has several advantages.<h3>Clarity for consumers</h3>Semi-descriptive names like these give consumers an immediate idea of what the product is for, making it easier for them to understand relevance and added value.<h3>Product differentiation</h3>Each product name is still unique and differentiates the product from other providers in the market, helping consumers make an informed choice.<h3>Brand extension</h3>This strategy provides flexibility to easily add new products to the range with a new descriptive name without weakening the Interpolis brand.

This form of naming has created its own brand language that is recognisable to Interpolis and contributes to its brand strength and Interpolis&#039; core value of &#039;Crystal Clear.&#039; Clear aligned naming that makes it easy for consumers to choose by quickly understanding the function and added value of each product, while new products can easily be added without weakening the Interpolis brand.The exclusive partnership between Rabobank and Interpolis, both part of the Achmea Group, further strengthens this strategy.

Naming manual

Proving Interpolis’ brand essence with a crystal clear naming system

Verbal validation

Verbal strategy

Verbal creation

Our services, a la carte

Flex page

Pages

Globrands' verbal strategy services prepare a brand for future growth. We provide a framework for new as well as existing naming and wording which is also the basis for further brand development.