I believe that companies naturally change over time and for those leaders and stakeholders who love what they do changing one’s business name can be an amazing experience. The re-branding (and by extension) re-positioning experience can make for some really exciting plays.

For example, when we changed our name from Relevention to Crew...

Why the change? Let me take you under the hood.

When I started Relevention out of my basement in 2007, I was attempting to do something different. I wanted to combine marketing best practices with top-level creative services, making it accessible to entrepreneurs and mid-sized organizations.

I liked our name Relevention—which combined the words of Relevant and Invention. I thought I was being so clever and crafty – and the dot com was available. At the time of its inception I was thrilled with the name and brand presence.

However, we encountered a few problems that prompted the change and they rested in three key areas:

1. Low Brand Recall = Slow Growth

People have a hard time remembering Relevention: spelling it, and most importantly, telling others about it. This is called Brand Recall.

If Brand Recall is low, word-of-mouth (the most effective form of advertising) will also suffer. If they can’t spell it, they can’t find it on search engines and this limits one’s ability to use coverage media strategies such as Out-of-Home ads or Radio. This leads to slower growth and that was a problem for us because we have aggressive growth plans.

2. Better Alignment with our Internal Culture

Even though we created hundreds of name options for our new agency, we landed on Crew — the acronym for our core values: Character, Relationships, Execution and Wow. This name also better represents how we want our clients to view us.

We’re your Crew—a group of specialists that partner with you in your marketing efforts in order to achieve results. Who wouldn’t want their own Crew?

3. A New Business Model

Not only do we partner with clients in their marketing efforts, but we’re also a group of entrepreneurial partners who are working with organizations in many different areas. Our growth as an agency is going to come through bringing on partners who open offices in cities across the country. Our name is more mainstream to enable these new partners to establish themselves more quickly.

We have since helped hundreds of businesses create new names, brands and strategies that are right for them. It’s a daunting task for everyone involved, but it’s rewarding when you find the solutions that work.