The Western Creative Blog

Engineering a name change can be complicated, said Mark Young, chairman of Redford Township-based advertising and marketing agency Western Creative Inc., formerly Western Communications.

Business owners contemplating a name change should begin by analyzing the reasons, Young said.

“Are you changing the name because there’s been an ownership change that requires it? Are you changing because it’s confusing with another company name? Or are you changing it because it will reflect who the business is and what the business does?” he said.

The first rule, Young said, is like the charge to doctors — first, do no harm.

“Try to measure. What is the equity in the current name?” he said. “Is it a positive equity or negative equity?”

An owner of a restaurant contemplating a name change, for example, might visit local review Web sites to determine the public perception of the business.

“In some businesses, such as hospitality, name changes make a lot of sense if there’s negative equity,” Young said.

“Most people who have tried a club, lounge, bar or restaurant and had a bad experience are likely to remember it and not return. So in that case, a name change can be good, because in the world of local business, most people will give the new name a shot.

“On the other hand, if you’re buying a brand that has positive equity, you need to be careful.”

Whether the business name has positive or negative equity determines how the name change should be handled, he said.

The owner of a well-liked business might want to make the change slowly, or even consider co-branding with the business’ old and new names.

But a business with negative name recognition should slash and burn, eliminating all traces of the prior brand, Young said.

“My advice would be change everything as radically as possible, don’t recycle the logo, image or font, just get away from anything that’s reminiscent (of the old name),” he said.

“But if you’re trying to build on positive equity, you may want to phase in things like fonts, artwork, colors.”

When Western Creative changed its name about 10 years ago, Young said, it was because the descriptor “communications” had become widely identified with stores selling cellular phones or paging devices.

“Though it wasn’t a radical name change, we wiped out everything — logos, colors, literature, business cards. We trashed everything and replaced it all,” he said.

Young also advises business owners to consider the current economic climate, because a name change can be expensive.

-Excerpts taken from a recent article by Nancy Keefer on DetroitMakeItHere.com