Forging a new path

It can be tough having famous parents, having to work extra hard to carve out your own identity. And when you don’t have a name to call your own it’s even harder. So, when the bearings division of global powerhouse Saint-Gobain came to us for inspiration, we were excited to help.

Like their innovative parent brand, bearings were super-successful and hugely respected as pioneers in their field. As they evolved their offer, they wanted to be able to talk directly to their customers with a new name and brand that encompassed their new positioning.

Drawing on the history, expertise and reputation of Saint-Gobain, they wanted to move customer perception from one of simply selling products to one of co-creation to better communicate bearings’ unique collaborative work style and widen appeal.

It was clear that the new brand had to capture how they work hand-in-hand with customers to co-engineer ingenious components but the whole concept of a new name and brand was a sizeable leap and one that had to land positively with colleagues and customers around the world. The pressure was on.

Expressing co-creation through collaboration

Luckily, we love a challenge because this was a challenging brief. Finding a name that would work across 14 countries, in 11 languages and across different cultures called for creative and strategic rigor.

First up strategic and creative discovery, we invited the client to lean in to this stage with group workshops to seek clarity and set the foundations for robust decisions further down the line.

Armed with both customer and team insight we ideated names. Our first thoughts were free range – throwing the creative channels wide open to all ideas and opinions. Names on their own, especially when they're for a new company, actually have very little meaning, they build their meaning in the minds of customers over time, through experience. So, for the strongest name concepts we built brand stories and straplines to give context to our ideas. We also ran initial sense checks relating to domains, trademarks and language translations, ensuring we could buy the .com for any name we put forward – no small feat.

We worked closely with the senior management team worldwide, besides inputting ideas and providing feedback, which helped refine our thinking it was crucial in ensuring the new brand felt authentic.

The result was EQYO – a bold, characterful name and brand that worked on every level. Besides its playful feel, which chimed with the business’s strong sense of curiosity and unique approach, it had the sound ‘key’ at its heart – the key to unlocking their customers’ engineering puzzles through collaboration.

The final piece in the puzzle

For a business set on communicating a message of co-creation, it was appropriate that the new brand was born out of partnership. By working closely with the client at every stage of name origination and brand creation we could keep the aims of the business in sharp focus, ensuring that creativity never strayed from the strategy. It was a rigorous process where all options were considered and all the relevant people could get involved. For the client, it was a way of working that really worked.

The new name was unique and had real stand out in a crowded market. It captured their unique work style and customer experience – the EQYO effect – not just for existing customers but for future customers too. To help launch the new brand a panel of ambassadors demonstrated how the new brand could be used as a driver, empowering people to evolve their brand and their business.

While it’s still early days, the reaction so far has been super-positive. Both colleagues and customers around the world have said they love the name EQYO as well as the brand which they’ve described as brave and eye-catching. So in fact, we helped the team unlock their branding puzzle – they thanked us for overcoming barriers, directing solutions and ultimately achieving consensus to get them over the line.