What's In a Name? Last Call Branding Strategy
Every business has cycles of growth and expansion, but sometimes that expansion necessitates creating a hard line between two sides of the same company. Left-Click and Last Call Media recently came to that particular crossroads, when it became evident that the internally-understood separation between our retail and web development teams was not so clear to our clients.
The only solution was to emphasize the difference between the services by creating a new brand around our web development arm. Because we already had an established client base, we knew the most important thing for us was not business acquisition, but creating a name and web presence that allowed a definite distinction between the two brands without alienating our customer bases for either.
So how did we do it? Part one explores our brainstorming process. When you’re rebranding an already-established entity, like left-click, the stakes are high. We wanted to claim a defined space in our audience’s mind: clear, memorable, and connects a concept to a tangible reality. Ask, does this new name fulfill these needs? How? When we sat down to brainstorm what word or phrase would tick off all the checkboxes, we were able to very quickly eliminate several off-the-cuff name ideas. When it came down to the wire, the only name that achieved the whole must-have list was Last Call Media.
The balance we attempted to strike by choosing this name over any of the other candidates is precise: almost everyone has heard the phrase “last call,” but its multitude of meanings is what makes it stand out. It’s celebratory, when referring to the last drink of the evening. In our case, we’ll quite literally be the last call you need to make—we can provide all of the web and strategy services of a larger firm, while giving your project the one-on-one attention it deserves. The name definitely adheres to our first rule of branding, and has a unique connotation, to boot.
Stay tuned for part two of this three part series, in which we discuss brand differentiation and how to achieve it.
