The brandling is becoming brand the change
I have a confession to make. I have failed, and continue to fail, on so many levels with our own brand and marketing. It’s time to confront at least one of those issues head-on: we are rebranding. From 2022, The Brandling will officially become ‘Brand The Change’.
Why is the Brandling rebranding to Brand The Change?
Here’s the backstory.
When I quit my job in 2014 figure out how we might use the power of brand to advance social and environmental justice, I spent a year on the road doing research.
The Brandling was the name of the travel blog, where people could find my story and I reported my findings. The name was a reference to my belief that we are all brand-thinking human beings.
I wrote down the phrase ‘Brand The Change’ at the centre of our own Brand Thinking Canvas, but at the time it seemed nothing more than a punchy brand essence (ai ai ai!).
When we transitioned to an official educational organisation and I was running around delivering training sessions all over the world, keeping 'The Brandling' was the easiest way forward.
Please note that 'easy' is shorthand for 'lazy'.
I didn’t have the headspace to look forward, I didn’t listen to my own expertise, and perhaps more importantly, on some level I never expected it to take off, so how important was the name anyway?
When I signed a contract with BIS to turn our self-published toolkit into a full book, Brand The Change was the obvious choice.
It also made sense to use Brand The Change as the name of the online community which we started in 2015, and the meetups which started in 2018.
Brand The Change was a call to action that anyone could join, not just people who took part in our training programs.
All the while, the name ‘The Brandling’ continued to irk me.
To channel Marie Kondo: THIS BRAND NAME DOES NOT SPARK JOY!
Dozens of times we considered changing the name over the years. There were always a ton of pros and cons, a trademark lawyer who advised against it, and a huge new financial investment we couldn’t afford. I avoided making a hard decision, and it came at our own expense.
Mea culpa.
As the community is more and more at the heart of our learning experiences, the cons started to dwindle.
I always tell clients -as I am sure you do too- that the more brainpower you ask people to invest in understanding who you are, what you do, and why it matters, the harder it is to get them on board.
We want to make it easier for everyone to understand what we stand for, to feel ownership of it, and to share the story.
To get to that clarity, we will have to do quite a bit of work. We're changing all our educational materials, our email addresses, accounts, handles, backlinks etc.
Please bear with us while we transition, and feel free to tip us any old brand name mentions and broken links when you spot them! Email us at hello@brandthechange.org
As always, I wish you - and ourselves - the brand we deserve.
Cheers,
Anne
PS: As always - it takes a village to build a brand. A big thanks to Daniel Markides of Rock Paper Ink for the design work, Marleen Splinter at Rise for the legal support, brand strategist Marieke Griffioen for helping us think through our options, and namer Elles Poiesz of We Are Naming for her valuable expert perspective.