The aim

Using the word ‘print’ somewhere in the name of your printing business is common sense if all you offer is print services. It gets across what you provide to the customer instantly. However, as print companies are migrating to more cross-media services, the word print can no longer accurately represent fully what the company is about.

This is why the print company formerly known as PrintFlow rebranded its entire business under a new name. Established in 1986 at premises once used for handbag making, the London-based printer was one of the first companies to branch into digital printing in the early 1990s. In the past few years, however, it has begun a shift from purely print services to other areas, such as design and cross-media marketing.

"Cross-media still only makes up around 5% of our business, but it is something we are doing more," says Paul Manning, director at the company. "Having the name Printflow was restricting us, as it meant that when we went to sell a solution for marketing or design it was very hard to be taken seriously."

To make a success of its shift to a new business offering, then, Manning decided that the company needed a complete rebrand, from the name and website to the layout of the facility it worked from.

The method
The first step was the name. Do you go clever, witty, long, short, quirky, serious, self-explanatory or mysterious? Is it future-proofed against misfitting business areas? Does it command respect? These were all things Manning had to consider, along with one other very 21st century question: does it have a‘.com’ web address available?

This last question was crucial to Manning’s decision to pick the name ‘Rapidity’. It was chosen mainly  because this was the only title out of the names the company had shortlisted that had a ‘.com’ web address available.

"We didn’t want ‘we are Rapidity dot com’, or ‘Rapidity UK’, because that can look a bit low-brow," he says. "Obviously, there were other considerations, too. We felt the name embodied our USPs of location, speed and quality. And Rapidity was a way of giving us an umbrella to sell other things under."

A name sorted and a logo designed to go with it, the company then set out to transform the rest of the business accordingly. Manning was adamant that this should be a complete overhaul, not just of the marketing collateral and branding presence, but also of the physical look and feel of the business. He says this was intended to ensure that both existing and new customers saw the company in a new light.

As is to be expected of a company heading towards cross-media in a digital age, the first step after the new name was a new website. Manning opted to get external assistance for the website design and building, rather than trying to tackle it in-house, as he feels the website is one of the most crucial areas a business needs to get right. The move cost thousands of pounds, but Manning maintains that it was worth every single penny.

"We’ve gone for a vibrant website that tries to get the balance just right by telling people who we are and what we do, while not pigeon-holing us as just a printer," says Manning. "I don’t want to use the word ‘funky’ because it’s an awful word, but for us the new website is about trying to come in line image-wise with the people we want to work with."

As important as it is to create a vibrant website, there is little point in creating a trendy online presence if you have a rough and ready real-life presence. While Rapidity’s north London base wasn’t shabby, Manning believed that it needed a bit of renovation to help it live up to the company’s new branding.

Hence, the company is currently undergoing a general refurbishment and reorganisation of its premises, which will create three new client meeting rooms, a "more inviting" reception and offices with more of an open-plan feel.

With the essentials sorted, the admin side of things had to be addressed. This began with calling clients and sending them and suppliers letters to let everyone know what was happening. Manning says that, being in the print industry, this communication was crucial, as a swift name change in this business can often have negative connotations. 

"Because of the nature of the industry we are in, we had to make a comical announcement that we weren’t going under – just changing our name," he explains. "As soon as we changed the name, we had paper companies on the phone asking what was going on. We had to reassure people that we were not changing to Printflow Ltd 2010 because we were going under and coming back up again."

The result
Manning estimates that the rebrand has cost around £20,000 to £25,000 in total. He says that while the website and refurbishment were big lump sums, the real costs were in the smaller items.

"All of the legalities like changing our name at Companies House and changing our bank details were actually relatively easy," he reports, "but it was expenses such as the signage on the door and on our vans that all added up."

He is confident, however, that this outlay will pay for itself very quickly.

"We feel the rebrand will pay for itself through attacking the new business market more than we’ve done in the past," he says. "You’ve only got to get one account off the back of the rebrand and it pays for itself."

In fact, the image change has already brought in business that Manning suspects Printflow would not have attracted.

"To give you an example, we have one new client in particular who is opening a cross-media account; I’m not sure they would have done that if we had been called Printflow," he reveals. "And that account might prove to be very lucrative in the future if it leads to us doing print for them as well."

The verdict
Although it is obviously difficult to measure the full effect of the rebrand until the refurb is fully completed in the coming months, in terms of the new name, website, and logo, Manning is very pleased with the finished results. "We’ve had a really good reaction from people," he reports.

Manning admits, however, that there was a slight worry with the name change: that new customers might not realise Printflow was a printer with 25 years of experience in the field. This is something, he says, that other printers planning a similar rebrand would need to consider.

"Printflow was obviously a well-loved name and the thing you do lose is 25 years of everyone knowing what Printflow is," he says. "There was also a worry that taking ‘print’ out of the name might cause confusion – we talked about whether that was a good idea for about three months!"

In the end, it was decided that the opportunity to bring in more marketing, design and cross-media business was worth the small risk of confusion over what it was the company principally did.

Manning would also encourage any other printers considering such a rebrand to be aware of the potential costs involved. "You could really underestimate the cost and difficulty of a rebrand if you weren’t careful," he warns.

"But it will definitely be worthwhile," he concludes. "We are confident we’ll be able to build the same reputation that Printflow had.

COMMENT

‘Fair’ and ‘reasonable’. Whether in relation to fiscal policy, the economy or executive pay, these are perhaps two of the most frequently used words in the press at the moment.

But problems arise when you look for a consistent perception of what these words mean. If you tell me something is fair, does that mean it is? And your definition of reasonable may be completely different to mine. The connotations of everyday words can be more slippery than you’d think.

The labelling of a business can be similarly problematic – how to choose words that will be interpreted by all in exactly the way you intended? For businesses purely offering print, it’s a no-brainer that including ‘print’ in your title is one way of ensuring every customer knows what you are about.

But the difficulty facing printers like Rapidity is finding a label that encapsulates the ethos of a business offering more than just ink on paper.

Certainly the importance of all companies evolving their offering to keep up with technological advances and customers’ rapidly changing habits and expectations is clear to see. Even the most traditional high street retailers are integrating mobile technology to allow customers to shop without even entering the store, something that would have been unthinkable only a couple of years ago. This strategy has been backed up by the European Commission, which stated that it wants the share of sales by e-commerce to double to just under 7% in the next three years.

Rapidity has taken its first steps in this increasingly digital retail environment by considering what other offerings can support its future success, and questioning the value of being identified by the word ‘print’.

Rapidity knows it’s up to us to educate customers about the benefits of print, but that printers can’t just rely on the product side of things. Instead, printers must develop those other services that customers now expect, and brand themselves accordingly.

Seems pretty reasonable to me.

– Philip Thompson, head of BPIF business