Truly Deeply/Madly

Brand names should work as hard as pos­si­ble to sup­port the busi­ness aspi­ra­tions of an organ­i­sa­tion. Names play a role far greater than sim­ply being an iden­ti­fier. They should con­vey some­thing of the promise of what is on offer. For some brands that may mean com­mu­ni­cat­ing a cer­tain per­son­al­ity. For oth­ers it may mean play­ing up a func­tional or emo­tional attribute that con­nects with the tar­get mar­ket. What­ever the approach brand names should sup­port the desired mar­ket posi­tion­ing of the prod­uct, ser­vice or organisation.

One organ­i­sa­tion who has under­stood this bet­ter than most is our client, Aus­tralian Power & Gas. They have just headed the list of Australia’s top grow­ing busi­nesses recently reported in BRW’s Fast Starters rank­ings. Aus­tralian Power & Gas increased its turnover by almost 111% in 2008–2009 to $72.7 mil­lion and expects to lift that to $125-135million this finan­cial year. What is inter­est­ing about this elec­tric­ity and gas retailer is that it is very much a vir­tual com­pany. It serves 125,000 cus­tomers (95% based in Vic­to­ria) with only 40 peo­ple located in Syd­ney. It has been struc­tured around a vir­tual busi­ness model that out­sources sales, billing, call cen­tre, invoic­ing and pay­ments. While it out­sources key busi­ness processes it actively man­ages its brand. It has great clar­ity around the brand expe­ri­ence it aspires to deliver to every­one of its 125,000 cus­tomers and the brand def­i­n­i­tion we cre­ated with Aus­tralian Power & Gas pro­vides impor­tant lay­ers of mean­ing and direc­tion to all busi­ness part­ners. Noth­ing is left to chance!

But what about the name? For a mod­ern energy com­pany who is a lit­tle over 3 years old, you may feel that the name sounds a lit­tle staid and con­ser­v­a­tive. True, but it also sounds Aus­tralian owned, large and well estab­lished. It sounds the big end of town, and that is a very impor­tant attribute when you are ask­ing energy cus­tomers to trust you, to switch their busi­ness away from their cur­rent sup­plier. As a brand name Aus­tralian Power & Gas projects itself as any­thing but a new kid on the block oper­at­ing a vir­tual busi­ness sys­tem – it sounds like it has been around for­ever, impor­tantly it also sounds ever so believable.

In an age when a lot of kudos is bandied around for brand names that have loads of atti­tude and per­son­al­ity, there is always a place for more con­ser­v­a­tive and descrip­tive names, if they sup­port the desired posi­tion­ing of the brand. And guess what the sec­ond fastest grow­ing com­pany name was in BRW’s Fast Starters….Aussie Farm­ers Direct…..hardly sexy, but work­ing hard com­mu­ni­cat­ing what the busi­ness is about, and very suc­cess­fully so!

Peter Singline
Brand Scientist

Above image from April 29 – June 2 2010 edi­tion of BRW.
Power Bro­kers: Aus­tralian Power & Gas co-founders James Myatt, left, and Andrew But­ler.
Pho­to­graph by Nic Walker.

Tags: 100-fastest-growing-start-up-coompanies, Australian-Power-and-Gas, Brand Agency, Brand Design, Brand Experience, Brand Strategy, BRW, Corporate Image, Fast-Starters-Rankings, Graphic Design Melbourne, Interior Design, Melbourne Brand Strategy, peter-singline

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