We talk with Aurelia Szymanski, Director of Communications
Why did Linedata undertake its recent rebranding?
We began last year - which was a turning point for Linedata history, being almost 20 years in business, and for our strategy as we are in the midst of an ambitious transformation.
First, we changed the governance of the company – from an Executive Board to a Board of Directors, bringing new outside executives into our governance, including 3 women and 2 men to shape Linedata’s strategy for the future.
A second important change is that we have added servicing to our technology and software offerings with the acquisition of Gravitas (US) and QRMO (HK).
And third is the launch of a new brand and visual identity. We thought that our brand did not accurately reflect Linedata after 20 years, our transformation ambitions and our vision for the future. We didn’t go into the project planning this but we also brought into our leadership 2 new positions which reflect Linedata’s strategic vision: Director of Innovation Marketing & Communications and Chief People Officer.
How did you decide on this approach?
We had three steps to our evaluation and process: 1) we did an audit of 60 people: employees and clients regarding their opinions of Linedata; 2) we analyzed the competition and our environment and we found that no competitors were taking advantage of BRAND. All players were using the same messaging, same colors, colder images. We also lacked impact and consistency. Insight from our consultant, Carre Noir, shows that client and market perception of a brand is fundamental. Partners and clients will choose based on brand awareness and recognition – even more than B to C businesses. We wanted to build on Linedata’s values and DNA and to stake out brand territory that reflects what Linedata is and will be, a new Linedata that we wanted to show the market; 3) we built the brand platform – from a workshop of our senior leaders where we reviewed strengths of Linedata. This process allowed us to really extract the DNA of Linedata from which we formed the brand platform.
What was the most surprising thing you learned during this process?
We were quite impressed to have a brand platform emerge, in colors and words, from our own workshops.There is a lot of market consolidation – we are not the largest player, nor a startup; but where we are allows us to be close to our clients, global and local, specific in our markets. Linedata’s independence and strong position allowed us to choose more disruptive and differentiating brand territory. Our values are personal – Caring, Smart, Sustainable, Passionate, reflecting Linedata and our ability as a company to endure, to evolve and to grow.
What makes the new Linedata brand and visual identity unique?
Our new logo type, strength of the RED color and the images that convey movement . The Logo type incorporates L and D but it is open to the world, unending, not closed to our environment and with an innovative spirit. We chose the red color as a passionate and differentiated color versus the gray, blue and greens typical in our industry environment – revealing who we are and how we want to be accepted by our clients and the market. We humanize technology.