Europe’s largest WordPress agency adopts a shorter, punchier name to “reflect its commitment to clarity and being an accessible and reliable partner”.
In the press release, Alex Frison, Syde’s CEO, explains that the rebrand “marks a strategic shift, embodying the company’s commitment to evolution, optimization, innovation, and sustained excellence in the digital realm.”
Like with most re-brands, a few things happened here:
- An issue was addressed (e.g., a hard-to-pronounce name)
- Adoption of a stronger, bolder, and more memorable name and identity
- Re-alignment to reflect a change in vision and/or strategy
I caught up with Syde’s CIO, Robert Windisch, at WordCamp Asia to better understand the reasons beyond the points listed above. He explained that changes to the organization’s modus operandi were needed following a significant increase in their workload and that they introduced new roles, systems, and processes to better service their customers. Optimizing their own brand in the process to reflect newfound efficiency and clarity.
He also pointed out that the Marketing team had leaked photos of a company outing where some team members wore t-shirts sporting the new branding back in October.
Are rebrands becoming trendy in the WordPress ecosystem?
Syde’s rebrand, announced on the 5th of March, follows a couple of similar exercises by established WordPress brands recently:
- WooCommerce introducing Woo
- iThemes becoming SolidWP
- Kinsta’s new visual language,
- WPCS.io re-naming itself as wildcloud
I wouldn’t go as far as calling this a trend – I’m not expecting four more announcements in the next 12 months. But I think it represents the growing maturing of the WordPress ecosystem and awareness that brand matters.
Related to this is WordPress’ own need to articulate and amplify its position in the broader market. The Woo re-brand is part of this, but there’s more to come, including better distinguishing WordPress.com and WordPress.org, which Matt Mullenweg mentioned in WordCamp Asia 2024’s Q&A session.
At the Marketing desk at WordCamp Asia’s Contributor Day, Josepha Haden Chomphosy mentioned the need to promote the WordPress brand and its unique value propositions. The what, how and when is TBC, but the idea is to establish a WordPress Media Corps team to do just that.
Re-brands are not just about a new name and logo
They are an opportunity to rally the troops around new ideas, a refined vision and perhaps a new direction.
Starting with an introspective and going through a company-wide process to understand what staff’s existing and sentiments and perceptions are. This can be an eye-opener for leadership, and surface issues that may not be directly linked to the brand, but affect it. There’s a bit of work to do before starting the consider new names and designs, to make sure that everyone is behind a renewed idea for the brand.
Michelle Noel, Strategy Director at Studio Noel, has written a great piece about this that you can use as a starting point: The Definitive Guide to Tech Company Branding: A Comprehensive Resource for B2B & B2C Businesses.
Should you re-brand your WordPress business too?
There are over 100 people working at Syde. It’s not a small company by WordPress standards, and have the resources to do a formal re-brand, perhaps engaging a specialist agency or consultant. Like Verve, which worked on the Kinsta re-brand. But it doesn’t have to be a costly exercise. You don’t need to engage a branding expert.
Start with an audit, even if you’re not thinking about a re-brand. This could just be a discussion you have with the rest of the team, or a more formal process with surveys and interviews. I will be clear if you need to re-brand or not, and what its scope should be.
