WPP's Enterprise IG rebrands as The Brand Union

by Alex Donohue, Brand Republic 05-Nov-07, 12:40

LONDON - WPP-owned Enterprise IG has renamed itself The Brand Union and expanded its senior management team, following a rebranding exercise masterminded by Simon Bolton, the agency's chief executive officer.

The Brand Union said it had made the decision to rename itself following a client consultation period, which found its previous name Enterprise IG "no longer represented" the agency's services.

The renaming is part of a long-term strategy masterminded by Bolton, which aims to fully align the WPP-owned agency's global network of 21 offices representing a host of clients in the financial services sector, including American Express, Bank of America, Credit Suisse and KPMG. Recent client wins include China Mobile, Samsung and GE Money.

Bolton said: "The Brand Union name coupled with our new positioning is our way of saying that we are unified, but not uniform. We now have a client-centric global brand agency that operates in all major markets, delivering the highest standards in growth, direction and protection."

The agency has also expanded its global senior management team with six new hirings.

Crispin Jameson has joined as chief strategy officer, Julia Rice as worldwide HR director, Danny Du as creative director for Shanghai, and Micky Du joining as creative director for Singapore.

Meanwhile, Wally Krantz has been hired as executive creative director for New York, and David Lett will take up the same position in Johannesburg.

In addition to the rebranding programme, The Brand Union said it was in talks with three higher education institutes, MIT, Tsinghua University in Beijing and Goldsmith's University in London, about co-sponsoring an international brand management course in the future.

Comments

Charlie Hoult - 07/11/2007

For a global business, it seems a very english name. I like it, but I'm imagining the word 'union' is a bit of a mouthful in German, let alone Cantonese ;-0