Broadview Security

New:  Name, logo, visual system and a transition tagline

Launched:  July 1, 2009, at an NY Stock Exchange bell ringing

Story in brief:
Brinks will keep its armored trucks, but has spun out its home/commercial security systems business to an entity now named Broadview.  The deal gave the spinout three years in which it could continue to use the Brinks name — and only five years running room, after which Brinks might choose to  compete again (as Brinks) against Broadview.

Landor's Chris Lehmann says "It was a classic RFI/RFP process; maybe dozens of firms got the RFI and were narrowed to four, then two, before we won it."

Strategically, should the new company hang on to the famous "Brinks" as long as possible? Landor advised a quick, clean break to a new name and look, eased only by the transitional tagline "The Next Generation of Brink's Home Security." Creative development would be premised on a positioning summarized as "Active Protection."

In several rounds of name generation, and a reported master list of 2,500 candidates, the coined combination "Broadview" was an early and steady favorite, and fortunately could be deemed an acceptable legal risk.  Its suggestion, "we see everything," directly supports the Active Protection brand promise. (Its retention of "BR" was seen as inconsequential but kind of cool.)

The design strategy (a wordmark with graphic device incorporated) focuses (in this case quite literally) on the name, a big help in seating the brand. The all-caps wordmark, simple and confident, is  deliberately 'broad,'  yet the mark as a whole is functionally compact. The bracket shapes embrace 'view' in a visual pun, which Landor calls the Eye Graphic. Its secondary application, as a graphic frame in advertising and marketing communications (see baby),  neatly connects the brand to its key messages. "They suggest protective hands, as well as an eye" Chris notes. And yes, circular arcs were considered but "then it looked merely like a lens; we lost the hands."

Credits:
C.E.O. - Bob Allen, President and CEO
Positioning, naming and design - Landor Associates;
Chris Lehmann, executive creative director

First Impressions:
Strategy:  Especially for employees, "cold turkey" is always best. It frees them from reliance on history, and engages them to create their own future.
Naming:  Broadview is an excellent solution, illustrating the power of word combinations to create something more clearly screenable and protectable, as well as communicatively effective. 
Design:  Minimalist, sharp. The name may be broad but the eye is looking right at you — appropriately threatening, yet protective as well. "SECURITY" clutters the mark, and should be considered a temporary expedient; as a mark it will be far stronger when "security" is sufficiently seated and can be taken away...  my guess, in about six months.

CEO Bob Allen and colleagues, at the NYSE launch event
 

Other comments:
Name search costs were reported to exceed $1 million (Wall Street Journal, July 22)... possibly ten times Landor's fee for name generation. That's not an unusual ratio

Corporate Brand Matrix ratings:  
100% structural,  0% strategic,  0% functional (est.)