Two Marketing Firms Called Momentum Was One Too Many

Changing was risky, but Brad Nierenberg needed a new name.

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It was the final straw. Momentum Marketing had finally landed a meeting with a major soft-drink company -- precisely the kind of blue-chip client the Alexandria, Va.-based event marketing firm coveted. But almost as soon as it had been scheduled, the meeting was canceled. Apparently, the client had learned that Momentum had previously worked for Coca-Cola and saw some potential conflicts.

Nierenberg was furious -- because Momentum Marketing had never even come close to working with Coca-Cola. Instead, his 64-person company was being confused -- for what seemed like the millionth time -- with Momentum Worldwide, a subsidiary of the huge advertising conglomerate McCann Worldgroup that often bid on the same contracts. Nierenberg grabbed the phone to try to explain the snafu. But the client had already selected another firm. Says Nierenberg: "Rumor becomes reality -- and it's done."

Momentum Marketing had seemed like the perfect name when Nierenberg and co-founder Brad Beckstrom founded the company back in 1995. "It sounded cool, forward, and motivating," Nierenberg says. And at first, the existence of another, larger Momentum wasn't much of a problem. In fact, the confusion sometimes helped Nierenberg and his colleagues land meetings with clients who thought they were dealing with a company with 72 offices in 49 countries and accounts like Bacardi and Buick -- not a start-up founded by two twentysomethings. But the mix-ups were now sparking little more than frustration. Says Nierenberg: "We were missing opportunities."

After the soft-drink debacle, which occurred in early 2002, Nierenberg sat down with his executive team. Enough was enough, they all agreed. They decided to discuss their options with a consultant, and the man was blunt. "Every day you go on as Momentum Marketing," he said, "you are building equity for another company." The solution was obvious: Momentum Marketing would have to change its name.

Nierenberg knew it would be risky. After all, the firm had been doing business as Momentum for nearly a decade. It had developed a solid reputation for innovative campaigns for clients such as MasterCard and Geico. A name change, if mishandled, risked squandering that brand equity. There were also more prosaic concerns. How does a mature company like Momentum even go about selecting a name? How do you educate clients about the change in a way that doesn't confuse them? They were scary questions, but Nierenberg knew it had to be done.

In early 2003, a six-person committee, comprising employees at all levels, began meeting for a full day once a month, brainstorming words and phrases, searching for the one that would best express the firm's values, approach, and people. Almost immediately, it became clear to Nierenberg that choosing a new name was as much an opportunity as a challenge; the process, he saw, would allow Momentum to reassert and redefine exactly what it stood for. Momentum's execs had long wanted to move beyond the narrow event marketing niche and become a full-service marketing and brand-strategy agency. The right name could go a long way toward bringing about that change.

Eventually, the committee generated 350 potential names. As the art department began thinking about logos, staffers started researching candidates, to make sure the best ones were not already taken. By spring 2004, the list had been whittled to three: Vault, Avid Experiential, and Red Peg. Nierenberg spent the summer pondering his options, running them past clients, employees, and friends. It was hard to decide. He liked the sense of security implied by Vault, which also offered a feeling of upward movement. Avid Experiential, he felt, communicated a sense of energy. And Red Peg, inspired by the board game Battleship, communicated accuracy and precision. But the process had dragged on longer than he expected -- almost two years -- and it was time to make the call. Which name could Nierenberg live with forever?

The Decision

Avid Experiential was the first to be rejected. It was too narrow, executives decided, and would do little to help Momentum break out of the event marketing niche. Vault was deemed too heavy and static. Then there was Red Peg. The more they thought about it, the better it sounded. Not only did it have a nice internal rhyme, but it also neatly summed up the company's mission. "Everything we do is focused on hitting the right customer, at the right time, in the right way," Nierenberg says.

Nierenberg unveiled the new name at the company's annual three-day retreat in September 2004, in Virginia's Blue Ridge Mountains. Employees were split into teams, each of which painted a small section of what was to be a large mural. When the pieces were stitched together, the company's new name and logo -- a bright-red exclamation point -- appeared. The room erupted with applause. Two years of hard work and waiting were finally over.

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