Zain, ZoomMobile, What Are New Names?

An age long adage says that a rose will still smell the same, even if it is called by another name!

From time, names have been extremely powerful and act, as a separate manifestation of a person or thing. It is difficult to imagine a human culture without names.

The name of a person or thing is at the heart of their identity in many ways. A change of name indicates a change of status or so it seems.

Change of name or rebranding is essentially an exercise in realignment. It usually involves radical changes to the brand’s logo, brand name, image, marketing strategy, and advertising themes.

And so the name change fever swept across the telecom industry last week and at the blink of the eye, Celtel Nigeria became Zain Nigeria while Reliance Telecom changed to ZoomMobile.

For Zain Nigeria, the name is the fifth in seven years, having started as Econet Wireless, then Vodacom, later Vmobile and Celtel Nigeria. Zain Group which is currently listed on the Kuwait Stock Exchange (KSE) purchased Celtel for $3.4 billion in 2005

Zain Group, a major mobile operator servicing over 50 million customers in 22 countries across the Middle East and Africa and parent company of Zain Nigeria said that the move coincides with the linking of the world’s first borderless mobile service ‘One Network’ across two continents.

By rebranding to Zain, the parent company hopes to bring together its African and Middle East operations under a single, strong and unique identity.

The Zain brand provides an optimal platform upon which can build a top 100 global brand with the ultimate goal of better serving our customers. It builds upon the success of Zain’s group African operations and will propel the Zain Group towards becoming one of the top ten global mobile telecommunications companies by 2011

Elsewhere, ZoomMobile is projecting increased earnings, on account of an on-going network expansion and re-branding which follows the taking on of high networth investors in a recent private placement.

The re-branding comes on the 10th anniversary of the incorporation of the company, and is a major milestone in the evolution of the brand.

The objective of ZoomMobile’s re-branding exercise was to re-position the company as a national mobile service provider adding that the new brand is in line with the wishes of the new shareholders who bought into the company during its private placement.

According to the company, the acquisition of the Unified Access Service license has necessitated a shift in business strategy, which in turn entails that they begin to change their market perception from a fixed wireless to a national mobile operator.

The ZoomMobile brand is envisioned as a youthful, vibrant, dynamic, innovative, passionate and professional brand, promising unrivalled speed and reliability of service on voice, internet, short message service and other value-added services.

It is important for the newly created brand names to evoke associations with a set of core corporate values that typically focus on competence, quality of service, and performance.