Sir Richard Branson reflected once upon a time about the importance of branding:
“Branding demands commitment; commitment to continual re-invention; striking chords with people to stir their emotions; and commitment to imagination. It is easy to be cynical about such things, much harder to be successful”.

You may have heard the news last week that Ericson Broadcast and Media Services has rebranded to Red Bee Media. I wanted to take the chance to provide you with some insight into this brand but also give you a glimpse into the creative work that was done in preparation of the rebrand.

The Red Bee brand was introduced in 2005 when Red Bee Media was first launched.

Back then, the brand name was selected from hundreds of ideas submitted by people from all areas of the business in creative workshops.  Red had always been the brand colour when the company was part of the BBC and “Bee” was short for “broadcast.”  Red Bee was a simple, fitting and popular choice for the name of the new company.  The logo was bold and distinctive.

Over the following nine years Red Bee Media established itself around the globe as a well-known and highly respected media services company. The brand became associated with major contract wins from high profile customers, world-leading new products and significant awards for innovation and creativity.  Red Bee Media was seen as a high quality service provider and an industry thought leader.

Since Ericsson acquired Red Bee in 2014, the Red Bee name has been kept alive by our Creative team.  Now, as we re-launch ourselves as an independent and agile media services organization, we are bringing back the Red Bee Media brand as the basis of a new identity to unify the whole business, our people and our clients.  Our business has brought together other well-respected names in the media industry – Technicolor Broadcast Services and FYI Television – so by reviving the Red Bee brand we are making a big statement that we are, deep to our roots, a media business.

The core assets of the original Red Bee Media identity – our red, our square and our “laddered” logo – are being retained.  They are still distinctive and recognizable. In recognition of how the business has evolved over the last few years, the brand identity has been refreshed to reflect this transformation, wider portfolio of services, increased geographical presence, and focus on innovation.
We have added new elements to convey this sense of renewal and to make the brand fit for today’s multiscreen media environment.  There are two new typefaces, an expanded colour palette, new templates and a set of brand “imprints”, to be used across all platforms, based on our ladders and our square.

The refreshed Red Bee Media brand has been designed to support our rebirth as an independent, agile business with our hearts firmly in media and with a clear purpose: enriching and ensuring media experiences. Additional to this we also defined three core values that describe how we behave at work:

  • Professional – we act with uncompromising integrity, trustworthiness, transparency and accountability; we are responsive, dependable, performance focused and fact based.
  • Innovative – we are creative, agile and are always looking for better ways to do things.
  • Passionate – we love what we do and we care deeply about our customers’ success.

This brings me back to the quote from Sir Richard Branson and the importance of successful branding.
In the process of developing these three core values, one exercise stood out as it was both fun and insightful. Our leadership team had to answer the following question: “If Ericsson Broadcast and Media Services were a famous person, who would they be?” Look at this blog’s picture that features some of the comical sketches of famous people and the values we liked. Enjoy!

Steve Nylund, CEO, Red Bee Media