Going with Eric Ng and Andie Wexler

Blake Howard

This episode of a change of brand is brought to you by Brand Pad, a new standard of brand guidelines. Brand Pad is an online platform made by designers for designers. Keep listening for a special code just for you, our listeners.

Eric Ng

These people are not customers of Going, they are fans. You know, they're strong fans of the brand and of Scott, and so to change the name to them was like changing your favorite band's name. You would be upset too. And so, it was interesting to read all of those reviews.

Blake Howard

Hey everybody. Welcome. To a change of brand, the show featuring behind the scenes stories of rebrand, glory, drama or disaster. I'm your host Blake Howard. Have you ever been shopping for flights and noticed how prices can fluctuate day to day? One minute that flight to Cairo is $1,200, and the next it's $2200. Well, that's because the airlines are constantly monitoring and forecasting bookings, demands, cancellations, fuel prices, and whether or not it's mostly leisure or business.

While some see this up and down of prices as frustrating or troubling, back in 2013, Scott Keys saw it as an opportunity by happenstance. He found an incredible deal on a flight for $130 he could fly from New York to Milan round trip. And a trip to Milan wasn't on his radar, but the price was so good he couldn't resist the deal. His hunting skills continued and eventually his friends wanted in on it, so he started a business. Scott's Cheap Flights was born. And 10 years later, it became a big brand in the travel industry with nearly 2 million members. However, despite all the company's success, leadership decided it was time for a big departure, and in January of 2023, Scott's Cheap Flights announced a new name and identity.

Going forward, it would simply be Going, this would not be an easy journey. However, the team was bound for some bumpy feedback as not everyone was pleased with the new destination. The question for us today is, with so much success, why did they change the name at all and how did they land on Going and perhaps most importantly, Will it work for more backstory on this 2023 revolutionary rebrand?

Let's go to brand strategist Tracy Clark for our briefing.

Tracy Clark

After stumbling upon an unbelievably cheap flight to Milan in 2013, Scott Keys began sending emails full of great deals to his buddies who also hoped they could travel on the low. Just two years later, Scott turned his newsletter for friends into a subscription-based travel service, and it's easy to say it took off.

Scott's Cheap Flights is a travel company that scours the internet for flight deals and faires then packages them in a newsletter for members. However, this process isn't completely automated like you may expect from other fair alert services. Scott's Cheap Flights uses a team of flight experts to evaluate the quality of each deal, ensuring members receive only legitimate, relevant and worthwhile flight recommendations. No more worrying about overpaying or needing to constantly check flight prices in the hopes of saving a few dollars. Subscribers, save an average of $200 on domestic flights and $600 on international flights. Even better, you didn't have to do a thing.

As you can probably tell Scott's cheap flights named itself. The original brand featured an airplane soaring through the sky to form the letter S, but in the last eight years, not much has changed other than swapping out their bright blue and orange for more muted hues. While the brand stayed static, much more was evolving behind the scenes. Scott's Cheap flights had become a beloved travel resource, one that almost felt like more of a friend from the early days with only a few thousand subscribers to a community of 2 million and growing. Members felt connected to Scott often personally thanking him for saving them so much money.

The problem is it was no longer Scott running the entire operation. He built a team of over 60 people who were passionate about helping people travel the world, and they deserved credit too. So in 2021, they embarked on a change of brand. The process of creating Scott's Cheap Flights was as simple as picking a name, logo, and colors.

Scott was the brand and the team understood this new identity would need to evolve beyond its founder leaving room for both a growing team and growing offerings. But did they stick the landing? Keep listening to find out.

Blake Howard

The previous brand identity for Scott's Cheap Flights was okay, but not great. It used a blue and orange color palette with basic sans serif type. The logo featured a little plane tucked into the bottom curve of the S in Scott, and the rest of the visual system just feels a little dated. The new Going identity was created by Design Studio.

They drastically changed the blue and orange to a lagoon green with a bright palette of vivid colors. The logo has a nice curly G arrow thing happening that makes me smile. The rest of the visual system is packed with personality. There's a lively illustration style, great motion, and a warped globe effect for wrapping imagery and type.

Additionally, Design Studio produced the new name, which we'll talk a lot about today, and fine-tuned the verbal identity. Be sure to see the change of brand for yourself at www.achangeofbrand.com. Okay, so let's dive more into the name itself. Now, a name change is one of the most extreme versions of change a brand can take. To put it into travel terms it's like flying over the Bermuda Triangle in a storm on Friday the 13th on a leap year with a plane full of black cats and broken mirrors after walking under a ladder. And opening an umbrella on board. Okay, that's a little extreme, but you get the point. A name change typically signals something has gone massively wrong.

Like snakes on a plane, you are declaring an emergency and taking drastic measures. Or perhaps another analogy would be physical therapy versus surgery, where most rebrands are like pt. You're just sort of working with what's there and rehabbing it, making it better. This change is more like surgery. Removing something broken from the body and hoping that it heals.

A name change is hard for several reasons. First off, pleasing an existing audience with a new name is almost impossible. Naming is very subjective, and at first glance, it will feel foreign and unfamiliar. Secondly, and more objectively, there are nearly 5 million trademarks registered with the United States Patent and Trademark Office. There's only 130,000 English words, we're simply out of words. Which means if you want to own or trademark a name, or at least ensure you don't get sued or have to change it later you'll likely have to find a coined or fabricated name that currently doesn't exist. Coined names are just words that are simply made up.

Think Google, Oreo, Netflix, or Spotify. Before they were brands, they were meaningless. Some coined words are somewhat suggestive to what the brand's goods and services are, while others are completely abstract. And if you don't go down a coined route, you can search for a dictionary word that is legally available. However, that dictionary word can't be too descriptive of what you're actually doing. Or the United States Patented Trademark Office, the U S P T O might deny your trademark application as the name could be too generic. So if you get lucky and find a word that is actually available, which is like looking for a needle in the haystack, the United States Patented Trademark Office might deny your application.

This all compounds, of course, with the unlikely scenario of even getting a .com URL or getting decent SEO or search results. This is essentially a long way of saying, how the heck did Scott's Cheap Flights snag such a simple dictionary word like going. And get the.com.

Eric Ng

My name is Eric Ng and I'm the Executive Creative Director. My role in the project, I mean, I wear so many hats, it's quite hard to describe. I generally say to people that my role is to push my team and also the client's team to create remarkable brands.

Blake Howard

So, very cool. So, let's talk about before the project. Were you familiar with Scott's Cheap Flights? Were you a subscriber, did you ever book a cheap flight via Scott?

Eric Ng

No. I, I have to say I, um, I'm at a disadvantage because I only moved to the states relatively recently. So when this job came up, I really didn't know the brand at all, because they're still a domestic brand, but, we had some people in the studio that were avid fans, and when that came through the door, it was just like, we, we have to get this, we have to get this.

So, I could feel the excitement and the enthusiasm through, you know, my close circle.

Blake Howard

Yeah. Eric, did it sound really bizarre where you're like, what is this weird American, who's Scott? And like, what's up with the cheap flights? Was there anything equivalent in the UK that you were like, oh, it's like this?

Eric Ng

There is, yeah, there, there's Jacks there. I think it was Jack's cheap flights or Jack's flights or something like that. So, I think it's like very similar. I quickly looked at subscription numbers and it was much, much less. So I really do believe Scott was one of the first, out the ranks.

Blake Howard

That's funny. Jack seems like the perfect UK equivalent of Scott, you know?

Eric Ng

Exactly. Union Jack makes sense.

Blake Howard

As Scott and his cheap flight aficionados were considering a rebrand, they sent out a request for proposal to several agencies. To make a long story short, they chose Design Studio, a brand and experience agency with offices in London, New York, Sydney and Shanghai.

It's also where Eric works, and he thinks their approach to the pitch is probably what won it for them. Design Studio is known for their immersive research for Airbnb. They outfitted their studio and rented it to see what it was like to be a host. For Deliveroo they hopped on scooters and delivered food across London to gain inspiration and insight. But demonstrating that type of collaboration in a pitch is tough. So, they decided to host a miniature workshop.

Eric Ng

It was a way for us to show them how we worked. Give them a taste of what it would be like working together. Um, and in many ways it's a natural filter, right? If the client just wants an answer, then we're not the right people for them.

Blake Howard

Design Studio won the work and took off in their research.

Andie Wexler

Initially it was Oh, okay move beyond Scott. And we were like, all right, but how are we going to move beyond Scott? Because now we're creating a brand in this massive category where there's a million travel brands. They're all, a lot of them are saying the same thing. They're all kind of going in the same direction.

Blake Howard

That's Andy Wexler, a senior brand strategist and writer at Design Studio. She was involved in the research naming and verbal identity portion of the project. Like Eric, she also wasn't familiar with Scott's Cheap Flights, but as she got into the research, she quickly formed some opinions.

Andie Wexler

What we came to once we kind of started to have those conversations was that, of course, number one being let's move beyond Scott. You know, the brand was still really leaning on his personality. He was the mascot, but additionally, let's move beyond the utility and the rationale, the cheap flights part. So it all really kind of derived from their name.

Eric Eng

I think everything about their brand when they first came to us, could have been summed up in their name, which was Scott and Cheap Flights, and there wasn't really an emotional connection beyond that.

Blake Howard

Eric went on to say this was also their chance to grow up as a brand to shake off some of the small business vibes of Scott and his mates finding deals for you. However, he knew it was a fine balance as the close, approachable, authentic feel is what people loved about the brand. It wasn't some algorithm finding the best deals. It was Scott. So, would a name change really solve the problem? Would this be a don't throw the baby out with a bath water kind of moment to further validate the problem?

Design studio embedded themselves inside the company and spent time with members becoming members themselves. They led a series of workshops tailor-made to create debate with putting two opposing ideas against each other. This started to reveal more of the truth about Scott's, the culture and the mindset of the members.

As the immersion phase was wrapping up, they presented their findings to the leadership team. Specifically, they presented four key imperatives, two of which were most important in terms of shaping the path ahead. One imperative was to extend their audience beyond the niche deal hunter. Secondly, they needed to differentiate their why and embrace talking about travel in a more emotive way.

Eventually, they pitched a brand idea that was quite the unexpected. The idea was to really welcome this behavior change, to welcome this new way of traveling, to change the way that you think about how you travel, when you travel, where you travel, and to be open to that and embrace this change of approach to travel.

Andie Wexler

And so that was kind of the first key aspect of that brand idea. And then the unexpected, really speaking to the product and what the product at Going really offers you is a world of travel that you might not have thought of before. So, what they're really famous for is this kind of deal first approach or booking in reverse approach, right?

So instead of going, I want to go to Paris, you go, okay, I want travel. I want to travel on these dates, uh, where can I go? You know, and that allows you to kind of book cheaper flights and go on holiday a lot cheaper. So, this kind of methodology, this kind of like mindset is attractive to opportunists. You know, people that are core travelers, right?

They don't have any kind of burden and they can just go. But the problem is that that's a very small of group of people, right? Reframing or expanding the whole value proposition into something bigger is really smart. You just need to be open to any destination, and perhaps Scott's could be for you.

Blake Howard

Hence the unexpected with a better sense of the brand strategy and the overall story. The next stop was naming, and for them they said the naming process wasn't anything too complicated or special. It was two rounds of names generated with a legal partner doing an initial knockout search. Which essentially is a search to remove name candidates from the list that clearly have trademark or legal conflicts.

Andie Wexler

You know, naming is incredibly subjective at times. We all have different associations of certain words, especially when it comes to like made up words. So, it's just phonetics. But I think being really clear on the strategy, being really clear on what we're trying to achieve is key.

So, it can't just be about savings, right? We already established that within the immersion phase. So, you know, anything that's about cheap or priced like that immediately has to go because that's something we're trying to shake. And the second objective is there's more to the story. So, there's a lot of brands in the kind of travel category you know, it's like TripAdvisor or Booking.com. We can go so much more than this. This is generic. We've got a great strategy about the unexpected. And so how do we leverage that? Um, instead of just randomly come up with names that are descriptive of what the product does.

As Eric said, the most important thing was does it deliver on our strategy? I think so many times, a lot of companies really wanna jump to like, okay, let's just get the name figured out and then we can do everything else. But it's so important to have a name that is derived from something and that you can create meaning around.

Eric Ng

And what better way than to have your, your name kind of be derived from your strategy. And so yeah, we came up with a lot of names. We did two rounds and in each round we showed about 10 names. I think that's sort of like the most I would show in naming maybe even a little too much. But I feel like it's important to not show the client too many options and be really confident about the ones that you do show them.

So, we did two rounds, I think in total, when it came to both of the rounds combined, we probably came up with over, I wanna say 30, 3200 names. So that was just in creation alone was, yeah, around 3200 3500 names. The first round it was about a 54% fallout, which is actually a really incredible fallout rate.

And then same thing for the second round without much fallout, and so we just had a really good team of namers, a lot of people really going hard on this, and came up with a lot of great names. And when we presented these names, we essentially wrote little, kind of like manifestos, sort of bringing them to life, giving them color, and showing how each of them really delivers on the strategy that we created.

Fun fact in the first round Going wasn’t our first-round name it was actually a bonus name. So, we showed 10 names and then we were like, okay, let's show one more name. And we showed Going. So, we weren't even initially, you know, fully planning on it, but it was our bonus round name. And obviously we're really glad that we did.

Andie Wexler

Once we came down to, I think we had narrowed it down to about five names that the client likes and we were really lucky because if you work in naming, you know that it can be really hard to get anyone around any name. And so to have five names that we were quite confident about was really awesome going into what we did next, which was a consumer naming panel.

As we said before, the fans of Going, were really important to the client, and so we carried them with us kind of throughout this whole process. So even when we went into naming, we did little focus groups and so we tested pronunciation, we tested brand perception. What kind of brand does this name make you think of?

Eric Ng

We tested associations. It, it was so funny. I remember early on with Going, it was like, well, what if people think it sounds like Going? And I was like, well, they won't 'cause it's just a word, you know. But, it was funny, kind of the things that you start to think a little bit too much about when you go through naming. But yeah, we, we, in the end, we actually came down to three names that everyone loved, the client and us and it was, it was a really, really great process.

Blake Howard

One of the most unexpected parts of it for me was how in the world did Going past legal. Usually you generate a long list, you send it to some sort of IT partner or IP partner, and it's brutal. I mean, it's like, how did these coined ones get cut like that? Or how did these crazy names get cut? And then sometimes something just like trickles through and you're like, I don't get, I give up on trademark law. I have no clue how these made it, and when I first saw Going, I was like, how did that pass? So, was there any concerns around like the legal side of trademarking that?

Eric Ng

I don't think so. I think it was one of those things that is just like, we were as surprised as, as everybody else. I'm sure it was like a yellow flag, not like complete green just because there would be other kind of industries perhaps or other companies that were in there.

But I think with naming and, and that trademark check, it's really about, calculated risk, right? It's about, okay, what's out there? Do we think we can get around it? Do we think we can approach these other parties and, and make agreements? I think in the end it was just too good to, to pass up and I think the fact that the guys managed to get Going.com is, is absolutely incredible.

So, I think, you know, that's a lot of heavy lift from their side. Yes. And I would imagine that was not a cheap purchase.

Blake Howard

Okay, it's time for a quick break. Feel free to move about the cabin, stretch your legs, grab some peanuts or crackers or popcorn or whatever they serve on planes these days. But don't go too far because when we come back, this rebrand journey starts to hit some unexpected rough air. And it's not just with the name, all that and more after the break.

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Tracy Clark

Hey listeners, did you know Blake, our fearless podcast host and Dad joke expert has written a book? Yeah, it's totally true. It covers a range of brand identity topics and solutions to help CMOS and other brand leaders uncover a more radically relevant brand. In fact, that's the name “Radically Relevant”. And since we all love to take quizzes, it comes with an assessment too so you can see how your brand stacks up against the competition. For more on the book or to take the free Radically Relevant assessment, check out www.radicallyrelevantbrand.com. And if you're enjoying the show, don't forget to join the conversation on Instagram. See more about today's episode share with a friend or send us an idea you have for a future episode at @achangeofbrand All right, let's get back to it.

Blake Howard

After two rounds of names, they've narrowed it down to a top five, which they subsequently did a deeper legal study to ensure the names would come back free and clear. Andie continued to say that the leadership team took those five names to their employees and had to vote. Which for anyone that remembers the Bodie McBoatface debacle, “just Google it”.

Eric Ng

If you're not familiar, you know that naming and voting don't typically bode well. Voting is for electing leaders or deciding where to go to lunch, not deciding the name of a multimillion-dollar company. I didn't know if they'd go with Going. There were, you know, there were three that I was like, any three of these would be an incredible name for this company. And so I think till the very end there was like three names that it very much could have been and Going, maybe just got most of the votes.

Blake Howard

You probably can't tell us the other two. Can you?

Eric Ng

No, I, I think we we're happy to tell you. I think both me and Andie were kind of backing two other names. It was around this other name called Awaits. It has a similar feeling to Going, it has a sense of anticipation, which we're really trying to build with the strategy. You know, like what's to come. But I think obviously the weakness of that is that it doesn't have that travel connotation as a top note. So I think of Going won out on that and then I'll let Andy talk about her fav.

Andie Wexler

Well, my favorite was Going, but, I really liked the other one we had, which was called Abound. I think it was there we had created such a, sort of boundless strategy, a limitless strategy, and so that, word abound really spoke to that as well. But again, I think there was some hesitation around being bounded to something and so we steered clear of that. But, yeah, I think in the end, like the three names we had were awesome names.

Blake Howard

Perhaps after an employee vote, leadership debate, or a good old-fashioned arm-wrestling match Scott's Cheap flights made the decision and landed on Going as their new name and like all names, it had some pros and cons. On the pro side, it is such a simple word that nicely describes the travel category, but the con is how could they actually get a trademark on such a descriptive dictionary word?

So, let's take a quick detour into some potentially boring and nerdy, albeit very important legal considerations when naming. And it's also worth pointing out at this point in the story, they don't have a trademark or know for sure they can even get one. They would've had an attorney do a comprehensive search and a feasibility report, which must have been positive or they would not have started the filing process.

Unfortunately, due to Covid 19, there is a backlog of getting trademarks reviewed for registration whereas before the pandemic, it took about three months to get a registration. Now it can take up to 10 months to officially obtain a federal trademark registration. So, there is a risk you could launch a new brand only to get denied and not be able to trademark that new name after the fact.

So, moving forward with a name like this seems pretty risky. And as I've mentioned before, the United States Patented Trademark Office generally dissuades names that are descriptive of the goods and services because it's too generic or because it's too commonly used and could cause consumer confusion.

For example, there are currently 2,423 registered trademarks in the United States Patent Trademark Office using the word Going. That's a lot. I was so curious about the legal side of this name I wanted to get an outside expert's take on it. So, I reached out to Angela Wilcox, the managing partner of Wilcox IP, and a trademark partner of ours to get her take.

She affirmed the challenge of getting a trademark these days and said she often has to play bad cop when her clients come up with a dreamy name that's taken. She also mentioned that the U S P T O examiners apply more stringent assessments when determining consumer confusion between related products or services. For example, all beverages are considered related at the United States Patented Trademark Office, meaning an application for the name of a sparkling water may be refused because of its likelihood of consumer confusion with a bourbon. In this case, travel brands may need to seek clearance of their trademark in a number of classes, such as transportation accommodations, an event activity, planning and booking services. The potential for refusal or infringement grows with each class that's added to that list. Essentially, they're competing for naming rights with anyone from rideshare services to storage to sightseeing. Angela further examined the Going trademark application and noted that it's still pending with the United States Patented Trademark Office, so we'll have to wait and see how it is reviewed.

They did, however, file narrowly in just two classes. Clothing and as a travel website. For now, we will keep going with Scott out of the picture or at least out of the name. Next up, we take a quick layover in design where our flight starts to get a little bumpy.

Eric Ng

A lot of people say we would like a friendly brand, right? Now a friendly brand to you and a friendly brand to me might be incredibly different. Again, I want a colorful brand, say something more tangible, colorful to some might be not colorful to some others. So how do you understand that subjectivity? The other thing that kind of comes into play is sometimes people think that they really want a friendly brand or a really colorful brand, but then they actually, when they see it, realize that doesn't work.

We have to understand that a lot of our clients are not professional designers or even marketers, so they don't have that experience. So, what we do is we find these spectrums and we create three different territories that really test out the range and oftentimes we go further than what they're comfortable.

Then we go into a two-to-three-hour workshop and we basically, thrash it out. We use exercises, we use debate we use notional examples and ideas to really project what this brand will mean. And through those reactions, through that discussion, we get a bunch of feedback. And through that feedback, some of the time, I'd say half of the time, we construct a completely new concept out of that.

Now of course, sometimes our clients go, wow, I love number one as is and I just want to tweak this, or I want to take a little bit of this tone, voice and plug it in, and if it makes sense, then of course that's easy. But we do like to view them not as kind of yeah, options to pick, but more about provocation stimulus so that we can really hone in on that final solution yet being able to kind of go quite wide in the beginning. So that's kind of the process that we do. So, we actually, for this project, went through two of those, because what happened was we went through the first workshop, we went down a particular route, which was a narrative driven route. It was a brand that was mainly focused on tone of voice and verbal narrative with kind of visuals to support. And everyone was really keen on it. It was the idea that felt really strong at the time because it was almost born from visualizing, say a, a word-of-mouth brand, which in many ways Scott's is, is kind of like that.

But after developing that route further, I think the client realized that. It wasn't gonna be great for performance marketing. They just felt like it was too much of a gap or too much of a, a lift to do that. And so we basically went, okay, well we have to almost like reset now because neither of the other kind of territories that we presented really hooked. And so we went into a second round of showing a spectrum this time with a lot more nuance. And of course, all the learnings from that first workshop in that first round. And even then, neither of them hit.

There was three kind of territories on that second round. It was one called Move, and it was really about the spirit of movement. It had these kind of typographic trails. It was like this idea of like a going state and a static state. There was one called Reveal, which was about kind of revealing hidden details, like revealing deals. It kind of used a blur device. And then the third one that was called Shift, and it was really about perspective type and seeing things in different ways, which again is obviously very tied to the strategy, but neither of them stuck. But we kind of took elements from that. We took the perspective nature of the third. We took the reveal of the second. We took the feeling of movement, and we found this new visual metaphor, which is what you see today. This idea of spinning the globe and picking a destination. This kind of courage to do that was obviously very tied to the strategy, but again, it just took aesthetics and, cues from the three territories that we explored earlier, and built into a new one.

Blake Howard

Yeah. Yeah. I love that. So, so the second round, what was their, their overall reaction?

Eric Ng

It was, yeah, again, it's like, We don't think any of these are completely right. There are some aspects that we really liked, you know, like the perspective. I think for me it might be the kind of lack of time, but I think what they really hooked onto was a deeper story, right? If you think about the kind of visual metaphor, spinning the globe, it's very travel centric. Everyone can relate to that. Actually. I dunno if like the younger generation really understand that method like that, the idea of spinning a, a physical globe, but I'm sure there's a digital equivalent. Google Maps perhaps.

I think that really helped people understand and grasp the concept as something that's really simple, and it wasn't just about like a aesthetic veneer, you know? It really was something that you could use as a digital behavior, and I think that's incredibly appealing, especially for a brand like theirs.

Blake Howard

Eventually, the Design Studio team pieced together the right design elements for the new Going brand, which included how to think about the new Going voice.

Andie Wexler

You know, the red thread is not always as clear on some projects. Uh, sometimes it gets, you know, you have to go in some directions 'cause the client wants you to, but I think that because the designers that were working with us were with us early on in immersion, they knew exactly what that strategy was.

As much as I knew it, they knew it by heart. And so, when it got to the design, you could really see that come through. When you look at the, you know, the Going social that they had already had previous to us working on the brand, their TikTok, their Instagram, their voice wasn't far off from where it needed to be, and they really did have a voice that felt pretty genuine and authentic.

It didn't feel like it was trying too hard, that was the most important thing like, how can we still stay true to a voice that feels like your buddy Scott is talking to you and recommending things to you? Guiding you, but also having a bit of a witty, sometimes smart, silly take on things as well, while still feeling like an expert, like someone you could trust. I think that was the biggest thing, is like we didn't want the voice to lean to punny or silly. There was still a maturity to it that encouraged you to want to use it and to want to trust what this product was offering you. But a pun here and there is. Fun. You know, some people find them cheesy. I quite like a pun. I think I always, everyone always laughs at them. And also just relating to people's travels, like how can we be as like down to earth as possible.

Blake Howard

Yes. I'm all about a good dad joke. I feel like that's half of what I contribute to our projects is I just chime in with dad jokes every once in a while and that, that breaks the ice and gets people laughing.

Andie Wexler

Yeah. It was like fun to play around with like, names of cities or countries like, places to roam, like Rome. I don't know. It was just like we could like play around with like all those different things. It was, it was a good time.

Blake Howard

I'm assuming Scott and all of the leadership was like, this is great, like this is mostly there. You made some tweaks, some revisions. You probably presented an update, a refresh, and then at some point they were like, Eric, Andie, let's go. This is it time to move? Was there anything kind of in that process that's worth kind of capturing how you started to get final approval or how you started to just finalize the full visual verbal identity?

Eric Ng

I mean, not really. I think because our process is so collaborative, oftentimes the approval, we find that the approval process is like so seamless that sometimes we have to go back and say, wait, wait, like this is approved, right? So I don't think there was like too much of our process in that.

I think obviously once. They were happy we went into systemization. So how do we create the rules and the systems, the principles to ensure that not just ourselves, but they and also other agencies in the future can take that and build an incredible brand.

Blake Howard

Design studio passed along assets and guidelines to equip the team for launch. Fast forward a few weeks and months into January of 2023, and the Going brand was about to go live. One thing that I liked about their launch was how they primed the pump with this sneaky TikTok video making fun of the old name “Scott's Cheap Flight, Scotch Cheap Flights. Scott cheap flights. Scott's cheap flights, Scott's cheap seats, Scott's free flights”.

The following day, the launch campaign took off with this rebrand video.

Video Transcript: In 2013, Scott Kai found the best flight he'd ever seen, a $130 round trip from Newark to Milan. He wasn't planning a trip to Milan. He also wasn't planning on founding the best travel membership ever. But when he got home his.

Friends started begging him to share more amazing deals like this one or this one, or even this one. What started is Scott and his laptop grew to a team of more than 60 people, serving over 2 million travelers. There was just one problem. I'm not Scott. I'm not Scott. I'm not Scott. Hi.

Blake Howard

Members received an email about the change to Scotts Cheap flights.com redirected to Going.com. Additionally, Scott took a bold step and posted a heartfelt personal note on Reddit to share more about the change. And like clockwork, the Twitter and Reddit comments erupted. Some people didn't get it and questioned the need for change.

Some people flat out hated the new name. Others felt sad about Scott's name leaving like a best friend moving away. Others criticized the poor SEO performance with a dictionary word like going. However, in a brilliant act of leadership, the man himself, Scott, responded to any and all questions live in that Reddit post for 16 hours straight. He engaged with fans, outraged and all. Even the next day, he was still posting updates. It was an ingenious act of change management and when blowback starts to build like this, I'm always curious how those involved in the work are processing the sometimes cold and heartless comments. Here's Andy and Eric again.

Eric Ng

There's always gonna be someone that is reluctant to jump for that change. And I think as a brander you need to be very cognizant of that. I think the key actually is just having a very confident client. You know, making sure that they're proud, like I said before, so that you're going into it committed.

Like the fact that Scott was jumping into a, a Reddit and just being open to those questions I think is really key.

Blake Howard

Okay. Let's wrap this change story up from a change management perspective. I give this story a five star review, the leadership back Going expected and was prepared for the blowback.

They even posted Scott reading mean tweets on their Instagram account and had a good old laugh with it. As Eric said, they were confident in their decisions along the way, and when a storm popped up on the radar, they didn't change course. So was a name change really needed to fix their brand issues and in my opinion, yes, in such a competitive field, a name like Scott's Cheap Flights can only take you so far.

The price-driven nature of the name positions the brand to be a copycat, only competing on price, where brand really adds little value. Additionally, the name was overly specific. What if they ever wanted to expand outside of flights? What if they started bundling travel packages? The old name offered limited options for growth into the future.

The new design system is also just beautiful. They feel like a modern global travel brand now poised to attract a new segment of members. One part of this project that is overshadowed by the name change and the visual identity is the messaging. I think Design Studios adaptation of the voice to still feel like the Scott you've always known and loved is a smart piece of the puzzle. For Eric and Andy, there were a few takeaways that made this project a success.

Andie Wexler

A trusting client goes a long way. And again, you know, like just trusting the process that we've honed over the many years. And I think if you have those two ingredients, it always works out. It might be really scary, you know, during the middle and you're like, I don't know if this is gonna, you know, pull up, but it does.

I would also add to that never assume anything. I travel quite a bit, but you have to go into every process thinking that you know absolutely nothing. And while sometimes culture can really influence you and how you guide a brand, or the category could really influence you and how you guide a brand, sometimes the best people who are going to influence you are the clients and also your teammates. And so assume you know nothing. Go in with an open mind and be open to wherever it might take you.

Blake Howard

Yeah. Yeah, that's great. And, and one good thing about a name change is it takes a lot of the pressure off the design work,

Eric Ng

I guess so. Yeah, it does. It does. It's the first thing that you immediately kind of, um, latch onto. So, yeah. It's like a decoy.

Blake Howard

Lastly, circling back to my question about the Going name as someone who contributes to naming all the time, I still don't quite understand how they could trademark such a simple name. Even though I spoke with Andy and Eric directly about it and my own trademark partner, I still wasn't satisfied.

So I went rogue and I sent a tweet directly to Going and said, how the heck did you register the name Going? Their response “Magic”.

Okay, that's a wrap. Special thanks to Eric Ng and Andy Wexler for their take on this change story. To see more visuals from today's episode, head on over to www.achangeofbrand.com and if you liked today's show, share it with a friend or leave us a review on Apple Podcasts. Today's episode was edited by Landon Oseitutu, fact checked by Jill Jeffries, written in part and produced by Brianna Belcher. Special thanks to Tracy Clark for the brief-in and Rachel Jackson for today's artwork. I'm your captain and host, Blake Howard signing off.