WANT Branding

In 2016, Anheuser Busch, a $45 billion conglomerate famous for Budweiser, set up a free-standing division —The High End—focused on acquiring and creating craft beers and spirits. 

The High End saw an opportunity to create a new brand in the microbrewery segment in Miami, Florida.

After reviewing over 100 name finalists with two separate teams within The high End, we were able to reach a successful conclusion on both projects.

For the microbrewery, the name “Veza” was selected—and invented word taken from the Spanish word for beer (“cerveza”). The suffix “Sur” (Spanish for “south”) was appended to the name to further emphasize the idea that this is the brewery with beers crafted specifically for the area: refreshing, tropical and fun. 

Formed in 1939, Hewlett-Packard is one of the original silicon valley tech companies. In 2015, HP decided to split their PC business from their enterprise business. It had already been decided that the PC business would retain the HP name, so HP approached us to assist with creating a new name for the enterprise business.

In order to not quarrel with the HP name, we determined that a simple descriptive name should be appended to it, which is why “Enterprise” was selected, resulting in the new name “Hewlett Packard Enterprise”.

On November 1, 2015, Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE) officially launched as a separate, publicly traded company. Today, they earn 28.87 billion dollars in revenue.

Based in Silicon Valley, Intuitive Surgical is a trailblazer in the field of robotic surgery, inventing and building groundbreaking surgical systems that make feasible procedures that would otherwise be impossible. 

In 2016, we began working with Intuitive to help create names for new flagship products and to align their product portfolio and hierarchy in a cohesive way, so that products could be more easily named, organized and codified.

In addition to creating the names for Intuitive’s latest generation of their renowned Da Vinci system (the Da Vinci Xi, X and SP), we’ve also named several new flagship products, including ION, the first-ever deep lung biopsy system and SmartFire, the technology used in the world’s first fully wristed, 60mm surgical stapler.

Further, we’ve helped simplify Intuitive’s product portfolio, consisting of over 300 unique product and accessory offerings.

We started working with Royal Caribbean in 2012 when they were launching a new class of ship, which would be the second largest cruise ship in the world. They needed a new name for the class, the ships, and a cohesive naming system for all the onboard elements.

We created the “Quantum” class of ship to signify a quantum leap forward in cruising. Over the next 3 years, we also created the names Anthem, Ovation, Harmony, Symphony, and Spectrum as well as names for over 65 onboard elements, from restaurants to lounge spaces, to features and technology.

The Quantum class of ships remain as some— if not— the most cutting-edge ships in the world. The success of the first 2 ships prompted the order of 3 additional ships in the class. Royal Caribbean experienced revenue growth of 7.6 billion in 2012 to record-breaking 8.8 billion in 2016.

In 2009, MGM-Mirage hired us to work with a consortium of agencies to explore ways the brand could reposition, refresh and grow.

Working with senior leadership – including current CEO Jim Murren – we created a bold new positioning centered around the idea ‘Life’s Moments’ which underscored the idea of experiences which reinforced the notion that the brand was not just about gaming but also dining, shopping, nightlife, and entertainment.

We also helped to create a new brand strategy for the MGM rewards program. We recommended eliminating the ‘Players Club’ rewards brand (which was solely a gaming-related program) and created a new brand ‘M Life’. 

Additionally, we partnered with MGM to create other new brands including ‘Wet Republic’ a 55,000 sq ft outdoor nightclub on the MGM Grand property. We also created ‘ThePark' a $450M multi-use outdoor space connecting the New York-New York and Monte Carlo casinos.

From revenues of $6B in 2009, MGM Resorts ...

Call of Duty, published by ActiVision, is one of the most successful video game franchises of all time, with over 250 million copies sold, and topping $15 billion (as of 2016).

In 2016, when ActiVision was preparing to release the 13th installment to the franchise, CEO Eric Hirshberg approached us to help them develop a name that would capture some of the legacies of the franchise

After exploring multiple strategies and options on how to balance the legacy of CoD with the innovation of the new story, the final name was selected: Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare.

Despite being heavily criticized prior to its release (players were skeptical of such a futuristic war game), Infinite Warfare enjoyed positive reviews upon release, and went on to win Best Shooter at E3 and also be nominated for Best Action Game.