Branding Together
By Lucas Daniel
This second of a three-part series on design shops in New York looks at the ups and downs of brand consolidation.
With so much consolidation taking place these days, a lot of Web design shop brands are getting lost in the mix. InterActive8 is now Luminant. Fuel is now Razorfish. Digital Café is now Zentropy Partners.
While becoming part of a prominent design shop brand has its advantages on the Fortune 100 market, many shop owners are attached to the brand they founded and developed. Externally, a brand conveys the competency level of the shop to potential clients. Internally, it conveys the company's mission, philosophy, and culture. The tough decision facing Web design entrepreneurs is whether to become part of other interactive firms under one large brand or hold on to the vision that made their own brand so meaningful. Often, the desire to grow and boast a million-dollar project minimum comes at the expense of culture.
Glen Lipka, CEO of Kokopelli New Media in New York, faced this very decision. At the beginning of April, Outrider USA launched onto the interactive scene, taking in BrainBug, a design shop in Connecticut, and Multimedia Marketing Group (MMG), an online marketing firm based in Oregon. Kokopelli was slated to be a part of this deal, but company executives stepped back at the last minute. According to Lipka, the decision came from recognizing the difference in values between the companies involved. The story behind the launch of Outrider is an interesting demonstration of how design shop brands communicate both internal and external messages.<>
