Varcoe: Hello Veren, see ya Crescent Point Energy, with a name change

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Keep in mind the identify Encana? How about IPL Vitality or TransCanada?

As soon as well-established companies in Alberta, these corporations determined to rebrand, changing into Ovintiv, Enbridge and TC Vitality.

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Add Crescent Level Vitality to the combo of Calgary-based companies about to get a distinct company deal with: Veren Inc.

See ya later, Crescent Level.

“There’s nothing unsuitable with the identify. It was an excellent identify and an excellent firm and had a superb historical past. For us, we’ve utterly remodeled the group into a distinct enterprise,” Crescent Level CEO Craig Bryksa stated in an interview.

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“It’s time for a brand new identify.”

On the firm’s investor day assembly in Calgary this week, Bryksa introduced the transfer and defined Veren combines the Latin phrase “veritas,” that means fact, with power.

If permitted by shareholders in Could, the enterprise may even undertake a brand new ticker image and a brand new emblem — a circle with three vibrant “bursts” inside that type the letter ‘V.’

“You undergo a collection of various names and what suits and what doesn’t,” he added.

“In order that’s the place fact and power (got here from), for what we constructed. We actually just like the identify.”

One of many nation’s largest petroleum producers, Crescent Level has been busy remaking itself since Bryksa took over from co-founder and longtime CEO Scott Saxberg in 2018.

On social media, it didn’t take lengthy for individuals to weigh in in regards to the identify change.

Some hearkened again to the high-profile rebranding of Encana. As soon as the most important public firm in Canada by market capitalization, it adopted the Ovintiv moniker in 2019.

“The Crescent Level identify change to Veren is giving me severe Ovintiv vibes,” William Lacey, an trade veteran and former analyst, wrote on X.

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“These names, individuals are inclined to attempt to be intelligent about them. And I don’t assume something was notably unsuitable with Crescent Level,” Lacey stated in an interview.

“What’s a Veren? It’s not prefer it spells it out for you.”

Nonetheless, earlier than it was fashioned greater than 20 years in the past, what did Crescent Level symbolize?

In an interview, Saxberg stated the identify was tied to the highway resulting in his grandfather’s cabin, which was constructed within the early 1900s northwest of Thunder Bay, Ont.

Now the pinnacle of personal power agency Cache Island Corp., Saxberg isn’t shocked that Crescent Level is taking a brand new identify, “solely that they didn’t do it sooner” to spotlight the following part of its evolution.

“It’s our custom within the oil trade to create names which have a that means for the corporate and the employees,” he stated.

“It’s vital to construct that tradition within the firm and put your stamp on it, and have all people rally round it.”

But, it may be difficult to successfully swap the identify of a well-established enterprise with a brand new one, say advertising specialists.

The brand new deal with must be distinctive and never simply confused with different teams, stated Dan Bergeron, advertising associate of Everbrave, a Calgary agency that works on rebranding and renaming.

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It must also embody the corporate’s values.

The phrase Veren is somewhat summary, however “has a couple of factors on what a superb identify must be — brief and comparatively memorable,” stated Bergeron.

“It is a very drastic transfer to rename companies of this measurement. It’s not a straightforward factor to do and to hold by {the marketplace}. So, it needs to be performed for very strategic causes.”

Choosing summary names is commonly performed by organizations to be distinctive, stated AnneMarie Dorland, an assistant professor who teaches advertising and branding at Mount Royal College.

“If it’s important to clarify the identify, it may be a little bit of a heavy raise for the viewers,” she stated.

“There’s loads of analysis that goes into making a reputation sticky, what makes it follow our minds and our recollections.”

Former IPL Vitality CEO Brian MacNeill is conversant in the problem. He remembers the super preparation wanted to show the corporate into Enbridge in 1998.

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It made the swap to mirror its enlargement past the pipeline enterprise, and to keep away from confusion with a equally named agency in Quebec.

“It’s a must to provide you with a reputation no person else is utilizing, to start out with. And from international (languages), it’s important to make certain it doesn’t say one thing fairly totally different when it’s translated,” MacNeill stated Friday.

“Most likely the toughest half was getting some consensus on a reputation . . . We decided Enbridge made essentially the most sense — it was the ‘energy-bridge.’ ”

In recent times, Crescent Level has grow to be a “radically totally different firm” by a collection of strategic strikes designed to offer it longer-life belongings and enhance its prospects, stated Eric Nuttall, a senior portfolio supervisor at Ninepoint Companions, one of many firm’s largest shareholders.

Beneath Bryksa, it moved to pay down debt, and later shifted into new working areas, shopping for properties within the Montney formation from Spartan Delta final spring, and later buying Hammerhead Vitality.

“The identify change alerts their need to face on their very own ft, so to talk,” stated Nuttall.

“Nevertheless it’s beauty — the true change has been on the asset degree.”

For Bryksa, the journey started a number of years in the past with a brand new route.

Now, it’s about to undertake a brand new identify: Veren.

“We didn’t wish to lead with altering the identify of the corporate. We wished to complete with altering the identify of the corporate as we did the transformation,” he stated.

“It’s a superb time to offer it a brand new model.”

Chris Varcoe is a Calgary Herald columnist.

cvarcoe@postmedia.com

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