Creating brand messaging
The company EBL resulted from the merger of two existing software companies, Edgebound and Lantia. Before this combination could start producing synergy and increased profits, this brand new company needed a new brand—and a strong brand message.

I interviewed management and employees to understand not just the business goals but the corporate culture. Several messaging options and taglines were provided, and the combined company’s leadership team selected the theme of “Enable.”

About the concept
Enable is an action word that supports the idea of being a force multiplier. This helps describe how EBL’s middleware services intelligently leverage their clients’ existing technology investments.

When spoken, “enable” is a strong word with a smooth sound. Visually, lower case letters of the word are composed of many smooth round characters. This gives the word a type of eloquence and, in EBL’s case, offers additional benefits.

Making it unique
“Enable” can visually reinforce the company name. The word is composed of the letters E, B & L. An animation can show how “EBL” turns into “enable” which turns into “enable your business”. This strategy, since it’s tied to the EBL name, is a unique fit and couldn’t be co-opted by a competitor. Most importantly, this fights the alphabet soup clutter issue that comes from using an acronym as a company name by providing a rational and memorable hook for the audience.

Scaleable to products and services
Enable is a scaleable concept that can change over time to address new product or service areas. For example:

enable B2B
enable connectivity
enable energy
enable growth
enable ROI

On the product level, it ties together various unrelated products with the keyword enable:

enable your supply chain with cdX
enable your requisitions with eREQ
enable your ebusiness with EBL Commerce Server