Why U? UKTV CMO shares thinking behind ‘risky’ name change

Now, UKTV, the broadcaster partly owned by BBC Studios, has dropped the ‘KTV’ from its master brand to become just U.

Not many people realize that channels such as Dave, W and Yesterday are owned by the same broadcaster or that that broadcaster also owns the streaming service UKTV Play. Internal research showed that less than half of UKTV’s audience actually knew where to find its shows online.

Its chief marketing officer, Penny Brough, says there was a “disconnect” between its channels. “There was no glue between any of them. Each one is a brilliant and successful standalone brand in a family of brands, which works for now, but as we grow the video-on-demand business, that becomes hard to scale.”

The network tasked brand consultancy Wolff Olins to come up with various options to solve this dilemma, which ranged from creating a signifier to a total name change. Six options were put into consumer research, with 12 focus groups and 450,000 online interviews.

Each UKTV channel’s programming is centered on a passion point rather than being a broad church. Based on this, Brough’s team came up with a new brand proposition: ‘Lose yourself in what you love.’

We’ve got U

Brough looked at 250 names before landing on U. There were debates about introducing an entirely new name, but it made Brough “feel uncomfortable” making up a random word that doesn’t have any strategy behind it. “I wanted to make sure that whatever naming convention had a strategic thread from UKTV’s background.”

So, she had to look at what UKTV already owned. “But that also came with another series of limitations; the UK bit was limiting to the type of content it airs and TV felt a bit dusty.” Its streaming service is called UKTV Play, but the word ‘play’ wasn’t very “ownable” because of brands such as PlayStation, Google Play and Freeview Play, she says.

Without the UK and the TV, what was left then? The letter U. Brough says the U both plays into the company’s history while conveying that its shows are for its audience, or ‘you.’ “When we put it into the research, people got it. They said, ‘Oh, you’re talking about content for me: when I want to watch, where I want to watch it.’ It was one of those things where I could almost have scripted the soundbites.”

The single letter is also a helpful tool to link with its channel names; for example, Dave becomes U & Dave, which would never have worked with a longer name like UKTV. “There’s a simplicity to it as well once you start linking out with the brands. It becomes helpful for conjoining rather than overpowering.”

U, however, does come with a series of challenges and Brough admits that the research showed it would be a risk. “Nothing you are ever going to come up with will be perfect.” One piece of feedback was that the letter U is hard to fill with meaning. This is where marketing will have to do a big job of conveying the meaning behind U.

Havas Entertainment and U’s in-house team have taken up that task with an extensive marketing campaign featuring none other than music legend Cher. Adapting her hit song I’ve Got You Babe to ‘We’ve Got U,’ the spot sees Cher traveling through different U shows, including Secrets of London’s Underground, or popping up at the Queen Vic in EastEnders.

Along with the meaning of U, having a single letter also throws up challenges when audiences need to search for it. To solve this, the business has put a lot of thought behind search optimization, including using back links, the buying up of hidden websites and keyword search terms. The company has experience doing this with its channel W. It will take time and Brough has estimated three to six months before U is in the top five search returns.

Along with the name change, U has a fresh color palette, with the brand hue changing from teal to coral. A driving factor for this, says Brough, was that blue tones had become overused by competing streaming services, including Amazon Prime Video, Disney and Paramount+, whereas coral is unique to the market.

Risk mitigation

Rebrands are always tricky to land, especially when it’s both a name and color change. As part of the risk mitigation plan, U worked with the econometric agency Magic Numbers, which forecasted that it would take 10 to 14 weeks to recover from any negative impact of the rebrand. “But, obviously, I’m hopeful that we’ve done an awful lot of comms to mitigate the risk.”

From a business point of view, the rebrand isn’t just a “new lick of paint,” Brough says. The company will also be rolling out a new version of its app, has added more shows to its streamer and Brough teases that there are performance marketing and CRM updates coming down the pipe.

“So for me, it’s more than the name I’m super excited about. I’m proud of the team and what they’ve delivered, but that is just the beginning. Everything else has to deliver on that brand promise.”

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