In the small coastal village of Porthcurno, Cornwall, three miles from Land’s End, the Porthcurno Telegraph Museum sits as a monument to the history of global communications. The museum is housed in a cable house overlooking the beach from which the first cable laid in Britain by Cable and Wireless ran down to the sea, en route to Bombay.

 

The London to Bombay telegraph line was completed in 1870, when what we now know as Cable and Wireless operated under various disparate names. From its beginnings above Porthcurno beach, Cable and Wireless became a telecoms giant, with brand recognition to match.

 

By November 2009, Cable and Wireless plc was operating two distinct business units under an umbrella brand. The decision was made to separate the units and create two discretely listed companies, both of which replaced the ‘and’ with an ampersand: Cable & Wireless Worldwide, a provider of communications infrastructure, and Cable & Wireless Communications, a full-service telecommunications company operating in the Caribbean, Panama, Macau, and Monaco & Islands.

 

“The board took the decision so that the businesses might better control their own destinies. They’d become two completely different businesses, with different needs and different capabilities,” explains Lachlan Johnston, brand and communications director at Cable & Wireless Communications.

 

The separation of the companies, and subsequent division of brand equities, posed legal challenges in addition to branding questions. Branding agency Elmwood was consulted, initially, as to which elements Cable & Wireless Communications should seek to retain, and then to work on the new identity.

 

“Whilst the details were still under legal consideration, we had to play things quite close to the chest,” explains MD of Elmwood London Elliot Wilson. “We gave them a branding perspective on Cable and Wireless which they then took back into the legal meetings. But our advice was, basically, to retain as many as possible of the key visual equities belonging to the brand.” 

 

The visual elements of the brand weren’t the only ones at stake, however. “We needed ‘cable and wireless’ in our name,” states Johnston. “It’s recognised around the world, and it reflects what we do.”

 

Adding the descriptor ‘Communications’ required a little more thought, involving research among the companies’ internal and external stakeholders, and working through a range of solutions suggested by Elmwood. “We came up with names that ranged from the evolutionary to the revolutionary. The general feeling was that we wanted to keep things straightforward, and have Cable & Wireless front and centre of the new brand,” recalls Wilson.

 

With its name and legal position clarified, there was a five-month window before the demerger took place. The newly-monikered Cable & Wireless Communications needed a brand that would be fit for purpose by March 2010; the collaborative approach adopted by the clients and the agency could only help in this quest for speed.

The brand’s heritage became a “guiding light”, in Johnston’s words, for the new identity. Working with the Porthcurno Telegraph Museum turned up objects from over a century ago bearing the company’s stamp – before its use as a logo, it was placed on company property to deter thieves, serving as a reminder of the global reach that Cable and Wireless came to possess. Johnston points out: “The first cables had to stop at lots of locations as they circumscribed the world. There are islands in the Indian Ocean where door handles are stamped with Cable and Wireless branding, and the first corporate logo appeared in 1929. We wanted to take all those evolutions of the brand, the momentum of the company’s history, and project it forward, whilst embracing the past.”

 

The ampersand which now forms the Cable & Wireless Communications mark retains the globe shape familiar from many past logos. “When they first put the globe in the logo, it was a differentiator, because few companies were genuinely global,” remarks Wilson. “The new mark evokes the globe but also works as part of the name, and brings the branding elements together – it’s a powerful symbol.

 

“The ampersand is made up of loops of cable, which become wireless as they fade into the distance. This distinguishes the globe and provides a language that we used across the rest of the branding.” The typography of the new brand is also grounded in Cable and Wireless history, using a traditional sans serif typeface that balances the modernity of the mark and the imagery used across the brand.

 

The language used by the brand required a similar rethink. Written by Elmwood in close collaboration with Cable & Wireless Communications, the language is partly focused on story-telling according to Wilson, and on articulating the meaning that the brand has in the communities where it operates, which necessitates personal, emotive language.

 

However, Johnston points out that Cable & Wireless Communications is in fact a primarily corporate brand. “The majority of the people we’re addressing aren’t customers – in fact, Cable & Wireless Communications operates multiple consumer-facing brands throughout its markets. These companies all have autonomous brands, such as Lime in the Caribbean, C&W Panama, +mobil and +tv in Panama, and Dhiraagu in the Maldives.

 

“The people we’re addressing at Cable & Wireless Communications are frequently business and civic authorities. This entails a lot of corporate-focused language – but as the changes to the nature of the business occurred, the mood and tone of the nonvisual brand were motivated by many different things, and the language has become as flexible as the logo.” This indication of the key stakeholders for Cable & Wireless Communications brings us back once again to the remarkable history of the company. Cable and Wireless was nationalised in 1947 in Britain, and not re-privatised until 1981. “Telecoms are incredibly important to economic growth, because the service is virtually irreplaceable,” explains Johnston. “Governments want to keep a stake in their telecoms companies and maintain their presence in the industry. In the Panama market, 49% of shares are still owned by the local government, so talking to governments is a large part of our communications.”

 

With the branding elements in place, the implementation would take up two months of close work on launch collateral and internal engagement. Elmwood created a new website for Cable & Wireless Communications, as well as a film in collaboration with animation studio The Neighbourhood which premiered at the internal launch of the brand, and comprehensive usage guidelines.

 

“The internal audience knew that a change was coming, but they wanted to know why and how Cable & Wireless Communications would be different from the current brand,” says Wilson. “The danger was that with all the focus on the demerger, a rebrand would just seem like a distraction, but we were able to present them with a new and confident business that maintained the previous brand’s worth. The audience really bought into the value of the brand.”

 

Johnston agrees on the importance of the internal reaction considering the demerger. “It was generally embraced wholeheartedly. What was once a business belonging to a group was now its own entity, and the new brand reflected that change. Importantly, people liked it and were impressed by it.”

 

 

 

The application of the brand across the new markets is still ongoing, with the communications team in London working with all the different business units. “The unit in the Channel Islands had wanted to keep their own brand, but the launch changed their minds and now their corporate brand is in line with ours,” according to Johnston. “The Falklands corporate brand is still Cable and Wireless but planning to move over to Cable & Wireless Communications at an appropriate time. It’s very much a work in progress.”

 

Ten months on from the demerger, both Cable & Wireless Worldwide and Cable & Wireless Communications are listed separately on the London Stock Exchange. Cable & Wireless Worldwide, following the modernisation of its brand, is a perennial acquisition target, according to Sandra O’Boyle of Current Analysis. “The demerger has added value for their shareholders,” says O’Boyle, “as potential buyers may not have wanted the communications operations but just the communications provisions.”

 

Cable & Wireless Communications, meanwhile, is focused on moving forwards in its geographic markets and bringing its brand heritage to bear in the 21st century. Wilson remarks that, “From a communications perspective, Cable and Wireless bound the world together.” Its new brand aims to continue that work on its local and global stages.