Reliance - ADA Group

New:  the Group, its legal name and its Reliance logo

Launched:   May 27, 2006

Story in brief:
This is a story of biblical proportions. The legendary Dhirubai Ambani, who died in 2002, was said to be the world's greatest businessman. Starting with textiles, he built India's premiere corporation (sales of $23 billion), with leadership positions in energy, communications, finance and more, all under the Reliance brand. And with his wife and partner Kokilaben, he raised two sons, Mukesh and the younger Anil, to share and inherit his leadership.  Instead, they waged a bitter and public war for power.

Ultimately their mother helped broker a peace of sorts. Reliance Group would be divided. Mukesh would continue to lead Reliance Group and its $16 billion Reliance Industries -- the core oil, chemicals and textile businesses. But companies in four sectors (coal-based energy, gas-based energy, financial services and communications) would be "demerged" to Anil.

Neither brother, however, would concede the Reliance name and logo. So they glossed this over, agreeing that in existing businesses they would share the name, while in new categories whoever got there first could own it. (One imagines that both brothers are now furiously starting little ventures in every imaginable category, to stake their claim.)

The ball was in Anil's court, however, to express a new presence. Reliance retained Prophet to develop a new brand positioning, and Landor Associates to develop a new visual identity system.

According to Landor director Bill Larsen, "the client considered a variety of preliminary naming ideas such as 'Reliance1,' but decided on Reliance ADAG, thus leveraging the power of Anil Ambani, while also retaining the full heritage and equity of the Reliance name. Landor was then challenged to express this new dynamic, confident and contemporary Reliance ADAG, in a simple and bold manner in order to stand out within the Indian landscape. "

You see the solution, a lock-up (for now at least) of Reliance with the rest of the company name, with Reliance featuring lower-case e's and especially a central AA device, "the Reliance Apex."

At launch, Mr. Ambani explained blue and red as the colors of integrity, confidence, energy and passion, and the lower-case characters as signals of accessibility and openness. But that sounds like PR-speak. The identity's more fundamental role is "to integrate the multitude of businesses under one work culture" and its intended message is "a change in the way we relate to ourselves, to the world, and to one another... not as individuals with limited roles and responsibilities, but as members of one team, one family, one collectivity."

Credits:
C.E.O. - Anil D. Ambani 
Identity design - Landor (UK)
(however final design execution, including the 3D effect
and colors, was done internally)

First Impressions:
1. The name decision
Obviously, the name-sharing agreement was a tactical band-aid, creating inherently unstable and ultimately untenable identities. It's never a good idea to share a name with a company whose performance and behavior one cannot control.

And as a practical matter, it won't work. Because people will almost certainly continue to use "Reliance" to designate Reliance Industries, in many situations they must find a different way to designate this other Reliance, which in effect has thus lost control of  its own communicative name.  At seven syllables, "Reliance ADA Group" is not itself a solution.   It will be interesting to see what the marketplace settles on. (R-ADAG, a two-syllable acronym? Reliance Anil? Maybe it will come to Reliance A, versus Mukesh's  Reliance M.)

2. The strategic logo decision
Mr. Ambani had the legal right to retain the familiar 'flame' logo. Given the name decision, he was right to opt for a visually new and significantly different Reliance.

3. The identity design
I like the centered AA for its truth, expressiveness and relevance. This company's overpowering identity factor is not its logo... it's Anil Ambani, who is its very reason for being and presumably its driving force. From my perspective the A's are thus a conceptually brilliant design device (not particularly beautiful, but in logos that's sometimes a lesser consideration.)

I am less enthusiastic about the light letterforms and (personal taste is at work here) the trivializingly trendy e's. And frankly, the 3D effect is a blurring affectation.

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