Tezyo
A new name and store-brand for younger, urban footwear
For close to two decades, Otter Distribution had built its footwear retail on the Otter name. On the Romanian market since 1997, the company had grown into one of the country’s leading footwear retailers, with strategic locations in the major shopping centers, deep retail know-how and a strong brand portfolio. But by the early 2010s the name was working against the business. Its core customer was a man over forty buying classic shoes, and the market was moving the other way — toward women, younger buyers and lifestyle-led fashion retail. Otter’s awareness and equity were excellent at home yet carried no weight abroad, and the narrowness of the brand was capping growth. The board faced a decision no retailer takes lightly: keep, remodel or replace the name above the door.
In 2014 Brandient ran the brand audit that framed that decision — depth interviews with the owner and key people, consumer research on brand equity and performance, field and competitive analysis across international, local, sport and fashion retail. Brandient put the choice on business grounds: the company’s real success factors — locations, retail knowledge, portfolio — would transfer intact to a new name. The dated associations would not.
Brandient recommended and created the new retail brand: Tezyo, a name screened for trademark availability in footwear and accessories retail, deliberately distinct from the Otter product name, carried into a verbal and visual identity, communication and in-store application. The positioning was set where the growth was — mainstream-up, fashion-driven, lifestyle: a multibrand store of shoes and accessories for women, men and children, with the younger, feminine-leaning personality the old name could never credibly claim.
Otter Distribution made the call and executed it store by store, converting the Otter fascia into Tezyo while keeping Otter as the group’s name and as a product brand inside the new stores. Tezyo grew into a national chain of some 37 stores across Romania’s major shopping centers — and became the group’s first retail brand to cross the border, opening in the Czech Republic and Austria. The question on the table in 2014 — whether the company’s future could be built on a name that pointed to its past — has been answered by the storefronts.
Client:
Otter Distribution
Industry:
Retail and Consumer Services
Project type:
New Brand Creation
Date:
2014–2015
Services:
Brand Audit · Brand Positioning · Brand Name, Narratives and Voice · Logo and Visual Identity Program · Communication Design · Branded Environments
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