NCC
NCC AB is a Swedish multinational construction and real estate company, with operations in Scandinavia as well as Germany and the Baltic countries.
Clarify its offering using a separate brand
To clarify its offering regarding residential development, NCC intended to bud of NCC Housing from the group and instead create a separate company and brand. Together with our sister company, naming agency Skriptor, we were commissioned to develop a brand and protect associated trademarks and domain names to be used in eight markets. The project was initiated in September 2015, and already then, we knew that we were working against the clock – the new name would be decided, filed and registered by April 1, 2016.
Strategic naming led to trademarks and domain names
Skriptor started the project by creating an appropriate name. Through a structured and strategic approach, they created 25 name suggestions, which later became ten. These ten name suggestions were linguistically screened by Skriptor, and we carried out legal research, in all relevant markets. By looking at both the linguistic aspects and legal aspects (such as registrability), in combination with the access to domain names, the name suggestions become both commercially viable and strong from a legal perspective.
Through the process, the final choice of name became Bonava – a combination of the Swedish words “bo” (to live) and “nav” (a hub).
After the decisions were made, we started with registering both the trademarks and the domain names. Since we had done thorough research, the process went according to plan. As this was an international project, our established strategy resulted in 40 domain name registrations and 13 trademark registrations in the EU, Norway and Russia. Thanks to a close cooperation with our client and swift action in all phases of the project, we managed to meet our deadline.
The entire project was handled strictly confidential and all intellectual property rights were filed with a different company name in order not to disclose that this was a project of NCC. When the press release was sent out and the project was proclaimed, April 12, 2016, we transferred all the registered rights to NCC.
This is NCC’s own words on Bonava:
“Bonava now becomes one of the leading residential developers in Northern Europe. Bonava originates in NCC and has created homes and residential areas since the 1930s. Today, Bonava has 1,400 employees with operations in Sweden, Finland, Denmark, Norway, Germany, St. Petersburg, Estonia and Latvia, with a turnover of EUR 1.3 billion.”
