Move

Homestore becomes Move, rebuilds brand

Homestore, an early Internet high-flying dot-com came crashing to earth with reports of accounting irregularities. The company is the leader in online real estate sales and services, with sites such as realtor.com (the site of the National Association of Realtors), homebuilder.com, rentnet.com, welcomewagon.com, and many others.
    With an infusion of $100 million from investors, including the entertainer Bono, the firm (renamed Move) repositioned itself to better serve the market and to send a signal that the troubled past was behind. To implement this transition, BrandLogic created an employee intranet site with a weekly countdown.

Updated and new weekly content aimed at communicating the new brand and building employee confidence and enthusiasm included “the Rumor Mill,” chats with executives, and a brand tutorial game.

On launch day, the countdown site celebrated the new brand, and evolved into an online brand site with tools and content for employees and business partners.

BrandLogic created brand guidelines that smoothed the name change as well. The result, according to Move’s CEO, was that: “Our company is now positioned to serve as a far more robust resource for people looking to buy, sell or rent a home. That will enable us to parlay new consumer traffic and loyalty into greater business advantage for our advertisers.”