Yell has announced it made a loss of £1.4bn in 2011/12 and no longer want to be called Yell. If its shareholders agree Yell will soon become Hibu; a name reflecting such things as diversity, connections and conversation.

Yell is struggling. The company is heavily in debt and the market for printing unsolicited directories is depleting fast; last year Yell's revenues from the Yellow Pages fell by 21%. If there's a future for the company it will be in the digital market.

High-boo: edgy and innovative

The full year results may not have surprised market gurus, what nobody saw coming was the announcement that Yell wants to rename itself. To take on the likes of Google and eBay the company needs a brand that reflects the company's aim to “connect communities”. It has settled on the name Hibu.

Yell's chief executive, Mike Pocock, told The Telegraph the name Yell is being “viewed as a dinosaur”. He confirmed Hibu doesn't have any “pure meaning” behind it: “It needed to be short, easy to pronounce and to sound edgy and innovative. It doesn't mean a lot by itself, but if you turn the clock back, neither did Apple and Google or Yahoo.”

Hibu is pronounced as 'High-boo' and is to be written in lowercase. The two dots on the 'u' in the logo don't make the letter an umlaut; rather, the dots in the logo “represent the people behind the identity [of Hibu], diversity, connections and conversation.” The bold typography with soft edges represents “a human and approachable company”.

Oxford has an eMarketplace

If Yell's shareholders agree with the rebranding the name Yell will be ditched at the company's AGM on 26 July. Yell has confirmed the name of its paper directory will not be rebranded; only the name of the parent company and its digital offerings are to be changed.

The new branding can already be admired on Yell's new eMarketplace website: market.hibu.co.uk. Currently, the website is targeted at communities and businesses in Oxford only.

Links

• Yell Group announces full year results (yellgroup.com)
• Our new brand (yellgroup.com)
• Yell admits rebrand is meaningless as it chalks up £1.4bn loss (telegraph.co.uk)