Anatomy of a rebirth: APX Alarm sheds its well-known brand as it expands.

• Author: Stewart, Heather
• Position: Focus

APX Alarm is no more. Over a months-long process, the company has turned inward, reinvented itself and, just this month, launched a new brand identity along with new product and services offerings. The sturdy, respectable APX Alarm brand has been replaced with a more vibrant, aspirational brand: Vivint.

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The new name is meant to signify "intelligent living," according to company leaders, with "viv" coming from the French verb vivre, meaning "to live," and "int" coming from the word intelligent.

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Just how did the company get from the APX caterpillar to the Vivint butterfly? The process involved buy-in from management, input from employees and outside legal expertise.

Seeds of Change

APX Alarm was founded as a residential security company in 1999. Its name was originally APEX Alarm, but the company dropped the E when it ran into trademark issues. With close to 600,000 customers, the company now operates in markets across North America.

In mid 2010, APX Alarm added a new service to its home security system--a thermostat for the home that can be controlled remotely through a web portal on a smart phone or computer. But the company's plans to offer additional energy management products unleashed an identity crisis.

"We felt like we had created a great brand in Utah. We'll be at least the second-largest security company in the United States by the middle of 2011," says CEO Todd Pedersen. "The problem is we're pigeon-holed as just a security company."

The company had big plans to expand its products and services to include lighting and small appliance controls, along with security cameras and remote door locks, and the name APX Alarm no longer conveyed the full scope of its services.

"We knew we were going to have to address the name," says Kristi Knight, vice president of corporate communications for the company.

The question became whether to hold onto the "APX" portion of the name, or go with something entirely new and fresh. Retaining the APX would help solidify some of the brand recognition already associated with the company. The problem? "It doesn't stand for anything," says Knight.

"We felt like really it was the best opportunity for us to introduce a new name that gave us a lot more flexibility, that did mean something, and do it at the same time that we introduced our additional new products," she says.

But for Pedersen, who had carefully nurtured and built the company and its brand for more...