VIA Introduces New Creative Identity and Drops 'Agency' from Name

The advertising agency previously known as The VIA Agency will now be called simply VIA, CEO Leeann Leahy announced last week as part of a new creative identity and rebranding. This new visual identity, developed under chief creative officer, Bobby Hershfield, will span everything, including a new logo, colours, typeface and a completely redesigned website.

"When The VIA Agency was founded in 1993, we needed to distinguish what business we were in, and clearly state we were a creative agency", said Leeann. “Twenty-eight years later, as we’ve grown and garnered national recognition, we wanted our name to reflect who we are now and instil pride of place. Internally, we always refer to ourselves as VIA, and we hope now everyone else will too.”

VIA’s new look and name have been in the works for some time, but was fast-tracked as they were fielding multiple new business opportunities and felt the agency’s existing identity didn’t live up to their creative standards or accurately reflect the personality of VIA or the VIAns. VIA has a unique business model, which gives all employees a direct stake in the agency’s success, and the new name and identity better captures that sense of fierce independence.

"We wanted a look that felt contemporary and had energy behind it,” commented Bobby. “There has been so much exciting activity lately, combined with significant improvements to how we approach our business, and we wanted our branding to reflect that."

VIA continues to grow the business while maintaining legacy clients like L.L.Bean and Arm & Hammer. They were recently named creative partner for the Flex Company after a review, picked up AOR duties for online auto shopping site CarGurus, won a new project with Staples and welcomed Chick-Fil-A as an official partner.