AngiCopied

Angie's List was a product of the early web. As CNN Business put it, it was once novel and exciting to find ratings and reviews of contractors on a site like Angie's List, and that had long changed. On 17 March 2021 the brand was retired in what CNN called an ever so slight name change: Angie's List became Angi, and its owner ANGI Homeservices became Angi Inc., keeping the ANGI ticker. The company's release said the new experience came with a fresh logo, site and app, and that sister brand HomeAdvisor would become HomeAdvisor, powered by Angi. The identity is credited to Red Antler.

Chief executive Oisin Hanrahan, a co-founder of the gig marketplace Handy, which Angi bought in 2018, gave CNN the clearest explanation. The Angie's List brand was known, loved and trusted, he said, but the challenge was that the company was not just a list anymore; customers were confined and constrained by the literal nature of the name. The business now covered finding, booking and paying for contractors, not only reviewing them, and the name change was meant to highlight that the company also owned services such as HomeAdvisor and Handy. The release put it as a new name and promise for a new era in everything home, combining the strength of the best brand with the best customer experience.

The timing was good for the company. CNN noted that Angi's shares were up nearly 25 per cent that year and about 250 per cent over twelve months, helped by people stuck at home during the pandemic improving their houses. The person behind the original name was on board: Angela Hicks Bowman remained chief customer officer and a board director, and Hanrahan said she was incredibly excited about the evolution.

This is the gentlest possible rename, and that is its strength. Cutting List removes the literal limitation while keeping almost every bit of recognition; most customers already said Angie's anyway. The downside is that Angi now sounds like a person's nickname with no hint of what the company does, and it sits awkwardly beside HomeAdvisor, a far more descriptive name it now has to endorse. Still, freeing a marketplace from the word list was overdue, and the restraint shows real respect for brand equity.