ØrstedCopied

DONG stood for Danish Oil and Natural Gas. Over a decade the company had transformed from coal and oil into a leader in offshore wind, cut carbon emissions by 52 percent since 2006, decided to stop using coal and, on 29 September 2017, sold its upstream oil and gas business to INEOS. Chairman Thomas Thune Andersen said that was no longer who the company was; 2017, he argued, would be remembered as the year offshore wind became cheaper than black energy. In October it called a shareholder meeting to rename itself Ørsted, approved on 30 October, with rollout from 6 November.

The name honours H.C. Ørsted, who discovered electromagnetism in 1820 and helped lay the foundation for how modern societies are powered; the company cited his curiosity, dedication and interest in nature.

The identity was created by Kontrapunkt, which worked for almost two years with the company's in-house design department and also facilitated the creative part of the naming process. It draws on 1930s Danish functionalism, which brought light and air into Danish lives, as a model for breaking with the energy category. The palette of bold colours is inspired by Nordic nature and architecture, and the logo blue is a tribute to modernist painter Vilhelm Lundstrøm's hunt for an eternal blue. Photography shows real people with optimism and joy; pictograms describe everyday energy use. Kontrapunkt's executive director said the brand was about the life and possibilities green energy gives people, and rejected the suggestion that the name was nationalistic or nostalgic. Credit is shared: the company's own head of branding told Bureaubiz the name came from its in-house creative lead and the Ø design from its design chief.

In Denmark, the agency Yellow was appointed to build the communication platform for the new brand.

The company announcement put numbers on the shift. Carbon emissions had fallen 52 per cent since 2006 and were set to fall 96 per cent by 2023, the company had decided to stop all use of coal, and future growth would come from offshore wind, biomass, green customer solutions and advanced waste-to-energy, with a new team exploring energy storage. A name that literally stood for oil and gas could not survive that list. Few renames have a cleaner justification.

This is a rename that matches a real change rather than papering over one, which is rare in energy. The functionalist identity is calm, warm and quietly confident, and the Ø gives the brand a distinctive, distinctly Danish signature.