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VimpelCom, which It's Nice That described as the world's seventh largest telecoms company, serving about 10 per cent of the global population, announced at Mobile World Congress in February 2017 that it would become VEON. The new name came with a positioning shift from telecom operator to technology business, and Moving Brands, the agency behind the work according to It's Nice That, rebranded everything from logo and identity to the interface of the website and app.

Chief executive Jean-Yves Charlier explained the reasoning to Mobile World Live. Failing to monetise network growth and struggling with consumer engagement were key factors in the decision, he said. The company wanted to signal that its internet platform was core to its long term strategy rather than a bolt on, because great connectivity alone was no longer enough. It would remain a telecoms business but aimed to bring a digital model to the industry, not just a bricks and mortar one.

The identity rests on a large V. It's Nice That reported that the letterform inspired a system of triangular shapes that overlays imagery, structures layouts and extends into interiors, and that the V is usually used at large scale on simple layouts to convey confidence. Because it is a single letter, it works across the many cultures and alphabets of the group's markets. The colour is a bright mustard yellow drawn from the previous logo's striped black and yellow design, and the typeface is Hero New, chosen for its clarity. Moving Brands also produced a toolkit for the company's territories.

The name and identity are clean, legible and portable, exactly what a multinational holding company spread across many countries needs. Keeping the yellow from the old logo is a sensible bridge. But the ambition behind it, a telecom group turning into a consumer internet platform, was the hard part, and a strong letter cannot carry a product strategy on its own. VEON sounds like a technology brand; it would still have to build the technology people choose to use. As a corporate identity, it is solid. As a promise, it set a high bar.