Urban Airship wants everyone to know it's much more than the push notification technology that it pioneered 10 years ago.
To drive home that point, the company unveiled sweeping new branding that includes a new name. It is dropping the word “Urban” and is now simply: Airship.
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It’s a major change for a company that helped establish the current generation of Portland technology startups that shifted the center of the region’s technology scene from the western suburbs into the city’s core.
“We are proud of the platform we developed for push notifications,” said CEO Brett Caine. “We have expanded that to a ton of other mobile channels and added more traditional channels that didn’t start out mobile but provide mobile sensibility.”
Over the last four years, the marketing software maker has built a portfolio of products to augment push notifications, or messages that pop up on mobile devices. It can now help marketers target and coordinate interactions with consumers across apps, websites, text messages, email, mobile wallets and other emerging channels.
“Our heritage is mobile push, but the future is digital engagement and customer engagement,” Caine said, adding that Airship “reflects who we were and who we are.”
The company’s data products are growing at a 110 percent compound annual growth rate. The number of email and text messaging customers are doubling and tripling quarter-over-quarter as the number of customers using Airship's predictive modeling tools grew four times in 2018 versus 2017.
Discussions of the brand change started soon after Senior Vice President Mike Stone joined the company last year. It took another six to seven months of work to create the new look, Stone said.
“The Airship name really emphasizes the speed and streamlined image that is more attractive to the enterprise buyer,” Stone said. “It’s not a decision we arrived at lightly. We are aware of the brand equity and the reputation in the industry. It’s something we didn’t want to run away from.”
Airship is positioning itself to help brands improve their digital customers' experience. Caine said market research shows 65 percent of consumers now find positive experiences with brands to be more important than great advertising.
“Consumers don’t want to be told what a brand is but experience it themselves,” he said. “We are square in the middle of that.”
Airship has roughly 2,000 customers around the world including British telecom Vodafone, media company AccuWeather, retailer American Eagle Outfitters and Alaska Airlines.
“In this new age of retail, it’s essential to offer our American Eagle and Aerie customers exceptional digital experiences,” said Kristen D’Arcy, vice president of integrated marketing and media, in a written statement. “Urban Airship has been a key partner as we’ve adapted to emerging customer requirements and implemented new engagement channels.”
D’Arcy noted the company recently signed on for Airship’s web notifications, which sends messages to consumers through a website instead of a mobile app.
The new branding is the second major move by the company this year. In January, it announced its largest acquisition to date when it bought its largest European competitor Accengage.
The integration of Paris-based Accengage has gone “exceptionally well,” said Caine. The teams have already added a WhatsApp product to Accengage's lineup.
Airship has close to 300 employees worldwide and is hiring across its offices. It has 42 open roles listed on its website.