Rebranding to Genio: The journey to unlock better learning

Who cares about a company name?

The name of a company does so much more than just tell you what it’s called.

It contributes to your gut feel about the company. It’s intrinsically tied to the company’s reputation and whether you’re likely to recommend it to your friends. When a company is named right, it provides value and meaning.

As a marketer myself, I believe that if a company is not capturing people’s hearts and minds in the right way - not just demonstrating value, but making them feel great - then they’re missing the point.

When I joined Glean as Head of Marketing over a year ago, I knew we had a big brand project ahead of us: choosing a new name and refreshing our messaging to reflect our future vision. Glean had ambitions to become more than just a note taking tool, and needed a new name to match.

And as many of our loyal customers know, it wasn’t the first time Glean had updated its brand either. 

In 2007, we launched our first product, called Audio Notetaker. Invented by Dr. Roger Tucker, it was the first of its kind and enabled users to easily navigate, annotate and organize audio recordings imported into the software.

It was originally developed as a note taking accommodation for individuals, but in 2012 we developed a product for administrators so we could become a support solution for Higher Education institutions. For most cases, this eradicated the need for peer note takers and allowed students to become independent in their note taking. 'Sonocent', as we were known then, with sound (sonos) at the center, ultimately became the category leader of digital note taking accommodations.

Roger ran Sonocent with his son, Dave Tucker, who was a co-Founder and heavily involved since the early days. Over the years Roger retired and Dave decided to build a new app based on the audio notetaking concept, using everything he had learned about learning and learners. That app was called Glean. We launched it in 2020 and in July 2021, the company rebranded to Glean to match its new identity to its new app.

Now, I’m incredibly excited to be part of launching Genio: beautifully simple learning tools that increase knowledge, skills, and confidence. 

Since becoming Glean in 2021, we’ve nearly tripled the number of customers we serve to over 900 and now proudly support over 160,000 students represented at over 1,700 institutions.  

But our dream has always been to create a positive impact on millions of learners’ lives, and we knew that ‘what got us here’ won’t get us ‘there’. 

To achieve this, we had to expand our value to learners. That meant new product offerings. 

Along with our newly named Genio Notes, we have announced Genio Present, a tool designed to alleviate presentation anxiety and improve communication skills, and our first course: The Confident Notetaker’s Masterclass. 

This is just the beginning. 

Now, our mission is clear: 
To unlock better learning for everyone. 

And our vision is bright: 
A world where every person has the tools and confidence to expand what’s possible through learning. 

Despite a new name and updated mission and vision, it was important to us that we kept the same brand look, feel, and voice. The Glean brand is much loved, and we get most of our business through referrals. 

We didn’t want to worry our loyal customer base that we were changing our human-first approach to customer service or our learning science-based approach to building products. 

Here’s what we updated:

Name 

Our new purpose expands beyond helping people ‘glean’ more from their notes, so we needed a new name to represent our future. In choosing a new name, we knew we wanted to keep it short and memorable, like ‘Glean’, and to look good in our typography. We wanted it to sound young and innovative, but trustworthy and reliable. Smart, effective and efficient, but approachable and not stuffy.

We ran several naming workshops, in which we went in a thousand different directions, pulled our hair out, were silly and laughed, and finally landed on a handful, which we tested with our ideal customer profiles. Then we landed on Genio.

Logo

Customers used to ask us all the time, “What does the Glean logo represent?” And the truth is - we didn’t have a great answer! For the Genio logo, it was important that it meant something. And that ‘something’ represents the future of Genio. 

Another important factor was that the Genio logo had to pass “The T-shirt Test”. If you put it on a t-shirt, would people actually want to wear it? In other words, it needs to be ‘cool.’ 

Now, I don’t pretend to be the expert in “cool”, but I think our designers nailed this one. Just look at it on our merch! (Which, by the way, you can buy on our Genio merch storefront.) 

Color palette, Typography and Iconography

For the purposes of this brand refresh, we kept our color palette, typography, and iconography broadly the same. You’ll notice some slight moderations to keep it fresh, but again, we wanted to look and feel the same.

Messaging 

Besides our mission and vision, we also updated our messaging to be more learner-centric to align with our purpose. 

We create solutions for learners, so in situations when we don’t know who’s reading our content, it makes sense for us to speak directly to the learner. Even if it’s someone working at a higher education institution or an assessment agent, everyone can understand the key challenges learners face, and the value they’d get from our solutions.

The journey continues! 

We are now Genio, but that doesn’t mean our work is done. 

We’re going to continue looking for ways to increase our focus on the learner by amplifying their voice and constantly looking for ways to add more value. 

We’re here to equip, empower, and encourage learners, so they can unlock better learning. 

If you feel like you’re facing an insurmountable challenge, we want you to know that “you can.” 

When you’ve learned how to learn, you can overcome anything. You have unlocked your possible. 

As a lifelong learner myself, I can’t wait for the challenge and journey ahead! 

About Genio

Genio’s mission is to unlock better learning for everyone, with courses that develop learning skills and beautifully simple tools that put knowledge into action.

Trusted by more than 900 institutions globally, Genio has assisted learners in over 1.6 million classes, empowering 91% of learners using Genio’s tools to improve and maintain their grades while reducing stress and boosting confidence. Especially as non-traditional students become the new majority, Genio helps institutions increase enrollment and grow graduation rates.