--- title: "Thisbowl and the Rename Question: What a Name Was Carrying" description: A rename fixes what a name says about the business. The risk is the recognition it was carrying. What to measure before, during and after a brand renames. image: https://info.brandhealth.com.au/hubfs/AI-Generated%20Media/Images/Sign%20Change%20At%20Modern%20Beachside%20Bowl%20Shop.png --- **[![logo](https://info.brandhealth.com.au/hubfs/Imported%20images/Layer_1%20(1).png%3Fwidth=390%26height=50%26name=Layer_1%20(1).png)](https://brandhealth.com.au/)** - [Solutions](https://brandhealth.com.au/brand-research-solutions/) - [Pricing](https://brandhealth.com.au/brand-research-pricing/) - [Resources](https://info.brandhealth.com.au/) - [Contact](https://brandhealth.com.au/contact-brand-research-experts/) - [Login](https://app.brandhealth.com.au/user/login/) ![arrow-right](https://info.brandhealth.com.au/hubfs/raw_assets/public/Brand_Health_April2024%20Theme/images/arrow-curve-right.svg) [Book A Free Consultation](https://brandhealth.com.au/free-consultation/) # Thisbowl and the Rename Question: What a Name Was Carrying ** 10 min Share - [**](http://www.linkedin.com/shareArticle?mini=true&url=https://info.brandhealth.com.au/blog/brand-name-change-equity) - [**](https://www.facebook.com/sharer.php?u=https://info.brandhealth.com.au/blog/brand-name-change-equity) *When a brand's name stops describing what it sells, renaming fixes the description. The risk is everything else the old name was quietly holding.* ## Key takeaways 1. **A name does two jobs at once.** It is a recognition cue that customers have learned, and it is a description of what the business offers. A rename usually happens because the second job has failed while the first is still working. 2. **Keeping the visual identity is a deliberate hedge.** Changing the name while holding the logo and format moves only one asset at a time, which limits what can be lost. 3. **The people a rename is for are usually not the people who already buy.** Its value sits with those the old name was turning away, and that group is rarely measured before the change. 4. **Whether equity transferred is measurable, but only if the starting point was measured first.** After the event, a brand can count sales. It cannot reconstruct what customers associated with the old name. In late September 2026, the Sydney-founded bowl chain Fishbowl began trading as Thisbowl. The change marked the brand's tenth year: it opened in Bondi in 2016, and by mid-October more than 60 stores across New South Wales, Victoria and Queensland were due to carry the new name, [according to Concrete Playground](https://concreteplayground.com/sydney/?p=1148629). Co-founder Nathan Dalah framed it as growth rather than retreat, telling Time Out that Fishbowl was where the business started and Thisbowl is where it has arrived. The reason is visible on the menu. Fishbowl launched around seafood, with kingfish, salmon and tuna as the main proteins. Today it also sells beef, chicken, tofu and eggplant, and salmon is the only seafood left. A name that once described the product had become, for a growing share of what the business sells, a description of something it no longer mainly does. What makes the case worth studying is what did not change. The scribbled fish logo stays. So does the build-your-own bowl format. The business changed the word and kept the picture. That is a structured bet, and every brand that outgrows its name faces a version of it. ## A name does two jobs, and they can fail separately *Name Equity is the share of a brand's commercial value carried specifically by its name: the recognition, consideration and switching defensibility that would not transfer to a new name overnight.* We set out the concept in [Name Equity](https://info.brandhealth.com.au/blog/brand-name-equity-what-zip-paid-to-keep-a-word), using the case of a name worth more to keep than to lose. Most of the time a name's two jobs reinforce each other. People recognise the name, and the name tells them roughly what they will get. A rename becomes a live question when those two jobs pull apart: recognition is still strong, but the description has drifted away from the business. **Descriptive names are most exposed to this.** A name built around a product, an ingredient, a price point or a place works well while the business stays close to it, and becomes a constraint the moment the offer widens. The name keeps telling people something true about the past. The cost of that drift is quiet. It does not show up as lost customers among the people who already buy, because they know what the brand sells. It shows up among people who never come in, because the name told them the brand was not for them. **A brand can carry strong awareness and still lose consideration it never knew it was eligible for.** ## Changing one asset at a time Brand equity sits in several places at once: the name, the visual marks, the format, the locations and the experience. A full rebrand moves several of these together, which is why rebrands that go wrong tend to go wrong quickly; customers lose every cue they used to find the brand at the same moment. We examined that trade-off in [Heritage or Hostage](https://info.brandhealth.com.au/blog/heritage-or-hostage-the-rebrand-trade-off), where the bet was which was the bigger asset, the equity held now or the audience not yet won. Thisbowl's approach moves one asset and holds the rest. A regular customer walking past a store still sees the same fish mark and the same format. The recognition built in those assets is preserved while the verbal cue changes. **There is a tension built into that choice.** The logo that stays is a fish, and the name that went was a fish. The visual asset now carries some of the very association the rename was meant to loosen. That is not necessarily a mistake, since recognition may be worth more than accuracy during a transition, but it is a trade-off with a measurable answer rather than a matter of taste. The sequence matters too. According to Concrete Playground, the Thisbowl name was first adopted when the brand opened in New York, where it had no existing recognition to protect. A market without legacy equity is the cheapest place to build a new name, and it gives the business a working version of the brand under that name before it asks home customers to make the switch. ## Who the rename is really for The obvious audience for a rename announcement is existing customers, and most of the launch activity is aimed at them: a reopened flagship, a weekend of price promotions, partnerships with other well-known local brands. Keeping existing customers through the change is necessary, but it is not where the value of the rename sits. **The commercial case for a rename lives with the people the old name was excluding.** For a seafood-named bowl chain, that might be someone who does not eat fish, or who assumed the menu was narrower than it is, or who simply never thought of it for a weeknight dinner. These people may well know the brand. What they know about it is the part that is out of date. That is a measurement problem most brands do not set up for. Standard brand metrics will report that awareness of the old name was high. They will not report what aware non-customers believed the brand sold, or how many of them ruled it out for that reason. Without that baseline, the rename's effect on the group it was meant to reach is invisible. ## What to measure before, during and after A rename is one of the few brand decisions where the evidence can be designed in advance, because the date is known and the change is under the brand's control. **Before the change**, establish where the equity actually sits: - Recognition of the name, the logo and the format separately, so the business knows which assets customers rely on to find it. - What aware non-customers believe the brand offers, and the reasons they give for not choosing it. - The situations in which people think of the category, and which ones the brand is and is not linked to. **During the transition**, measure the link between old and new: - Whether people who know the old name connect it to the new one. - Misattribution, where the new name is linked to a competitor or to nobody. - Recognition of the retained assets, since these are now carrying the transition. **After the change**, measure the outcome the rename was for: - Consideration among the groups the old name excluded, compared against the baseline. - Whether the description problem has actually moved, not just whether the new name is known. - Whether recognition among existing customers has held. None of this requires guessing at results after the fact. It requires deciding, before the signage changes, which questions the business will need answered six and twelve months later. ## The same decision in other categories The pattern extends well beyond food. Brands named after a founding product, a price promise or a single category face the same choice when the business outgrows the name: hold the name and keep explaining, rename and risk recognition, or reposition underneath the name and hope the description catches up. There is no general answer, because the right choice depends on how much of the brand's equity sits in the name itself and how much the description is costing. That ratio differs by brand, and it can be measured. **A rename made without knowing it is a bet placed without knowing the odds.** It is also one of the scenarios worth modelling in advance rather than discovering under pressure. A [brand equity stress test](https://info.brandhealth.com.au/blog/brand-equity-stress-test) asks what would happen to a brand's equity if a core asset changed or was lost, and the name is often the asset carrying the most. ## Frequently asked questions **When is a rename worth the risk?** When the name's description is costing more consideration than its recognition is worth. That is most likely when the business has widened its offer well beyond what the name describes, when a meaningful group of aware non-customers rule the brand out because of the name, and when other assets such as the logo, format or locations can carry recognition through the change. If the name is the main thing customers use to find the brand and the description problem is small, the risk usually outweighs the gain. **Should the logo change with the name?** Not necessarily. Changing one asset at a time protects recognition, since customers keep the cues they already use. The cost is that a retained asset may keep carrying the old association. Whether to change it is best decided from measurement: if the logo is strongly recognised and only loosely tied to the old description, keeping it is low risk. If it carries the same narrow meaning as the old name, it may slow the repositioning the rename was meant to achieve. **How long does it take to know whether a rename worked?** Recognition of the new name can be read within months. The outcome that matters, consideration among people the old name excluded, moves more slowly because it depends on those people encountering and reassessing the brand. A useful read usually needs a baseline taken before the change and a comparable measure six to twelve months after it, with the same questions asked of the same groups. ## A name is an asset with a description attached A brand that outgrows its name is usually a brand that has done something right. The business grew past its original idea. The risk is treating the rename as a creative decision about a new word, when it is really a commercial decision about how much recognition to trade for how much relevance, and with whom. The brands that handle it well tend to know three things before the signage changes: which of their assets customers actually rely on, what non-customers wrongly believe about them, and how they will tell, a year later, whether the trade paid off. The dynamic this article describes is not unique to Thisbowl. It shows up in any category where a brand's name describes a product, price or place the business has since moved beyond. Brand Health helps senior marketing leaders measure where their equity sits before they change it, so the decision rests on evidence rather than instinct. [Schedule a free 30-minute consultation to discuss what your brand name is carrying and what a change would put at risk.](https://brandhealth.com.au/free-consultation/) *Tom Morris is the Managing Director of Brand Health, an Australian brand research consultancy. He works with senior marketing leaders to design measurement programs that connect brand performance to commercial outcomes.* Share - [**](http://www.linkedin.com/shareArticle?mini=true&url=https://info.brandhealth.com.au/blog/brand-name-change-equity) - [**](https://www.facebook.com/sharer.php?u=https://info.brandhealth.com.au/blog/brand-name-change-equity) # Let us be your guide Discover how Brand Health can help you unlock insights to drive your brand's growth! [Get Started](https://brandhealth.com.au/free-consultation) ## Related posts #### [B2B Trade-Down: When Nobody Leaves and Everybody Buys Less](https://info.brandhealth.com.au/blog/b2b-trade-down-measurement) Consumer trade-down shows up as lost customers. In B2B it shows up as a full order book quietly worth less, and most account reportingfalse [Read More »](https://info.brandhealth.com.au/blog/b2b-trade-down-measurement) #### [Cue's Sales Were Rising. The Occasion Had Already Gone.](https://info.brandhealth.com.au/blog/cue-occasion-loss-brand-measurement) Revenue up, losses cut by two thirds, receivership anyway. What a brand tracker would have seen that the profit and loss statementfalse [Read More »](https://info.brandhealth.com.au/blog/cue-occasion-loss-brand-measurement) #### [Your Brand Has Two Audiences. Your Tracker Reports One](https://info.brandhealth.com.au/blog/multi-sided-brand-awareness-measurement) Why businesses that depend on several separate groups keep reporting a single awareness figure that describes none of them. [Read More »](https://info.brandhealth.com.au/blog/multi-sided-brand-awareness-measurement) #### [B2B Trade-Down: When Nobody Leaves and Everybody Buys Less](https://info.brandhealth.com.au/blog/b2b-trade-down-measurement) Consumer trade-down shows up as lost customers. In B2B it shows up as a full order book quietly worth less, and most account reportingfalse [Read More »](https://info.brandhealth.com.au/blog/b2b-trade-down-measurement) #### [Cue's Sales Were Rising. The Occasion Had Already Gone.](https://info.brandhealth.com.au/blog/cue-occasion-loss-brand-measurement) Revenue up, losses cut by two thirds, receivership anyway. What a brand tracker would have seen that the profit and loss statementfalse [Read More »](https://info.brandhealth.com.au/blog/cue-occasion-loss-brand-measurement) #### [Your Brand Has Two Audiences. Your Tracker Reports One](https://info.brandhealth.com.au/blog/multi-sided-brand-awareness-measurement) Why businesses that depend on several separate groups keep reporting a single awareness figure that describes none of them. [Read More »](https://info.brandhealth.com.au/blog/multi-sided-brand-awareness-measurement) #### [Heritage or Hostage: The Rebrand Trade-Off](https://info.brandhealth.com.au/blog/heritage-or-hostage-the-rebrand-trade-off) Every rebrand is a bet on which is the bigger asset, the equity you hold now or the audience you do not yet have. [Read More »](https://info.brandhealth.com.au/blog/heritage-or-hostage-the-rebrand-trade-off) #### [Heritage or Hostage: The Rebrand Trade-Off](https://info.brandhealth.com.au/blog/heritage-or-hostage-the-rebrand-trade-off) Every rebrand is a bet on which is the bigger asset, the equity you hold now or the audience you do not yet have. [Read More »](https://info.brandhealth.com.au/blog/heritage-or-hostage-the-rebrand-trade-off) #### [B2B Trade-Down: When Nobody Leaves and Everybody Buys Less](https://info.brandhealth.com.au/blog/b2b-trade-down-measurement) Consumer trade-down shows up as lost customers. In B2B it shows up as a full order book quietly worth less, and most account reporting [Read More »](https://info.brandhealth.com.au/blog/b2b-trade-down-measurement) #### [Cue's Sales Were Rising. The Occasion Had Already Gone.](https://info.brandhealth.com.au/blog/cue-occasion-loss-brand-measurement) Revenue up, losses cut by two thirds, receivership anyway. What a brand tracker would have seen that the profit and loss statement [Read More »](https://info.brandhealth.com.au/blog/cue-occasion-loss-brand-measurement) #### [Your Brand Has Two Audiences. Your Tracker Reports One](https://info.brandhealth.com.au/blog/multi-sided-brand-awareness-measurement) Why businesses that depend on several separate groups keep reporting a single awareness figure that describes none of them. 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