Continental bracing for name change. (Continental Cablevision Inc.)

Continental Cablevision Inc. will officially change its name to MediaOne in mid-May, and embark on an extensive, multimillion-dollar rebranding campaign.

But, branding experts warn, the cable operator, which was acquired last year by U S West Media Group, has to proceed cautiously and make sure that the benefits of the new company are carefully articulated in a meticulously orchestrated campaign, while at the same time minimizing any losses in brand equity from the old name.

Continental and U S West executives maintained that the downside to the name change will be minimal, and that they will be offset by the benefits of touting a full-service telecommunications company offering a wide array of products, including high-speed-data delivery and telephony.

Jim Schirmer, an 18-year marketing veteran at U S West who has just been named director of brand strategy for U S West Media Group, summed up the repositioning strategy as "a new kind of company offering new kinds of products," such as high-speed Internet access. The benefits include being a "competitive barrier" that would make it difficult for new competitors to come in and steal customers.

But consultants warned that change may unsettle some subscribers, confuse others and even raise their suspicions.

"A name change signals major change," said Clive Chajet, chairman of Chajet Consultancy, a corporate, brand-identity and image-consultancy company based in New York. "If the customer is satisfied, the notion of change is not necessarily good."

"With a cable company, when customers think change, they think bad. Their first reaction is 'Uh-oh, what is the cable company doing?'" said Neil Rosenblum, regional sales director for First Marketing Co., a Pompano Beach, Fla., firm that specializes in producing newsletters for cable systems.

Another warning comes from Alan Bergstrom, president of Atlanta-based brand-consulting firm The Brand Consultancy, who noted that not all brands travel well.

Bergstrom, who thinks the public may find the MediaOne name "too cute," said certain brands don't have the public's "permission" to go beyond the area of expertise that they're identified with, citing the unsuccessful attempt by Levi's to go beyond leisure clothes and sell suits.

"It's not a given," he said, that a cable company can transform itself into a broad-based telecommunications company.

"Telephone companies have a lot of permission to do different things. Cable doesn't have that permission," Bergstrom said.

The irony, of course, is that U S West is a telephone company, and it has already gone through a rebranding process in Atlanta, where the Prime Cable TV system that it acquired there several years ago was renamed MediaOne.

Richard Guha, Continental's senior vice president of marketing, said the re-branding will be a "hard launch," with sweeping changes overnight accompanied by a full-fledged campaign, driven by ads in a variety of media and direct-mail pieces.

"We're going to let people know that we're not a cable company anymore," Guha said. "We have to make it clear that we're going to be a new kind of company, an outstanding service provider and competitive in new fields, positioning ourselves beyond video."

The downside risks, he said, were "fairly limited."

Guha's predecessor, Frederick Livingston, agreed, noting that a name change had been in the works for years, even before the U S West acquisition. While Continental had been a respected name in the industry, he said, consumer research indicated that the public didn't differentiate the Continental name from that of other, less-service-oriented cable companies.

And Livingston added that Continental "never spent a lot of money to establish the brand in the media. A name change like this is not going to be inexpensive, but they're going to be able to spend 20 or 50 times more than had been available previously."

The name change does carry risks of confusing customers, especially if U S West botches the operational tasks, Schirmer conceded.

"If [the repositioning] isn't managed properly," he said, "you shoot yourself in the foot."

The key to success, he said, would be to have consumers make a "cognitive linkage with the company, as well as an emotional linkage." He cited Nike and Harley-Davidson as examples of brands that have been able to forge a strong emotional bond with customers.

Outside branding consultants said Continental could, in fact, make the transition to MediaOne smoothly, provided that they addressed key consumer concerns:

* Continental must successfully explain the benefits of the name change to consumers and reassure consumers that they would be better off under a newly positioned company. To do this, Chajet said, it was important for "every single message in the campaign to reinforce the basic image of the new company," using what he termed "image management" and coordination.

* The MSO must explain not only why the change is taking place and why it will be good for consumers, but it must articulate what the move won't do for them.

"You can't be basic enough," Rosenblum said. "Tell them it won't change their pricing, it won't take away what they've already got, and they'll get the same bill they've been getting. And stress that they'll still be the customers' local company, not a division of some far-off, giant corporation."

Schirmer acknowledged that the name change may result in a "bumpy road" for the short-term.

But in the long run, he said, "the synergies in the business brand will create a higher order of value, and that's a message we can take to Wall Street, as well as to our customers."