After 44 years of doing business as Astro-Med, on September 25 we changed our name to AstroNova. Why change our name after so many years? Since developing a new growth strategy for the company a few years ago that included divesting our medical business, the "Med" part of our name no longer described our business.
As we developed our strategy to transform the company into a business that could deliver greater value to our customers and shareholders, it became clear that a new name would be essential to effectively communicate our new direction.
As you might imagine, changing the name of a global enterprise like ours was not an easy undertaking. We started out by selecting a marketing firm that had done this many times before and then spent many months testing various options with internal and external focus groups. In the end, AstroNova was the clear winner.
"Astro" refers to our strong roots in the aerospace business. "Nova" comes from the Latin word "novus," meaning "new." Our new brand signifies that we're maintaining traditional strengths in aerospace, plus expanding our presence in test and measurement, product identification, and other new areas where we can apply our data visualization technology. It also represents the new way we're operating the company.
If you are planning a change in strategy, you too may want to consider a name change. It is one of the most impactful things you can do. •
