Speculation about a rebrand has regularly cropped up since the French Wanadoo Group acquired Freeserve in 2001 but it is believed that plans were shelved in early 2003 because of concerns that Wanadoo lacked consumer awareness in the UK.
Since then Freeserve has begun to include references to Wanadoo in its marketing materials and exposure has risen.
The rebrand will be completed by summer and will be backed by a marketing campaign breaking next week, which will include TV, online, press and direct marketing activity. Freeserve has also confirmed that it will use outdoor media for the first time. The creative has been developed by M&C Saatchi with I-traffic behind the online work.
In a letter and email going out to customers today Freeserve will highlight the strengths of the brand including a greater range of products and services and further improvements to service and reliability.
Customers will not have to change their existing Freeserve email address nor the way they connect to the internet.
Peter Turner, marketing, communications and services director at Freeserve, said: "The market has changed considerably since Freeserve launched and we are now seeking to position ourselves as a grown-up brand. Customers need reassurance on the size and scale of their supplier especially if they are going to take up broadband."
Turner was appointed in November last year following the departure of Kirsten Ford, who returned to her native New Zealand.
Freeserve was launched in 1998 by the Dixons Group and was later floated and sold off by the electrical retailer.
However last year the retailer's deal to distribute Freeserve CD-roms was dropped and replaced by AOL while Freeserve signed a new retail distribution deal with Argos, giving it an outlet in more than 150 stores.
Wanadoo is currently Europe's second biggest ISP, behind AOL, and is the biggest in France. It has around 9.1m internet access customers, including more than 2.4m broadband customers.
If you have an opinion on this or any other issue raised on Brand Republic, join the debate in the .
_1.jpg)
.jpg)