From Acorn Early Years, past Family First Day Nurseries, Little Adventurers Nursery Group and Snapdragons Nurseries, through to YMCA, flicking through the Nursery Chains directory takes you on an alphabetical tour of the sector.
The name of a nursery can convey so much to increasingly brand-savvy parents. A nursery's name can influence parents’ perception of the environment, values and quality of care, making it essential for nursery groups to carefully consider how they publicly present themselves.
Brand and marketing expert Matt Eamer, creative director at me&you, says parents want the name of a nursery to convey several key qualities, including reassurance around care, professionalism, play and learning. He adds that they also want the brand to align with their own priorities, values and outlook. ‘A good name is always most effective when it's aligned with an audience need and, while the environment should be friendly and supportive to the child, it's the parent you are wanting to entice,’ he says.
BEING PROFESSIONAL
It is almost 30 years since Nursery Chains launched, and a few changing trends in group names can be identified in that time. ‘There's definitely more of an understanding that the customers are the parents, not the children,’ says Sian Millar, former owner of Dizzy Ducks Day Nurseries and now director of Polkadot Farm Nursery in Essex.
‘There has been a move away from child-centric branding and more towards “soft corporate”. Today's parents are the Instagram generation. They're the ones where aesthetics matter, so the colours of logos have changed too. There are a lot of sage greens and blues, which convey trust and relationship building, and are a move away from harsher colours like purple and orange, which maybe have a connotation of cheap and lower level,’ she adds.
Millar recalls a trend for using quirky incorrect spellings, such as ‘kidz’, which she feels is now out of fashion. ‘Groups are now trying to get across that community feel, with the likes of N Family Club,’ she says. ‘And there appear to be more nature-related names. In a post-Covid world, people are realising that the outdoors are important.’ Fitting this outdoors theme, Farm Day Nurseries and Little Adventurers Nursery Group were both established in 2020.
Cary Rankin, chief executive of Thrive Childcare and Education, has noticed that new settings are moving away from names inspired by children's books – brands mentioning ‘caterpillar’, ‘Jack and Jill’ or ‘ABC’ – and believes this may be due to owners increasingly consulting marketing professionals. Of course, having a memorable name that stands out online is now incredibly important.
When rebranding from Bertram to Thrive, Rankin says the group undertook ‘an extensive piece of market research’ with an outside company. ‘Bertram Nursery Group was nondescript and had no link with what we do,’ he explains. ‘We wanted our name to reflect what we are about.’
OLD AND NEW
Many of the name changes in the Chains directory are when groups have been acquired. This recently happened with Just Childcare and All About Children, which were both acquired by Partou and now all have the same branding.
‘It can sometimes be a gamble to change a name when there's a long-standing relationship in the community with it,’ says Rankin. ‘You can do it in a way that continues to recognise the name but still brings it under your brand, like Grandir.’
Millar adds, ‘There needs to be consideration of legacy. Dizzy Ducks had a great reputation, but when I sold it to Kindred and it was rebranded, it lost that legacy, despite having the same staff and buildings. But sometimes there needs to be a refresh.’
Thrive still has ‘sub-brands’ – Corner House, Nature Kindergarten, Happitots, Holyrood and some Thrive nurseries. ‘This is important because there is local recognition of those names,’ says Rankin.
Whatever nursery names become popular, the aim is that they are synonymous with high-quality childcare. ‘Ultimately, the name isn't so important,’ says Rankin. ‘It's the service you deliver. If you have a really good-quality nursery, children and parents love it there and the staff do too, then that's what builds the brand.’
Nursery World's brief name change
As Nursery World magazine can attest, whether to rebrand is a difficult decision. In October 1965, the magazine's publishers changed the title to, coincidentally, All About Children, but the familiarity of the original title won through and it was reinstated two years later.
