A Hundred Years
Sometimes the biggest branding opportunity is your own.
The best agencies don't just shape their clients' futures.
They shape their own.
When Seso Media Group brought me in, the assignment was straightforward: help with a handful of client engagements.
But the deeper I got into the agency, the more another question kept nagging at me.
Why did an agency with this much ambition have such a forgettable name?
The people were extraordinary. Their thinking was ambitious. Their clients included NASA, TED, the Smithsonian, the World Wildlife Fund, Disney, the XPRIZE Foundation, and organizations tackling humanity's biggest challenges.
Yet none of that came through in the agency's own identity.
There was just one complication. They had already hired a respected naming agency. They already had a new name. They simply didn't believe in it enough to launch it.
When they showed it to me, I understood why.
One thing about working with me is that I don't pretend to love ideas I don't believe in. Whether that's confidence or stubbornness depends on who you ask—but I felt certain we could do better.
So I made an unlikely pitch: let's try one more time. To my surprise, they agreed.
The creative brief I wrote for myself was simple:
Create a name that makes someone look upward and out into the distance.
It should evoke curiosity. Wonder. Possibility. Something expansive enough to hold both the agency's ambitions and the ambitions of the organizations it served.
After several collaborative rounds, we arrived at:
A Hundred Years
That shift didn't stop with the logo.
When it came time to send a holiday gift, I proposed commissioning an artist to create limited-edition prints from a century-old tree.
The idea extended the brand into something tangible—transforming a simple client gift into an expression of the agency's philosophy.
It reminded clients that the work wasn't just about solving today's problems. It was about planting ideas that would still matter a hundred years from now.
Years later, I can see that the name didn't simply describe what the agency wanted to become.
It helped shape what it became.
The rebrand resonated with existing clients, attracted new ones, and opened an entirely new area of business for the firm.
The name looked beyond the span of a typical human lifetime. It invited clients to think less about the next quarter and more about the legacy they'd leave behind.
It became more than a name.
It became a lens through which the agency could frame conversations about sustainability, systems thinking, and long-term impact. For the first time, the company's identity reflected the way it already thought.
As CEO Marc Mertens later wrote:
"Alli was the driving force in the rebranding process of our firm, leading an effort that created an overwhelming positive response from current and prospective clients and opening an entirely new field of business for our studio. She challenged conventions by drawing from a deep creativity in her strategic approach and was incredibly resourceful in the execution of key strategies. Her ability to go from the 10,000-foot view to the hands-on crafting of messaging all the way to the production of our launch event is unmatched—as is her ability to see and make connections that allow an idea to become reality."
