Building a breakthrough internet brand for China

Rafkin and his team named, positioned, and branded the new company, conducting focus groups in Beijing, Shanghai, Chengdu, and Hong Kong that inspired  the creation of a novel brand name - “Flying Dragon.” The name was a significant achievement in Chinese-Western naming, since the dragon is a highly revered symbol of power, strength, and luck, while a flying version was seen by Chinese internet users as modern, innovative, and fast. A second win came when “Flying Dragon” was spoken in Mandarin, since the words sounded phonetically similar to “AOL” in English.

In addition to this project, Rafkin led other high-profile assignments for AOL, including the redesign of the AOL logo and identity, a global Netscape rebrand, creation and facilitation of a global brand council, and other strategy and branding projects in Canada, Mexico, Brazil, Argentina, UK, France, Germany, Japan, and Australia.

When AOL merged with Time Warner and Rafkin’s clients left the company, his senior client hired Lee for a multi-year engagement at Thomson Reuters, and his junior client hired him over a five-year period at Discovery Networks and the University of Maryland.

There is a reason I’ve worked with Lee Rafkin for almost 20 years at three different organizations, five brands, three categories, and four continents, and that is simply because Lee “gets it.”

I’ve worked with Lee at AOL International, Discovery Networks, and University of Maryland. Not only is he a smart brand strategist and thought partner, Lee is exceptional at getting corporate buy-in at the highest levels with everyone from marketing experts to those completely new to the idea of branding. Lee is not the kind of consultant who goes into his “black box” and comes out with “the answer,” which he throws over the transom. Instead, Lee demonstrates a deep commitment to his clients by consistently over-delivering – not only strategically, but also by helping organizations with the change management and operationalization of the brand strategies he recommends.

Lee is also very adaptable. I’ve worked with him on projects in China, Japan, Germany, Brazil, Argentina and more, and have observed Lee successfully adapting his communications and management style to suit the client’s needs, linguistically and culturally.

There is one final reason why I’ve worked with Lee on so many assignments for so many years: He’s fantastic.

Kris Sexton

VP Marketing