Cadence Rebranding Journey

Jan 29, 2023

Jack Slotnick

Importance of a Brand

The foundation of any successful business is building strong relationships with its clients. A bad first impression, however, can jeopardize any relationship and it’s often a company’s brand that reaches potential clients first. Powerful branding tells the story of where the company is and what it stands for; both of which are dynamic and adapt to changes in the business environment along with the company. From a startup to an established firm, Cadence has had to reinvent its brand to bring its extraordinary growth and expansion into new sectors in alignment with its uncompromising commitment to core principles.

Story Behind SeekPanda's Brand

When we first began as a startup in 2014, our mission was to bridge the linguistic divide in the business world under the name Seek Panda. Based in Beijing, Seek Panda created a marketplace for on-demand, professional interpreters and translators geared towards Western clientele seeking to conduct business in China. 

SeekPanda

 Initially, the fun and witty branding of Seek Panda aimed to root the company firmly in the Chinese market while positioning itself as a unique bridge to understand the local market and culture. But as we sought to expand into new sectors and markets, the company’s branding hindered its growth. The entertaining image the Seek Panda brand conveyed to potential business partners failed to accurately portray the serious commitment to strong relationships and professionalism towards our linguists and clients. The company was serious about its service, and it needed an image to match. 

Brand evolution into Cadence

Since then, we rebranded ourselves into Cadence to have a name and image that reflected the fundamentals of our operations as well as where its priorities lie. Simply translating each word literally from one language to another may appear straightforward, but things are rarely, if ever, literal in the business world. Bringing out the subtle nuance in the meaning of a particular choice of words, an uncharacteristic inflection in tone, a specific cadence of speech – these are the subtleties lost in translation that are vital to conducting business. 

Though our name has changed, the principal operations and commitment to our mission remains the same. As our client base grows larger and more varied in its needs, they require tailored solutions specific to their due diligence needs. Providing the same level of interpretation services require not only linguists to interpret, but also subject-matter experts to understand professionally the material being interpreted. The seamless integration of linguistic research and expertise services is just an organic extension of our core operations. With this rebrand, Cadence endeavors to showcase it is much more than just a translation vendor, it is rather a trusted research partner and purveyor of expertise.