A name worth waiting for: What BB Agency's rebrand as Afternow can teach us

It's 11am on a Tuesday. Two men – one from the Croatian island of Krk, the other a Brit born in Chile – have just downed shots of quince rakia, an aromatic fruit brandy popular across the Balkans. Now they're explaining how their agency spent 13 years operating under a name one of them jokingly compares to a Call of Duty clan tag.

The spirit is strong, and the laughter is genuine. But behind the joke is a story that will resonate with anyone who's ever suspected their agency's name is getting in the way.

Vicente Reyes Montealegre, head of brand and website, and Filip Justic, co-founder and head of strategy, are discussing Afternow. Until very recently, it was known as BB Agency, a stripped-back version of its original name, Balkan Brothers. But that original name, Filip readily admits, was never really a name at all.

"At the outset, my brother and I didn't know what to call the agency, but then we had to fill out a form for 99designs," he explains. "So we just called it Balkan Brothers." It stuck, it spread, and for over a decade, it did its job. But as the agency grew in ambition, headcount and client calibre, the gap between the name and the reality got harder to ignore.

Today, Afternow is a 70-person operation working across strategy, brand, web and product design, with roughly 70% of its clients based in the US. It is, by any measure, a serious global player. The name Balkan Brothers, charming as it was, was no longer pulling its weight.

A name that worked against you

The problem wasn't just aesthetics. Filip is candid about the commercial friction the old name created. "Clients from, for instance, Germany already had a preconceived notion of the Balkans and people around that region, and there's also an expectation of price when you're seen as being from Eastern Europe," he points out. Meanwhile, long-standing clients had to be disabused of the idea that the agency was still two brothers doing all the work.

The decision to rebrand was taken around three years ago, but the process took two and a half years to complete; partly because client work, as ever, had to come first. A four-person team was assembled to work on the rebrand in secret, cycling through what Filip describes as a long list of bad names: Coast to Coast, Kinspoke, Jabuticaba and Bright&Bloom among them.

One finalist, the Brazilian tropical fruit jabuticaba, apparently won hearts if not the final vote. What they eventually arrived at was Beyond Now, later refined into Afternow. It's a name that sits firmly in the present tense while pointing at whatever comes next.

Getting the timing exactly right

Vicente describes the insight that made Afternow feel inevitable. "Market conditions were changing so fast, with new AI and everything that's happening around the world," he recollects. "It was very hard for us to decide on a fixed definition of who we are, in a world that's constantly changing. And somehow the name Afternow was a clear reflection of that. It's about being in the present moment, but also thinking that things are going to change."

The anxiety Vicente describes is one that creatives everywhere will recognise in 2026. AI is reshaping what clients expect, compressing timelines, and blurring the lines between strategy, design and technology. Every week brings new tools, new claims and new noise.

"Everybody's an expert on it, too," Filip says, with a wry smile. "It's like a huge marketing bubble of information flowing around AI. And both the tools you use, and what they're used for, are constantly changing."

Rather than treating that volatility as a threat, though, Afternow has built its positioning around it. The name isn't a prediction; it's an acknowledgement that nobody really knows what's coming, and that the most useful thing an agency can be right now is a calm, clear-eyed partner in the uncertainty.

That, it turns out, is exactly what clients are looking for too. "The anxieties and questions that we were asking ourselves were questions that our clients were having themselves," says Vicente. "Especially around the topic of AI. We could see them pivoting, making changes, and we could feel their anxiety as well."

From deliverables to partnership

That positioning matters because it reflects something real about where client relationships are heading. Vicente is clear about the risk facing agencies that still frame themselves as mere suppliers of design assets.

"What our clients need is a partner that can go through the whole end-to-end process," he explains. "The framing of just design assets is the part most at risk now." Afternow's rebrand is, in this sense, not merely cosmetic: it's the agency publicly committing to a different kind of conversation with its clients.

The internal impact, Vicente says, has been immediate. "During the whole process, working with our amazing strategists and copywriters, I've seen how it's trickled down into everyone in the agency. Everyone is much more committed and aware about how we work, what our real value is, and what our true values are as partners for our clients."

The agency turns 14 in October, and asked what the biggest lesson of those years has been. Filip's answer is surprisingly ego-free. "As an individual, you can go so far. But as a team... So for me, it's about letting things loose a little bit, allowing others to shine, and maybe stepping back in certain things. And then seeing that people can go beyond your expectations."

It's a lesson the rebrand itself embodies. Now the agency born on a Croatian island is focused less on where it came from and more on whatever comes next. Or, in their words: after now.