Truecaller Revamps Brand With AI

Sometime around 2014/2015, I had a couple of rather persistent ‘admirers.’ One of them took to calling every single night at 10h30 pm using different numbers in an attempt to engage me in inane mindless chatter. I did the only thing a strong, single, fiercely independent woman could do: I set my brothers upon him. One of them talked him down – or rather, told him off in no uncertain terms, and he immediately stopped calling. Then I got Truecaller Premium and my life has not been the same since.

Truecaller had hinted at a rebrand in their SMS updates for some time now. They have today finally announced the launch of a brand-new app icon. One that like the previous one, will be instantly recognisable on the Google Play Store and Apple App Store.

Commenting on the announcement, Alan Mamedi, Co-Founder and CEO, of Truecaller, said, “We are excited to unveil our new brand identity and logo. It signifies our continued commitment to our users and our focus to constantly evolve and improve, every day. Our mission, to protect communication for all, is what guides us to develop new anti-fraud solutions like Search Context and engineer improvements to improve user privacy.”

Their site aptly states that “What is “true” is increasingly coming under question. The more we look around, the more we realise that people today are even more vulnerable. To misinformation. Scams. To unscrupulous people and intentions.”

The timing of the new brand identity aligns with Truecaller’s renewed sense of purpose, energy, and enthusiasm. Stating that “Our visual identity morphs throughout the years – but the core mission stays the same. We’ve always been the blue phone app in your lower left corner, the dialer to your long calls with friends, the clean inbox to your important OTPs and life messages.  A true blue hero to save you from fraud calls and harassers.”

Boy, oh boy, don’t I know it!

As part of this refreshed identity, Truecaller users also get a powerful new anti-fraud feature called Search Context, as a part of the Truecaller AI Identity engine. While looking at the search results for any number, Truecaller users will be instantly notified if the name for the number has been recently changed or is being changed frequently.

The app goes on to classify this contextual message into three colour categories: blue – for a neutral change, yellow – indicating a potentially suspicious name change and red – indicating multiple and frequent name changes highly indicative of fraudulent and scammer activity. This message will be shown to all Truecaller users on all search results across Android, iPhone and Truecaller web.

“To build a brand you need to break it down,” says their statement. “Three things that are important to us as a brand – the true blue colour, the cursive true, and the phone. We amplified our core assets and gave it a new look and feel. Every time you look at Truecaller in the app, social media, or elsewhere, you will see these elements.”

The new branding identity is orchestrated by leading global brand consultancy, Interbrand, who view “discontinuity, volatility and disruption” as “normal,” and swarming with possibilities. It will be rolled out across the globe over the coming weeks. To see the new app icon and changes, users need to update to the app to version 13.34 or newer on Android and version 12.58 or newer on iOS.

The statement concludes how Truecaller “Envision a world where the 356 million people who trust us come together to celebrate the meaningful calls, and call out the fake, the false and the dangerous. And in doing so, become the world’s largest community of trust to create a world that’s a little more true.”

Not bad for an app that is so big it reaches hundreds of millions while also being sizeable enough to block just one.