New merger, new brand? When to rebrand and when to reuse during a merger or acquisition
Navigating a merger or acquisition (M&A) is like steering a ship through uncharted waters. It’s exciting, yet daunting. One crucial question that surfaces during this journey is whether your M&A should trigger a rebrand. This isn’t just a branding dilemma; it’s a strategic decision that can significantly influence the integration process and the future trajectory of your organization as a whole.
While some M&As aim to enhance existing offerings, others fundamentally transform companies, altering their products, services, markets, and even the underlying culture. These significant changes often warrant a revisit to the brand drawing board.
Rebrand not required
In many cases, an M&A is focused on scaling up within the existing business model and vision. This might involve broadening your geographic presence or adding new but related products and services to your portfolio.
In these instances, your brand’s core identity – its values, mission, and essence – remain intact and can comfortably encompass this growth. The advantage of maintaining your existing brand in such scenarios is manifold. It helps in preserving customer loyalty, ensuring continuity, and providing stability for both employees and customers during the transition period. Essentially, if the M&A helps you better deliver on your brand, then it acts as a proof point to your story rather than a reason to change your brand.
However, it’s crucial to not overlook subtle brand adjustments that might be required to cater to new markets or expanded product lines. Even in expansion, nuanced changes in messaging or visual identity can help your brand resonate more effectively with its broadening audience.
Embracing change through a full refresh
However, fundamental shifts in key areas like products, market, culture, and brand perceptions transform organizations at their core. Such changes signal the dawn of a new era for the company, calling for a fresh start with the brand as well. Let’s take a look at some of the most significant M&A rebrand triggers.
1. New products and capabilities
When a merger or acquisition significantly expands a company’s range of products and services, or introduces an entirely new group of offerings, it fundamentally alters the organization’s capabilities and market position.
A rebrand in this context is more than a mere cosmetic update; it’s a strategic move to communicate the evolved identity and enhanced capabilities of the company. It signals to customers, stakeholders, and the market at large that the company now operates with a broader, more diverse set of products and services, potentially appealing to new customer segments and creating different value propositions. There is now a bigger story that needs to be told to communicate breadth and depth, and how everything works together to drive growth and facilitate cross-selling.
In this scenario, a rebrand is essential to align the company’s image and messaging with its expanded capabilities and offerings. If there is sufficient equity and permission to stretch, you might be able to retain and elevate one of the existing company names, and potentially logo; however, at minimum a shift to the story, architecture, and broader expression is likely required.
2. Reaching New Audiences
One of the strategic reasons for an M&A might be to tap into new demographic segments. This can be a game-changer for a company, as it opens doors to untapped market segments that were previously inaccessible. If your acquisition allows you to reach entirely new groups of people, with different needs, wants, and desires, it often necessitates a rebrand.
This isn’t merely about adding a new product line; it’s about tailoring your brand to resonate with a completely different audience. For example, a software company may acquire a startup with emerging technologies, necessitating a rebrand to attract a broader range of more tech-savvy customers. Or, a large hospital network may merge with a telemedicine service provider, calling for a refresh to appeal to a wider demographic seeking convenient, remote healthcare options.
A rebrand in this context involves reevaluating your brand’s overall market positioning to ensure it appeals to and engages with these new demographics effectively.
3. Merging cultures
Mergers are not just about combining business operations; they’re about blending distinct corporate cultures. This can be one of the most challenging aspects of an M&A integration. When two companies with different values, traditions, and ways of working come together, creating a cohesive culture is crucial.
For example, Poppulo, a pioneer in the employee/customer communications and workplace technology space, recently came to Monigle for help uniting three brands under a singular identity (Four Winds Interactive, Poppulo, and SmartSpace). We rallied their people around the foundational brand idea of harmony to bring the cultures together and demonstrate the power of shared connection and purpose. Further, while we maintained one of the legacy names, we refreshed the rest of the brand, including logo, to minimize perceptions of one company acquiring the other and to unite all employees under a common, new banner that represented the path forward
A rebrand can be instrumental in bringing your people along. It provides a platform to define and communicate a new shared mission, vision, and set of values, and allows people to move past where they came from and focus on where they are going, together. This not only helps with aligning employees but also in presenting a synthesized brand identity to the outside world. The rebranding process in such scenarios can be a unifying force, helping to build a shared sense of purpose and identity among the combined workforce.
4. Redefining perceptions
Sometimes, a major benefit of an M&A is the opportunity to shed outdated and legacy brand perceptions. This could be through acquiring brands that add prestige or assets that offer a much needed perception makeover.
When flavors and fragrances titan IFF acquired Frutarom, a more agile and natural flavors business, we used this combination to shift all IFF to be much more of a natural, progressive, and innovative company. When Western Connecticut Health Network and HealthQuest merged, a rebrand to Nuvance helped build perceptions as a national leader in health rather than a small, regional player. This is relevant in spinoff scenarios as well, such as when Kantar spun off their Kantar Public business, now Verian, to shift perceptions from pure data to a global leader in insights and consulting.
A rebrand in this context is not just cosmetic; it’s a strategic move to redefine your place in the market and to signal to customers, competitors, and investors alike that your brand has meaningfully changed.
Rebrand: pivotal shift or pointless change?
While expanding scale might allow your brand to remain largely unchanged, significant transformations in products, markets, culture, and external perceptions often necessitate a comprehensive rebrand. Thoroughly assessing the impact of your M&A on your brand is not just about changing logos or taglines; it’s about ensuring that your brand strategy is in sync with your new business strategy. As we like to say, it is not a change of symbol, but a symbol of change.
As you navigate through your M&A process, consider how these changes impact your brand and whether a rebrand is the key to unlocking the full potential of your newly transformed organization. Remember, a successful rebrand can be the cornerstone of a thriving integration, setting your organization on the most direct path to profitability and success.
Let’s talk about your M&A strategy and whether your integration requires going back to brand basics. Drop us a line and we’ll get on your calendar for a complimentary strategy call.
