Tips for a smooth brand transition after a business acquisition

We can’t help you with a business acquisition. That’s another job for other advisors (ask if you need some—we know lots). But if you’ve gone to the trouble of acquiring (or investing in) a business, we can make some guesses about why.

• Maybe you see unrealized potential in the company, and its path to better performance as part of your portfolio.
• Maybe this fills a gap in your existing business: its focus and expertise, its people, its customers, and/or its geography.
• Maybe you’ve developed a brand acquisition strategy, and adding this brand fits your plan.
• Maybe you want to build wealth and control your destiny, and buying a business is the path you’ve chosen.
• Maybe running a business makes you happy.

(This is not a comprehensive list. Your reasons are your own.)

A transition in ownership and/or leadership is a big enough change that it will impact owners, executives, employees, customers, and shareholders. And it sets off a series of events, including strategic planning, and operational improvements (e.g., optimizing processes, reorganizing staff and roles, reducing costs, evaluating suppliers, enhancing offerings, and integrating systems).

One of those systems is the brand system.

Changes to the business are changes to the brand

We like to say that “changes to the business are changes to the brand.” This makes more sense if we identify the brand as more than a logo, as the collective perception of all the people who interact with the business in some way. Things that happen after an acquisition will often affect that perception in a variety of ways. Here are some more obvious ones.

• A name change might excite some customers while confusing others.
• An expansion of services and products can make a business ‘stickier’ with customers, but requires adjustments in marketing and sales functions.
• A sudden shift in brand messaging might feel forced or ‘off’ in some way.
• If redundant facilities, staff, and vendors will be trimmed to improve efficiencies, staff perception (also part of that brand) might include fear and alienation.

Things like this that happen after an acquisition will affect how some perceive the business. Ideally those effects are positive, but that’s not guaranteed. And while you can’t control what people think, you can try to influence it.

What is a smooth brand transition?

A smooth brand transition is one that:

• Is planned. A transition can proceed smoothly on sheer luck, a plan will always increase your chance of success.
• Aligns with your business strategy. If it’s not, then you’re doing it wrong.
• Helps you achieve your goals for the acquisition. Surely you have goals for the acquisition. Improve your chances of success by making your brand system do some of the work.
• Fits your unique situation. There isn’t a one-size-fits-all approach to this. Take the time to understand what exactly needs to be addressed in your situation.
• Makes sense to customers, employees, and other stakeholders. Try not to confuse, alienate, or upset your key stakeholders… unless you’re planning to jettison them in favor of others.
• Positions your company strategically among competitors. Of course.
• Doesn’t disrupt marketing and sales or customer relationships. Rock the boat as little as possible unless your plan is to start over completely.

This all seems like common sense. But understanding and executing objectively can be difficult for us humans. In creative work like ours, it’s exciting to get started, and it’s easy to let subjectivity sabotage the process. This can lead to beautiful and completely unstrategic branding efforts that don’t follow a plan, don’t align with business strategy, don’t meet customer needs, hamper goals, copy or ignore competitors, and upset stakeholders.

Some tips to increase your odds of a smooth brand transition

First, some things we can’t help you with:

• Lean on the right advisors for your acquisition and the integration of systems. There are experts for hire in just about every aspect of business. We know a lot of them. Ask if you need a recommendation.
• Have a solid plan for the business, post-acquisition. Strategy comes first. Everything to do with the brand should be in support of your strategy.
• Over-communicate internally and externally. Retaining key talent and customers is important. And all messaging is brand messaging. When staff and customers aren’t sure what’s happening, they may create answers on their own, which won’t all be good.

Things we can help you with:

• Get the facts. Brand strategy decisions should be fact-based. Should we drop one brand in favor of the other? Should we maintain two separate brands? Should we create an all-new brand? Should we make a change fully and quickly? Or should we slow-roll this new situation into the market? Find out before you make your moves.
• Check all assumptions around branding. Just because a business has been successful pre-acquisition doesn’t mean that what they’re doing is effective. They could be succeeding despite their branding efforts rather than because of them.
• Get an outside, expert opinion. We offer a brand assessment that digs into all this for you so you know what's working, what’s not, and what to address first. And an outside opinion means you’re not trying to read the label from inside the jar.
• Anticipate the perception changes in your audience. What they see, read, feel, and experience will change their perception of your business. Do what you can to anticipate and guide that change.
• Consider transitioning a brand in phases to maintain connection with existing audiences. Intense customer loyalty is easy to break and hard to repair. The right branding and messaging can bring people along by reducing disruption. For example: Kinko’s became FedEx Kinko’s before it became FedEx Office.
• Or start over completely to distance yourself from what has been. Sometimes an acquisition offers an escape from a bad reputation (for either business) by erasing the troubled brand and adopting the trouble-free.
• Do a deep dive into customer research. This includes the customers you’ve gained, but also the customers you want (not necessarily the same). Ditto on the competitive landscape and market space.
• Evaluate what the previous leadership didn’t or couldn’t. An acquisition or merger can be an opportunity to recalibrate and reposition a business to take advantage of changes in the market. As incoming leadership, you will be able to see a bigger picture than outgoing leadership.
• Find the right team to work through this with you. Specifically on the brand side of things (strategy, design, messaging, web, etc.), have a solid team for both the initial change over and for the longer term. Don’t be tempted to “set it and forget it” like your predecessor may have done.
• Plan the rollout. You don’t want to have to backtrack.