Your company is considering a merger or acquisition

You’ve explored the financial and legal ramifications. But do you know what will happen to your brand – will it flourish or die a death shortly thereafter?

Why do mergers and acquisitions take place?

They are serious business decisions based on expanding geographically to enter new markets, diversifying your product or services range or simply having a desire to grow and leverage your brand. There are many associated legal and financial issues which frequently divert attention from managing the brand, making your M&A efforts vulnerable to failure and preventing you from leveraging the full value of the surviving post-merger brand(s).

What are the implications of neglecting your brand during the M&A process?

>  Management and staff send mixed messages, creating confusion among customers
>  Customers lose confidence and look elsewhere
>  Competitors steal your customers
>  Employee engagement suffers leading to talent loss
>  The brand loses market value
>  Share price drops

Why does this happen?


>  Companies fail to commission professional help
>  Addressing the role of the brand is ignored or happens too late in the process
>  Company executives are too distracted
>  Deal makers are only focused on getting the deal across the line

Most companies in M&A scenarios do not have the internal resources nor expertise to manage the brand at this critical point in time. It’s all about making the process easier and optimising the potential for the brand(s) to emerge stronger when the M&A is completed. The ultimate test is maintaining loyalty from customers, shareholders, employees and the public.

A robust and well considered brand management strategy will ensure that your business can withstand the M&A challenges. Working with an experienced brand management team can help you assess and manage the challenges based on experience and application of best practice methodologies.

Remember that the pre-planning stage is just as important as the M&A announcement and post-announcement stages.

What we can achieve for you:

>  Create and manage all M&A-related communications – both internal and external.
>  Ensure that all employees have a clear understanding of what is planned before, during and after the M&A.
>  Understand your business and determine the post M&A potential.
>  Develop a ‘masterplan’ brand strategy to determine what is achievable with the merged brands and how to extract maximum value.
>  Identify the strengths, weaknesses and opportunities associated with each brand and assessing their impact on the ‘new’ entity, stakeholders and business in general.
>  Determine whether the new brand is relevant to present and future customers.
>  Help you decide whether to maintain only the present brand, adopt both brands or create a new brand – there are obvious cost implications attached to this decision.
>  Establish brand guidelines to help employees understand, manage and communicate the new brand.  >  Develop a strategy and procedures for merging the two cultures.

So what are the benefits?

>  Reduced risk of M&A failure
>  Successful integration of two companies, cultures and brands
>  Increased brand value
>  Reduced brand management costs
>  Increased stakeholder loyalty
>  Enhanced employee and job candidate confidence in the company
>  Higher profits

Companies who fail to address the branding aspect of their M&A activities are likely to severely hamper their chances of success.



Tony Heywood is a Sydney-based brand guidance counsellor, founder of Heywood Innovation in Australia, United Kingdom and India, and joint founder of BrandSynergy in Singapore.