Think of a time you witnessed two forces forming something new. Maybe a couple of your go-to restaurateurs cooked up a fresh fusion joint. Or a sports franchise relocated to your city. Or a pair of your favorite artists spun up an album that was … unexpected. Were you excited? Leery? Hopeful? Confused? All of the above? Understandably so. And now here you are, on the heels of a merger and acquisition, helping the people you lead and customers you serve navigate the same emotions. For this new journey, you have a powerful compass: brand.
Brand? Yes. Mergers and acquisitions are pivotal moments because they’re more than just the melding of companies’ systems and structures, they’re the blending of beliefs, values, and people — culture! Which makes them a powerful opportunity to create an identity that transcends the sum of its parts. That identity becomes a North Star, rallying employees for a new adventure, announcing to customers the birth of something better. More than just a new logo or slogan, a strategic brand is a signal to your industry and the world: We’re making bold moves that matter, we’re blazing new trails and challenging convention. Brand leads the way.
Part One — Get a Game Plan
Private equity-backed mergers and acquisitions — especially platform + add-on deals, roll-ups, and carve-outs — create immediate brand decisions that affect customer confidence and integration speed. This article outlines a practical post-deal branding game plan: evaluate the combined business and brand equity, choose the right brand architecture (branded house, house of brands, or hybrid), and build traction with a clear rollout plan. If you’re a PE firm, operator, or portfolio company leader deciding whether to keep, merge, endorse, or retire brands after an acquisition, this framework helps reduce confusion, align stakeholders, and protect enterprise value. It’s also a foundation for a value creation plan — positioning the business for growth now and a clearer story at exit later.
In this three-part series, we’ll share the steps to successfully leverage brand strategy for mergers and acquisitions In Part One, we’ll show how strategic brand architecture aligns identities, values, and market positioning. In Part Two, we’ll examine how a new brand narrative — compelling purpose and mission statements, brave visions, and more — unite internal stakeholders and fuel momentum toward shared goals. And in Part Three, we’ll celebrate the unveiling of a fresh, cohesive brand and how to launch it with gusto into the world. So, let’s begin with the critical first steps brands must take post-M&A to chart bright futures: evaluation, architecture, and traction.
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Evaluation: the work that can’t wait
Tom Petty is a genius. The Heartbreakers’ frontman clearly reminds us all that, indeed, the waiting is the hardest part. And while Petty is singing about love, we can hear his wisdom as guiding our line of work: the longer you wait to make critical brand decisions post-M&A, the harder it gets for everyone involved. Especially your customers.
Consider this: While 78% of respondents in a recent Deloitte study said their company is “prepared to launch integration activities” following a deal, that leaves almost a quarter who aren’t. That stat implies that, too often, critical conversations haven’t taken place. And when merging entities leave things unsaid — like failing to expeditiously evaluate and suss out the integration of multiple brands, for instance — chaos ensues. “Companies end up with a confusing mix of brands and product lines that make little sense internally, and even less so to their customers,” writes Brandingo’s Matt Bowen, who further notes such problems can endure “even years after the M&A.” So, what to do? Gather your leadership for two tasks.
First, define your business goals and offerings. A solid framework to guide this effort is Kartik Bhavsar’s four C’s: Customers, Capabilities, Culture, and Communication. We appreciate this approach because — like branding itself — it’s inclusive of internal and external audiences, considers products and how people experience them, and encourages clear and candid thinking about what to say and how to say it. In other words, it focuses on what matters most, and Bhavsar reminds us that our customers are top priority. In the wake of a merger, the ability to emphasize who your ideal customer is, what they value, and how your capabilities answer the call is paramount.
Second, bring in third-party experts for an evaluation of your brands. As Steve Wunker notes in Business Strategy Insider, outsiders “provide an unbiased opinion on how new the idea really seems.” This is critical for B2B tech brands, whose offerings are often exceptionally complex with nuances that are lost on people outside their industry. “For those who don’t understand the technical magnificence of what you’ve accomplished, does the idea really seem innovative?” Wunker writes. Another benefit: third-party experts are also less attached to tradition and legacy. Because mergers and acquisitions are emotional rollercoasters, it’s tempting to cling to the familiar — change is hard! But an unbiased perspective can help you let go of what’s holding you back and build on what will carry you forward.
The way ahead begins with strategic research and evaluation. As outside experts, we help clients by offering a clear picture of their current brands’ perceptions, a key consideration in a newly formed company’s identity. We paint this picture by educating ourselves on your offerings, industry, and audiences, and evaluating where you stand in respect to competitors. If you’ve clearly defined your post-M&A business goals, our strategy work will help shed light on potential risks involved with change, the best management strategy for your new portfolio of brands, and more. And that leads us to brand architecture — a vital consideration for your company’s future.
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Architecture: the right house holds the future
We won’t bury the lead: brands with clear architecture perform better. Why? Because they create a more consistent experience. And presenting a consistent brand can increase revenue by 23%. But what is brand architecture, and what are the most important considerations post-M&A?
Brand architecture defines the different levels within your brand portfolio and provides a hierarchy showing the relationships between different products and services in your offerings. Here’s the key, though: that hierarchy must solve for customer audiences first, and it has to be foundational for the brand’s future. Oh, one more thing: it’s not necessarily built around the most popular brand in a company’s portfolio.
Instead of popularity, consider practicality and potential. Have you got a big marketing team that’s appealing to audiences with similar needs and values? Then an all-encompassing brand identity — what we call a Branded House — makes sense. Google and Focus Lab clients Luminate and Zuora are such brands.
But maybe you’ve got an aggressive M&A strategy with more prospects on the horizon, and you need a lot of flexibility. (Or maybe you need to create some space between the parent brand and other products.) A House of Brands hierarchy — think Block, or our client Reify Health — will fit the bill.
We’ve worked with our clients to develop both hierarchies — deciding between the two is the first fork in the road for many of our clients. Still, there are other hybrid approaches we’ve helped develop. The experience is challenging, but very rewarding. Establishing architecture can provide newfound vision on future offerings and product trajectory. Relatedly, it can help clarify and evolve brand’s positioning — the best-fit architecture becomes clearer the better we’re able to articulate our differentiators, identify new ones, and know why they matter to our best-fit customers. Put simply, it’s a moment that begins to illuminate the most compelling, impactful version of a company, and a springboard for finding the ideal way to tell its story.
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Traction: it’s time to take the next step
Let’s recap: You’ve gathered your team internally and done some soul searching. You’ve invited outside experts to come in and keep you honest. You’ve partnered with an agency to get your house (read: architecture) in order. Now what?
Pause.
Resist the urge to start blurting out a new brand story and propping up a new About page. Don’t start futzing with logos and brand colors. Instead, make a plan. Select a (realistic!) target date to roll out your new brand and work backwards. And work with a team of outside experts who can help create quality, consistent brand assets, verbal and visual, for a cohesive identity.
At Focus Lab, the identity work begins in full with an exploration and enhancement of brand messaging, from core values to brand story, with the pointed goal of creating a seamless narrative that celebrates your arrival on the world’s stage.
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Part Two — Galvanize the Culture
Have you ever been part of something that suddenly changed? Maybe your school was absorbed by another. Or your sports team turned over its coaching staff. Or your company was acquired by a competitor. Each of these scenarios is different, but there’s a common thread for the people involved: the shake-up of a community. And all of the accompanying emotional and cultural implications.
Hear us when we say this: a shake-up isn’t an inherently bad thing. It can be a stressful thing. And a little disorienting, even. But it can also be exciting. Fresh. Full of opportunity. This is how a shake-up transforms into an awakening. And after a merger or acquisition, brand — particularly employer brand — shines the light that welcomes new dawns.
In private equity M&A, integration success isn’t only operational — it’s cultural, and culture shows up as employer brand. This article explains how to use brand narrative, purpose/mission/vision, and values to unify teams after an acquisition, reduce uncertainty, and build momentum across a platform company and its add-ons. For PE-backed portfolio companies, this work supports retention, hiring, and execution against the value creation plan — because when employees believe the story internally, customers and the market are more likely to believe it externally.
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Success: it’s money … and a lot more
We’re with you. The financials are important. The bottom line is the bottom line — but there’s a good chance a merger or acquisition will bottom out if leaders struggle to galvanize company culture. In a recent study by Deloitte, 30% of merger and acquisition integrations failed because of culture issues. That’s worth repeating: almost a third of M&A integrations fail because we don’t have our finger on the pulse of our people.
Before we address how to see, hear, and represent our people, let’s define what we mean by culture. And let’s start by looking beyond terms like “employee engagement,” as the experts at McKinsey suggest; indeed, culture is the realization of company mission and vision, core values, and the practices and mindsets that get work done.
Consider Disney's 2006 acquisition of Pixar. Yes, the groundwork for a successful merger was already there — the companies had been working together for years and knew each other's skill sets — but Disney was particularly careful when it came to Pixar's culture. Why? Because it was an engine for creativity. The mindset was magic, and it was working.
Now, almost two decades later, people will tell you culture is even more important. In a survey of C-suite executives, Accenture found that 75% of leaders said the talent and culture components of M&A had increased in importance since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. Let’s think about that for a moment: in the past few years, as remote work has become more common and workplace stressors — whether a pandemic or a pivot in the economy — have been pronounced, the connections people have with each other and with their organizations are truly vital.
And this brings us to another critical truth about culture: it is not a commodity. It is not something that can be quickly spun up and “sold” to employees — if it is, it won’t stick. Instead, culture is a co-creation and an invitation. Before we can get to buy-in, we have to foster engagement. And to do that, we need the right energy.
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Employer brand: it’s how we galvanize culture
The right energy? Let’s talk about the wrong kind, first — some of these missteps:
• Failing to spin up a change management team
• Neglecting to create a long-term culture integration strategy
• Not involving employees (or at least key representatives) in conversations about the future
• Forcing change where it’s not needed
Let’s dig into that last bullet point a bit more: Disney’s acquisition of Pixar provides a good example. In a scenario like this — two entities with strong brand recognition and a track record of high performance — maybe it doesn’t make sense for the acquiring party to barge into the offices of its new acquisition and move the water color, change up the music, and rewrite their purpose, mission, and vision statements. But … not every merger is like this. In fact, most mergers will require give and take. (Think about the different brand architecture arrangements we noted in Part One and the effects those have on employees and a companies’ employer brands.)
So, what’s the right energy, then? At Focus Lab, we believe in the power of employer brand to bring people together and ease tension. That calming, unifying outcome begins with a mindset, one we think looks like this:
• Commitment: a concerted and visible effort by leadership that is honest about change, optimistic about the future, and sensitive to employees’ feelings.
• Collaboration: an inclusive approach that invites a swath of employees to not only weigh in, but work together to build something that represents them.
• Compromise: the acknowledgement that there are two sides in every M&A, and both sides will have to give a little to gain a lot more.
• Courage: the conviction to let things go.
In practice, we see that mindset translating into real outcomes:
• New or revised core messaging statements (purpose, mission, vision)
• Fresh core values
• Audience messaging frameworks that not only cater to customers, but to current and future employees
• Brand stories that chart an exciting new direction for the company
At Focus Lab, we’re such believers in the power of employer brand because we have a front row seat to it — take our partnership with Luminate. Our friends driving the future of music and entertainment data were incredibly sensitive and committed to creating a brand that everyone could rally around, and they took key steps to make it happen. In addition to creating new core statements — and not just to reflect their evolving positioning, but to amplify the pride of their work — they participated in a core values workshop. That workshop invited voices from all over the company: C-suite leadership, human resources, product and technology, etc. And those very stakeholders worked with the project team to craft new values that emphasized Luminate’s character and personality. What’s more, Luminate developed a specific audience messaging framework for their employer brand to communicate internally and to prospective hires.
Luminate’s approach — and others who are so intentional to consider their employer brand post-M&A — is savvy. Especially considering the perception gap that often exists between leadership and employers: both parties increasingly avow the importance of representative culture and belonging, but employees perceive leaders to care less about it than they actually do. One way to combat and correct this is through action. Visible. Inclusive. Action.
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Our people: they’re our best ambassadors
There’s no one-size-fits-all approach to employer branding post-M&A. Depending on the parties involved, the type of organizational architecture that results, and so many other factors, it’s truly a case-by-case endeavor. But there is one constant: the resiliency of people. Of communities.
We see this out in the world, we see this in the world of work: people can and will rise to the occasion. Especially when there are more reasons to believe better days are ahead. When post-M&A employer branding is done right, it’s more than just a few new statements in the handbook and fresh swag. It’s the company and its leadership telling each employee how they will benefit from this event. Maybe it’s the chance to learn new skills and wield game-changing technology. Or the opportunity to collaborate with new colleagues to create new products. Maybe it’s the prospect of growth — after all, a growing company means greater returns for employees.
It’s all of these things and many more. When employer branding drills down into the impacts at the individual level and communicates them effectively, employees have more reasons to believe. And when employees believe, customers will too.
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Part Three — Go to Market Better than Before
The scene goes something like this: A man, switch in hand, readies everyone for the big reveal. He's dragged his family out into the dark and the snow; they are cold. He's almost ready to flip the switch — his family's ready to go back inside — but first, a drum roll. DadadadadaDADADADADAhhhhh! Then ... nothing. The sparks don’t fly. The lights don't blaze. The big letdown is on.
We believe this scene from National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation is instructive not only for its comedic value, but for the lessons it holds for a brand's rollout. What could Clark W. Griswold have done to ensure that his holiday extravaganza created the spectacle he sought? Could he have encouraged more buy-in from those around him — could he have asked them to help with the occasion? Could he have been more thorough with his inspection of every (electrical) asset? Did he rush the whole thing? And was he ready for any contingency? (He was not.)
These questions and more are particularly important for brand rollouts after mergers or acquisitions. Given all the coordination that must take place — and at a time when community and culture can still be in a bit of flux — leaders have to remind themselves and their colleagues of three things: be inclusive, be thorough, and be bold.
After a private equity-backed merger or acquisition, a rebrand rollout is a coordinated integration effort — not a single logo reveal. This article shares a practical approach to launching a new or unified brand across a platform and its add-ons: build an inclusive rollout committee, audit and prioritize brand assets, and communicate clearly to employees, customers, and investors. Done well, a post-merger brand launch reduces confusion, accelerates go-to-market alignment, and strengthens the company’s positioning for future growth and an eventual exit.
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Inclusiveness: roll out from the inside out
Let’s be clear: a rollout isn’t a single event. It’s more than a logo reveal. It’s more than the redesign of your homepage and a nifty new hero headline. It’s a process — and planning for it should begin the moment a rebranding project begins. We want to make a splash with a brand rollout — we need to tell a story — so we’ve got to dive in, together. Early and often, on and on.
Let’s start by asking ourselves — and those around us — some key questions. What do we want this rollout to look and feel like? Are we all clear on our new positioning and emerging messaging, and how it impacts our people? Generally, how is our workplace community feeling about our new brand and its impending debut?
The answers to these questions are much easier to come by (and much more useful) if we establish a brand rollout committee.
- Keep the team small, but make sure it includes leaders from key areas of the business.
- This is where sales, marketing, human resources, product development, and more can come together, have a voice, and get on the same page.
- It’s where conversations about language and story and audience messaging points and color consistency and logo usage help the whole company get comfortable and get aligned.
- Most importantly, it’s an invitation to (continue to) fall in love with the new brand.
To that last point, a brand rollout committee is especially useful as a post-M&A touchpoint, where people from across the (new) organization can rally around something exciting and get to know each other better. These emotional benefits translate into tangible payoffs — time, money, and resource savings — and keep our focus on two key things. First, growing the new brand (read: not trying to preserve an old one or keeping entities that don’t fit with your new architecture). Second, our customers (and sending them clear messages about what they can expect at present and in the future). The flip side, of course, is failing to achieve this two-prong focus, which can diminish resources, stymie growth, and confuse customers.
Finally, a representative brand rollout committee enhances the post-M&A, emerging employer brand. As we noted in the second part of this series, crafting elements like revised core messaging statements and new brand stories are the building blocks for a new culture employees can rally around. Now, the rollout committee gets to start playing with those elements, imagining how and where they can live. And the committee can begin to involve even more people across the company in this process by gathering input and ideas, and testing things and asking for feedback. The effect? Engagement. And an engaging, outward-facing employer brand. The benefits?
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Thoroughness: boot the devil from the details
Here’s another benefit of that brand rollout committee: you’ve got a group of people who can put their hands on all of the brand assets. That means the new stuff, the stuff that needs updating, and some other stuff that you can probably do without.
Let’s talk about that last point for a minute. It can be tempting to want to update every asset — after all, there’s a lot of excitement around the new brand and a desire to display it full-blast for all to see. That’s the right energy, but execution is everything. And as we all know, the more moving parts we have, the more there is to manage. Attempts to deploy too many assets can result in the following:
- Missed deadlines
- Inconsistent applications of the new brand
- Quality control issues (oops, that Error 404 page)
To avoid this, we suggest the following:
- Make a list of every asset.
- Scout out vendors — and turnaround times — early.
- Depending on your needs and your team’s size, consider contracting out for rollout support.
- Assign a project manager to help prioritize and slot assets.
- Prioritize the everyday assets your customers and employees will use and see. (Yes, there’s still room for swag at rollout, but all the swag doesn’t have to be rolled out at once.)
Inherent in all of this planning and prioritization is, of course, participation. And that requires communication. We all know that employees will have a lot of questions during and after a merger or acquisition — they’ll wonder what future the new, combined entity will pursue and how it will look. There will be rumors, and a key consideration for the brand rollout committee and key leaders will be how to address these. Similarly, partners and investors will have more questions; some may want to be involved. There’s an art to informing stakeholders of what’s to come and including them — without letting them dictate and art-direct key branding and rollout decisions. Remember: your team has the expertise and knowledge of the new brand and how to apply it.
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Boldness: big swings for the big stage
Communication. Participation. Preparation. Prioritization. Let’s think back to Clark Griswold’s botched rollout for a moment — and remember how he failed in these key areas. He opted for a rush job. He had too many assets to check and too few people to check them (it was just him and son Russ, after all). He made no attempt to involve other family members, much less give them a heads up about the occasion. But Clark did one thing right: he took a big swing.
At Focus Lab, we’ve been fortunate to partner with clients who’ve taken similar swings, but with much better execution. Look no further than Luminate, who was previously a multifaceted collection of brands that was anything but cohesive. Their associated brands included Variety and Billboard (so, lots of name recognition). And they had multiple partners — like record labels — to consider. In short, there were a lot of players. But here’s what Luminate did that made their rebrand and rollout a success:
If you asked key leaders at Luminate about their rollout, they’d surely tell you there was stress involved. All rollouts can test the nerves. But what helped Luminate excel — in addition to the points above — was trust. Even though key leaders were working together for the first time, they collaborated, delegated, and challenged each other. There were open dialogues and frank conversations. And there was chemistry. Luminate approached their rebrand and their rollout as a team. The result? A rollout that reflected their internal culture — and invited more people to be on hand to help flip the switch for the big reveal.
