Marketing After a Merger or Acquisition

Marketing after a merger or acquisition shouldn’t be an afterthought. In fact, when you’re planning to acquire or merge with another company, it’s important to set aside a budget for integrating the marketing process.?

“Mergers and acquisitions (M&A) are fast-paced, high-stakes, time-intensive events. M&A integrations can often be extremely complicated due to the level of interdependencies throughout the entire organization, and successful ones require a unique set of resources and skills that may not be built into the core operating model of an organization.” – Ernst & Young Global Limited

In 2021, Hummingbird Creative had the opportunity to implement fundamental branding and marketing strategy for a client that expanded its services through an acquisition. Since then, the client has again expanded, and we’ve integrated their branding once more. In the process, we established effective strategies for integrating the marketing process post acquisition.

The Kymanox Story

In August, 2021, Kymanox Corporation, a professional services company serving the life science industry, announced its acquisition of Neuma LLC, an engineering services provider specializing in product development of drug delivery devices and combination products. The acquisition positioned Kymanox to continue expanding and diversifying its highly specialized service offerings to clients who bring important cell and gene therapies, biologics, pharmaceuticals, and medical devices to market.

In February, 2023, Kymanox announced another acquisition, this time of anteris medical GmbH and anteris helvetia AG (together “anteris”), a company that supports the development and commercialization of combination products, medical devices, and in-vitro diagnostic products. This acquisition helps both companies realize their shared corporate goal of geographical expansion and bolsters their service capabilities with a broader array of highly specialized client services.

One month later, in March, 2023, Kymanox announced a third acquisition —?Agilis Consulting Group, a trusted human factors partner for the global medical market. Benefiting both companies by helping them realize their shared corporate goal of bringing modern medicines to patients, this acquisition also further strengthens their service capabilities.?

These Kymanox acquisitions brought to the forefront questions about successfully integrating the marketing process of the merged companies once the acquisitions were complete. In this post we’ll explore some of the strategies we found most effective for marketing after a merger or acquisition.

How To Integrate the Marketing Program of Two Companies

The keys to successful post-close integration hinge on branding strategy, understanding the why behind the branding and marketing choices you make. Why would you decide to get rid of the acquired company’s name or why would you make the decision to keep it? Why would you decide to make sure that people see the company as a family of brands? This strategic piece matters.

Rebranding After a Merger or Acquisition: What To Think About

Here are four branding considerations for mergers and acquisitions, post close:

1. ? Positioning of the Relationship with the Company You Bought

One of the most important concerns when you acquire another company is how you’ll position the relationship with the company you bought. Will you put a subtitle to their name? In the example above, we chose Neuma by Kymanox, but we could’ve simply pulled them into the company and referred to them as Kymanox, formerly Neuma.

But it’s important to Kymanox leadership that the acquired company’s owners have the same opportunity they did when they got investment capital, that is, the chance to maintain some autonomy and some control of the day-to-day workings of the company. So, with every company Kymanox has acquired, we’ve tagged them, and this marketing strategy allows for that autonomy.

It brings us back to the question of positioning. Think about it this way:

• If your company is buying another company because they’re in distress, then you would roll their branding into your own.
• If you’re buying a company because it’s an add-on service and the other company has a great reputation already, you want to maintain their brand and connect it to yours.

2.? Cohesive Identity Across Multiple Brands

Next, it’s important to consider how you’ll maintain a cohesive identity across the brands. That requires asking, “If you decide to keep the acquired companies as their own brands, how do you make them a family but retain some essence of the past?”

With every company Kymanox acquired, we kept some elements of their original branding and embedded others representing their new identity. For example, we preserved the original font style but embedded graphic components of the Kymanox brand, expanding the color palette to better represent the new identity.

Then we worked on the different sales and identity pieces they’d need at trade shows and in other settings to be sure those pieces presented consistent customer messaging. Sales teams and consultants need branded content in their PowerPoint presentations, sales sheets, emails, and more. It’s important that the content is consistent across brands and speaks not only to the acquiring company’s customers but also to the market segment for the acquired brands so they can all keep loyal customers.

3.? Environmental Aspects of Culture-Driven Branding

Environmental branding is a large part of integrating culture after a merger or acquisition. At Hummingbird, we like to call it culture-driven branding because it reflects the culture of the company.

When you’re acquiring a company, you’re bringing people into your fold, and if you don’t consciously realize that and make sure they feel like they’re becoming a part of something bigger, they don’t get on the bandwagon. Giving them branding, giving them a wonderful environment to work in, and making sure they understand the core values of the company is all part of that.

Using the Kymanox acquisitions as examples again, we’ve sent core values signage to their new locations around the world to take the company’s culture to those acquired offices. When it was time for an annual meeting, we brought them together and made sure the theme reflected what they were all trying to do together as a team.?

That’s so important because each team in acquired brands is supposed to sell the company as a whole, not as individual pieces and parts. The way they’ll be successful as part of the acquisition is to be seen as a whole, and it’s important that the entire team thinks that way.

To facilitate that “one team” feeling for Kymanox, we did an office decorating contest where people in the office in Europe, the office in Pennsylvania, and any remote offices could participate, send in their photos, and win prizes. We want them to feel like they’re part of something bigger, something important. No matter where the team is around the world, the message we’re communicating is they’re not just a number.

4.? Technological Considerations for Integrated Branding

Integrating the marketing strategy of multiple brands also includes paying attention to the technological aspects of branding. Each company’s website needs to be updated with the new identity, the email marketing lists merged and segmented appropriately, social media accounts rebranded and re-planned for messaging cohesiveness, and all other marketing tactics re-defined, as needed.?

Post-Merger Marketing Strategies: Best Practices

Marketing after a merger starts with an assessment of the marketing goals and objectives for each business – which ones were achieved and which ones weren’t. A complete audit is needed of the marketing tactics used for the purpose of achieving the goals and objectives, and reviewing the outcomes by analyzing the data. Completing a SWOT Analysis will highlight the resources and efforts that can be leveraged, and those requiring a regroup or altogether abandonment. This exercise can also be applied to the sometimes difficult decision of restructuring or eliminating job roles after a merger. Setting new goals and objectives, if they are needed, or deciding how to meet the current ones, is a critical step in the process. The teams from both companies need to be aligned with the goals and objectives, the tactics and overall marketing strategy. Getting the buy-in is half the battle, so setting attainable goals and objectives that match the combined resources and talent helps both sets of employees feel like their stake matters. This brings us back to defining the “why” so a branding strategy can be developed, which is at the center of post-merger marketing strategies. Defining the “why” behind your choices will guide the unified identity your merged businesses develop and help you know the best positioning for them through an insight and positioning process. When you’ve decided the positioning you’ll establish, you’ll also need to communicate the culture well both internally and externally so your team and customers can feel a part of what’s happening. That communication includes the environmental and technological aspects of post-merger integration mentioned above. This is where the devil is in the details. Re-designing assets, both digital and print, is no easy task and there are priorities that will need to be set, since everything cannot happen at once. A timeline will need to be created that includes top-down priorities so the most critical assets are addressed first for the rebrand. Marketing after a merger, while complicated at first glance, calls for a plan early in the game.

Post-Acquisition Marketing Strategies: Best Practices

Best practices for post-acquisition marketing are similar to the strategies for post-merger marketing. It begins with an assessment or re-assessment of the goals and objectives, Maybe this was already done before you decided to purchase the company. Or maybe new targets need to be set because the purchase resulted in doubling your company’s revenue. Regardless, a complete audit of these goals and objectives – what has worked and what has not worked – is required in order to move forward successfully with your acquisition. A SWOT would normally be done prior to an acquisition, but if this has not been done, it is critical to do this. The Insight and Positioning process is also important for a successful marketing and branding strategy post-acquisition.? In an earlier post, we offered tips for building a better brand strategy, and those apply here as well:

• Keep your company’s mission and vision up to date.
• Stay focused on your core values and competitive advantages.
• Talk to your customers.
• From the beginning, build the brand inside out.
• Keep your messaging consistent.?

In post-acquisition marketing, these elements of branding strategy become even more significant.?

Also, remember that it’s best practice to plan ahead of the game to line up the appropriate partners, such as marketing agencies and PR professionals, to help you through the process.?

If your company is merging with or acquiring another, reach out to Hummingbird Creative Group. Our experts can help ensure your strategies for marketing after a merger or acquisition continue to be effective.?