Know-How Exchange : Branding

Looking at each market - if you are going to convert a well known brand in that market into a brand that is unknown, you do risk confusing customers and losing sales because they don't know that the products are the same (just different brand).

One method around this would be to do an intermediary step of using the well known brand, but add some information about the new brand. For example, start using the old brand as a product name, and the new brand as the family or company name.

The other option is to do a marketing program aimed at informing your customers of the change. AT&T mobile telephone service in America recently was bought by a competitor named Cingular - what they did was send letters to all users telling about the change in name, and answering common questions people may have about the change.

The times I have been involved with acquisitions and rebranding, we usually find that pragmatic requirements overcome what we would desire to do. Someone always looks at all the literature, packaging,m etc. around, and the cost of changing it all over at once (design, printing, etc.), and we always seem to end up phasing the change in over a matter of months.

I concur with the advice given by Peter and mbarber: co-brand for some period of time. There's no reason to throw away the equity that you've paid good money for. In fact, I would not rush it. Milk the old brand identity and reputation as long as you like. It's not clear WHY you'd be in a hurry to merge the brands in the new market anyway. Use the old brand to introduce the new one, and let that old one hang around for at least 6 months longer than you think it should.

(Actual timing would depend on the strength of the old brand, the purchase cycle, distribution issues, marketing strategy, etc.)

hi tsilva

great response from experts. my 2 cents are...

what i understood from your post is that your domestic brand (i.e. X) is unknown in this new african market. you have not mentioned how is the acquired brand (i.e. Y) in the african market?? does it have a high Brand equity? i am assuming since your company is big in domestic market, so is brand X. so my response is based on those assumptions.

Scenario 1:

If your newly acquired brand Y has a good brand equity, then i would ask you to reconsider doing the re-branding. You should MILK the brand Y AS LONG AS you can. so i suggest you NOT to rush for re-branding. in order to do the rebranding to your brand X, you have to make your X more equitable, more prominent.

for this what you can do is that you can also communicate your brand X in a co-branding manner like other experts mentioned. you can say in your communication like "Brand Y, form the makers of brand X".

Scenario 2:

if brand Y has a low equity, then you can do 2 things..

a) you can do a co-branding with X in a transition period, so that X can be well known in the market. but you risk creating a low impression/equity of X.

b) you can enter the new african market with X as a new entrant in the same segment. you keep on pumping all sorts of suppport behind brand X while you gradually withdraw support from brand Y, actually trying to milk as much possible without much investment and support. this will take some time but this will give you more top-line and bottom-line results. One thing you have to note, is that, when you launch X as a new entrant into the same category, then please position it as a better brand/product than existing Y. this will make things easier.

last, but not the least, all of these scenarios depend on "Knowing your African Market". IMHO, Milk as much as you can for what you have paid money, Dont rush.

hope this helps.

cheers!!