By Chandra Blouin, Marketing Director

It's a big decision. Do you change your name? Drop a name? Merge the names together? There are a number of options to choose from.

The Black Hole

When looking at the two brands, if one has equity and one doesn't, the one without is thrown into the black hole, similar to what happened when Bank of America bought Fleet Bank.

Marriage
Getting married seems to be one of the most popular options. If both brands have good equity and combining both brands will create a stronger brand that strengthens and differentiates it in the minds of the customers, then it’s time to march down the aisle. The only pitfall is the possibility of one really long name – like PriceWaterhouseCoopers.

Newborn
If neither brand holds a lot of equity, then it could be advantageous to create a new brand. This is also effective if both brands are strong and you want customers to change the perception they have for each brand and create a new perception. And finally, if you’ve acquired so many companies that merging all of the names together is not an option, then it’s time to develop one, all-encompassing name similar to what pharmaceutical giant Novartis did a number of years ago.

Christian Seiwald, CEO of Sandoz GmbH (now part of Novartis), commented, "While we are currently the world's second-biggest generics group, we are not recognized as such due to the large number of different company names. The establishment of a uniform identity represents a milestone in our strategy for strengthening and harmonizing our international business."

Harvest
If both brands have equity, but one more than another, you may want to take a step-by-step approach, slowly moving the equity from the lesser over to the other. As this occurs you will often see the two original logos presented in combination, similar to the ACS and Xerox logo combo above.

Over time the equity from ACS will be moved over to Xerox and eventually the ACS logo will be dropped altogether. In this case no branding or marketing resources are budgeted for ACS. Instead communications from both brands focus on educating customers of the acquisition and benefits, slowly transferring loyalty from ACS to Xerox. As an example, Xerox’s Press Release Boiler Plate, now reads:

“Through ACS, A Xerox Company, which Xerox acquired in February 2010, Xerox also offers extensive business process outsourcing and IT outsourcing services, including data processing, HR benefits management, finance support, and customer relationship management services for commercial and government organizations worldwide.”

Sisters
Sometimes each brand is so unique, each with its own equity, that they are left, as-is. They become brand sisters, or sometimes children to the parent brand, but the customer may never be aware of the relationship. On October 9th, 2006 it was announced that Google bought YouTube for $1.65 billion. Even today there’s no mention of Google’s ownership on the YouTube website, however there is a link on the homepage to try out the new Google Chrome web browser. Now that’s just smart cross-marketing. Smile.