Rebranding a long-established local company
July 20, 2022
by a searcher from University of Southern California in Naples, FL, USA
Have any of you gone through renaming/rebranding a small service-based business after the acquisition with a completely different name? The acquired company's long history of serving its local community is a great asset I want to retain. Concurrently, I want to avoid appearing as false advertising for the recently registered entity?
from Baylor University in Fort Worth, TX, USA
1. Direct customer communication: I've co-written letters to customers with the selling business owner introducing the upcoming merger, highlighting what it means to them ("you don't need to do a thing", "you can continue to expect the same great service you've come to expect from . . . ."), and detailed next steps (you'll receive an email soon from###-###-#### to answer any questions and to learn about how we can make your experience even better").
2. Go slow with signage, Google, etc. We changed the google listing but kept a "formerly [OLD BIZ NAME]". We kept up old signage for a period of time with signage announcing the acquisition. Then, after a month, we swapped - put up our new signage with information about the acquisition. We wanted to avoid the impression that the old business went out of business causing our customers to just drive by to a competitor.
3. Incentives and Legendary Experience at first contact. Generally we include some kind of "come see us" incentive post acquisition, or host an open house, etc. Any excuse for more customer communication and to make a good first impression. We also train our staff to be extraordinarily gracious in those first few months where the customer has been used to a certain policy or practice from the old company but we're going to do things differently going forward. Customer retention is key through the rebranding and acquisition.
Sorry for the long post. Hope that helps.
-Coleman
from University of Akron in Charlotte, NC, USA
With that said, it sounds like you did an asset sale. With an asset sale, you are acquiring that goodwill so there is no need to "rebrand". If rebranding is apart of your long-term strategic plan because it adds value to the whole, then it makes sense to rebrand.
However, I would tend to operate the old brand and the new brand together and phase the old brand out... again, if I was doing it as apart of a long-term strategy that added value to the entire organization.
But... there is nothing forcing you to rebrand.... there is nothing false or anything when it comes to maintaining the current brand. When you bought the assets, you bought that history, goodwill, brand, etc...
You have every right to continue operating as the current brand. In fact, that's the main point of an acquisition. You continue operating like nothing ever happened and no one is even aware. The customers really should never know about the transition or at the very least they should never know about the new operating entity unless they must to due to contracts or whatever.
The new entity is only for legal purposes.... It's XZY dba old brand company. There is nothing bad, wrong or anything with continuing the brand. You would be hurting yourself to rebrand just because of concerns associated with an acquisition.