The brand advantage in high-stakes M&A

Allen Gove: So nice to meet everyone. By way of introduction, I'm a senior partner in the strategy team at Lippincott. I have been at Lippincott for over 21 years. My passion is brand building and in particular I tend to focus on M&A and spin branding. So really excited to be talking with you about this top topic for which I have a ton of passion. Ben, I'll hand it to you.

Ben Le: Thanks Allen. I'm Ben Le, partner in the strategy team at Lippincott. I've been with the firm for over eight years now, but actually started my career in corporate finance where I worked on a range of M&A transaction due diligence and valuation projects. but since then I've led merger spin-off and private equity branding projects during my time here at Lippincott and I'm really looking forward to exploring how brand can maximize deal value with you all today. So just to start with a brief introduction and I promise you we'll keep this brief a brief introduction to Lippincott. Lippincott was founded in 1943. We're really proud of our history and heritage. Throughout our time, we've had the honor and privilege to work with some of the world's best brands. Today, we describe ourselves as a global brand experience and marketing consultancy and we really specialize on addressing and solving the most complex brand challenges facing our clients. Given the topic that we have today, we wanted to showcase our expertise in M&A. we have deep expertise here working across industries and sectors from healthcare to energy and travel and media when different companies are coming together. And then similarly in the spin category, we have deep expertise working across everything from single businesses spinning out to multiple businesses spinning out across industries in order to unlock value. In terms of how we want to spend our time together, we’re going to briefly talk about understanding today's M&A landscape. It's really interesting to see the uptick that we're seeing in this category. We want to also talk about how we can set the opportunity for brand and the CMO to be central in the M&A conversation so that brand can be an accelerant to the success of an M&A deal. And importantly to that end, we want to focus on a set of imperatives that we want to follow moving forward so we can maximize the value that brand plays. And then finally, as Christina mentioned, we'll do some polling throughout the conversation today, but we'll also save time to address your questions at the end of the conversation.

Okay, so let's get into it. Let’s first off set the stage for today's discussion with a bit of a quick overview of the M&A landscape. So, it's fair to say that M&A is back in a big way with deal activity surging over 40% in 2025. And in addition to that, we've seen global deal value reach whopping 4.7 trillion last year. And experts such as Goldman Sachs and other industry accommodators are already predicting that we are on track for near record M&A volumes in 2026. So it's fair to say that we're well and truly in an M&A growth cycle. And there are actually several factors that are driving this spike in activity. I'm just going to run through some of those just to set the stage for the conversation. Macro tailwinds are aligning with easing interest rates and buyer confidence picking up. We're also seeing an explosion in mega deals driving M&A values. So that's deals valued at over 10 billion. Deregulation across both the US and interestingly in Europe continues to create favorable conditions for deal makers. And of course, we can't ignore the pervasive force that is AI, which is catalyzing deal making as companies not only accelerate transformation efforts, but also acquire critical new capabilities.

And so the MA landscape is certainly gaining momentum, but what's actually really interesting if you take a step back is that it's actually happening across the full range of deal types. I'm just going to run through some of the things that we're seeing across each of these different use cases. First off, just starting off with M&A, we’re seeing here that 60% of large deals are essentially being driven by strategic acquisitions. And so the Blockbuster 110 billion combination of Warner Brothers Discovery and Paramount Sky Dance is a really great example of this uptick that we're seeing in these larger scale M&A deals. But to offset that, we're also seeing this huge jump in spin-offs, too, with 50% of deal makers expecting carveout activity to essentially increase in the next 12 to 24 months, which is really interesting to see, but last but not least, we're also seeing it in terms of private equity. PE remains a major force with more than two trillion in global dry powder reserves available, and this is putting a lot of pressure on these firms to put their money behind new investments. So, it's happening across the board which is really interesting to see. So there's tremendous upside when M&A is done right and it's fair to say that it's an inflection point where you can double your scale, enter whole new categories or you can even carve out a standalone future. But what's staggering is that 70 to 75% of all deals still fail to create the value that justified them in the first place. And it's common to see these challenges coming up time and time again. stakeholder anxiety, subsequent trust erosion, identity loss, unclear change narratives, the inevitable clash of cultures as organize organizations come together. We're often seeing this come up in a lot of deals and these often cause a lot of challenges for deal makers and they often interestingly surface in that gray transition period between deal announcement and day one launch when deal value is often lost. And so Allen, I'm just curious here, let's just take a beat. I'm curious to hear how you've seen some of these threats emerge in some of your own experiences.

Allen: Yeah, I think one thing that's really interesting that I've observed is it doesn't matter the size of the M&A transaction, right? You might have a hypothesis that it's the mega deals that face these same headwinds and have these same failure rates. But it is across the board irrespective of the size of the M&A deal. We see these same failure rates and these same challenges which really again punctuates the opportunity that we have with Ren to really help to drive the success of the overall transaction.

Ben: Yeah, it's such a great point and it's definitely not restricted to those mega deals. It's just astounding that how these challenges can really be such an issue across all types of deals of shapes and sizes. So something to think about as we pace through the material.

Okay. And I think if we think more broadly, the stakes for failure are already high. But you know, if we think about today's complex landscape, this is actually putting even more pressure on deal makers to get it right. It's not easy. So as we think about what's happening in the landscape today, we think about economic uncertainty. This is essentially becoming the new normal and it continues to overshadow deals across global markets. geopolitical tensions often feel like a tinder box that can flare up at any moment with seismic implications that can be felt across the world. And of course, heightened investor scrutiny. We're hearing so much about this and what it does for deals, particularly shining a spotlight on how these deals are essentially being shaped, but also executed in practice as well. So, while we're seeing this uptick in deal activity, it's only getting harder to protect and maximize deal value.

And so we've reached our first poll. This is our first interactive poll where we would love to hear from you. and so hopefully you can see the poll come up on your screen. But we're interested in exploring in your experience which of these challenges is the biggest threat to deal value. Is it stakeholder anxiety and trust erosion, identity loss and change fatigue, unclear change narratives, or culture clashes during the transition? We'll give you a bit of time to select one response and we'll see what comes up.

Allen: Ben, do you have any hypotheses around the answer here?

Ben: We often hear about the clash of cultures being an issue that comes up, right? So, I'm interested to hear if that's resonating with people across the board. But, let's see what comes out of it.

Okay. And the results are in. And lo and behold, we have culture clashes. As the saying goes, culture eats strategy for breakfast. And it's something that's probably resonating across the deals that you've seen. So that's coming out on top. But also really interesting to hear that there are some other things that are coming closely behind it. Identity loss and change fatigue. We know that these are huge transformative moments. And there in lies the challenge. We need clear narratives to guide that change. And that's also something else that's really come up as being a challenge that's really eroding deal value in these instances. So just fascinating to see how some of these things are spiking in terms of the experiences that you're seeing on your end.

Okay, let's keep moving.

So we've painted a really vivid picture of both the opportunities and challenges in today's M&A environment. But let's now focus on what this essentially means for marketing and brand leaders such as yourselves during these transformative moments. It's really interesting, but across many of these deals, we're actually seeing that CMOs are increasingly being held accountable for driving the growth agenda from day one. And therein lies the challenge that's problematic, right? Because they're often being brought into the M&A process far too late after many of these big decisions have already been made. So while marketing owns growth outcomes, they often have limited influence essentially in terms of the deal strategy itself, the transition planning process and how that effectively enables them to deliver growth as an outcome. Companies are also missing the opportunity to use M&A as a catalyst to redefine their market position, sharpen what they stand for. And then as we think about synergies, when these synergies are being identified, brand is often treated as a bit of an afterthought from what we've seen without a clear vision for the future state. thinking about solutions around the future state portfolio, the brand architecture, the customer experience that's going to be delivered by new co. All of these considerations really add up and it's making it harder for CMOs and their teams to deliver growth in these M&A contexts and that's concerning. Which brings us to our second poll. So, another poll here, another opportunity to hear from you, but we're really interested to hear from you based on your own experiences. When is marketing brought into the M&A conversation at your organization during a deal? Is it during the pre-announcement phase? Is it at announcement? Is it during the integration planning, postclo transition? Or is it even as late as day one and beyond that?

Allen: Yeah. And it's interesting. I've seen some scenarios where it's been very close to day one, you know, within months of day one. So, it'll be interesting to see what people say here.

Ben: Okay. Interesting. So, we're seeing a lot of involvement during that pre-announcement phase. So, that's actually a really good thing. And based on those experiences and based what we've seen, it actually brings a lot of advantages like when companies are thinking about potential targets, they're conducting their commercial due diligence, their legal due diligence. This means that you can also be doing things like your brand and marketing due diligence. Really ensuring that brand has a really critical role to play in shaping deals. Great to see that that's happening in the context of your own experiences. We actually have seen brand come in pretty late in the game as Allen said before more often than not coming in around postclo transition and day one and beyond which is was particularly challenging but really interesting to see here that it is coming through at that pre-announcing phase based on some of the things that you're seeing on your end

Allen: And I think ideally right we'd want to see that be 100% right ideally because we know that brand can be an accelerant to that and if we think about that I think their core problem is that brand continues to be an underleveraged asset in M&A. If we flip to the next slide, Ben, and that really leads to our next poll, we'd like to hear from you. You know, for those of you who didn't answer very early on, and for those of you who have perspective on this, why do you think that brand is an underleveraged asset? Is it because brand is really treated as a downstream activity? It’s really seen as a veneer more of this identity and communications layer. Is it that it's separated from the operating model or is it all of the above? Curious of your perspective on this

Yeah so it's the classic challenge right brand is thought of in a very very narrow way really treated as this identity and communications layer. So there's more hard work right that we need to do as blenders and marketers and if we think about this right going to the next slide we really do think it requires a mindset shift right we want to leverage brand as a powerful operating system so it's again more than the veneer it's more than the color palette it's much more than the new name to demonstrate how we can deliver value throughout the transition throughout the transaction. We really want to make sure that brand has a unique role at every major phase in the M&A process. And let's take a quick look at what that would look like in in progress. And I I promise you we won't bleed this slide, but there are some key points that I want to make about very early on. If we think about actually shaping the opportunity, there's such a wonderful opportunity for brand, right? we can really think about an assessment of the relative brand strengths and brand foundations that each of the two companies brings to the table. It can be a powerful opportunity to use brand as a as a filter for future growth. Where will growth come from in the future? And also it's a great tool to understand risk and opportunities. What are the strengths? What are the challenges of each of the brands? And what does combining the organizations mean in terms of risk profile? As we think about actually moving to the announcement to the close, there's such a wonderful opportunity to use brand to define where the business is going to really build excitement with investors around the value that we're going to create in the marketplace. And then as we think about day one and beyond, it really is this powerful tool to build trust with consumers dur and employees during the transition. And certainly, post day one, we can use brand to drive loyalty and demand and also to cement the culture which we know is so critically important to the success of M&A. and I'll hand it over to Ben to talk more about the principles that we have uncovered to unlock value.

Ben: Okay, so recognizing the opportunity there to think about brand as an operating system that can essentially come to life across all of those critical stages, we wanted to really narrow the focus here and think about some of the key challenges that really threaten deal value. We're now going to walk through these challenges, these threats to deal value, particularly through the lens of both mergers and spin-offs. Specifically looking at when the deal thesis remains a financial story and isn't truly embraced across all audiences. So thinking about employees internally, customers and other stakeholders externally, thinking about when new CO’s name doesn't convey where the business is going. We know naming is such a hard thing to land during this process when that is up for grabs and the opportunity is there to create a new name coming out of the process. We'll also look at when brand architecture isn't designed to support future growth and new co strategic ambitions. When cultural differences are not addressed early and become barriers to things like integration, performance, shared ways of working across the new business. And then finally thinking about that those moments beyond launch when brand activation can sometimes generate initial momentum which is great particularly around day one but as as far as we're aware and from what we've seen can often fall by the wayside and it isn't necessarily sustained to drive lasting impact and value creation past day one. So we'll cycle through each one of these with some clear examples. and as we go through these, we'll essentially tee up some key brand imperatives. Five key brand imperatives to keep in mind to ensure that you're able to not only protect but also maximize deal value through the lens of these imperatives. And as we go through these, we'll bring it to life through some practical examples to ensure that it feels really tangible with a focus on some case work that we've done on our end at Lip and Cot. So let's kick things off and take a look at what happens when the deal thesis is purely financial and fails to convey a compelling future-oriented narrative for the business to bring stakeholders on the journey. And so as we think about this, this is really problematic, right? And can come to life in a number of different ways. Employees can continue operating under the status quo like nothing's changed. Customers don't believe in the new value proposition. We can see things like attrition, which isn't ideal. sales teams can struggle to sell or convey the new offerings that come from the combined entity. and then as we think about the investor perspective, investors and analysts can sometimes discount the logic of the deal, which is not great when it comes to these types of high-stakes M&A situations. And so to remedy the situation, the imperative that we've outlined here is to really to find the brand story that's supporting the transaction. So finding opportunities to signal the path forward with a compelling big brand idea. leveraging visual identity. So things like the logo, other elements of the visual system to really signal purpose and clarity around the future direction of travel. but then lastly clarifying the value potential very early on with the full range of audiences whether it's employees, customers, investors. That's really critical to ensure that that value erosion doesn't occur throughout the process.

So let's put this into practice and we'll take a look at how we did this very recent actually just in the last year or two with Dupont spin-off of community. So just to share a bit of background around the situation here when Dupont decided to spin out its electronics business the new company needed a really bold and ambitious brand to paint a vivid vision of growth to elevate the new company's leadership position in the highly competitive advanced electronics industry. And so the spin-off opportunity here essentially created a fundamental belief challenge. And the challenge that we sought out to resolve was how do you go about establishing confidence in a newly independent company whose identity had long been tied to a larger corporate parent in this case Dupont.

And so to address this challenge we defined a story that was grounded in this compelling big brand idea powering the next leap in electronics. And this was really helpful for a number of reasons. It shifted the narrative from separation to growth. It positioned community as a bold leader and an innovative partner enabling the future of technology. It was really inspiring for customers but also employees alike as well. But importantly in terms of what we maintained versus what we injected into this new brand story did a couple of different things. It clarified both what was changing. So greater focus, more agility as a nimble standalone business, but importantly not walking away from what's important, what would remain true as part of the business. So really anchoring in things like deep technical expertise, customer partnership, they were incredibly important to retain, but also elevate as part of the future facing story. In addition to the big brand idea and the story itself, we also helped craft a new name and visual identity to essentially bring that story to life in a really tangible way and positioning community as that really critical advanced electronics category leader. And so when it was launched, we also found opportunities to ensure that we were tailoring that messaging to really bring people on the jo on the journey. So ensuring that investors saw a really focused growth opportunity here which was articulated at really key moments like investor days ensuring that customers saw a really strong innovation partner that could enable their technological roadmaps going into the future and lastly ensuring that employees could really understand the company's new ambition but importantly their role in delivering that exciting mission as well.

And so just to wrap up, Unity debuted on the New York Stock Exchange in late 2025 with a $20 billion IPO valuation. And as we think about the story we've just gone through, it's just a really stellar example of how stakeholders don't rally behind the financial logic of transactions. They ultimately rally behind an inspiring vision of the future for the company. It's really important to tell that story during the process and beyond. And by pairing the strategic rationale of the spin-off with a compelling brand story, a distinct identity, clear stakeholder messaging, the company was really able to build belief around its future as a standalone independent leader in advanced electronics.

Allen: All right, so with that, our second challenge, and our second challenge is probably ironically the number one question that comes up. what is the new combined or spun out entity going to be called? And I think one of the biggest challenges here is that the name doesn't really reflect the future direction of travel for the organization, which means that it really isn't symbolic of the transformation that has occurred or it doesn't encompass the full range of capabilities that we want to have or it's disconnected from future growth. And analysts and investors really do take hold of this. they take note of this and they worry about growth and being anchored too much in the legacy. So, we really do want to make sure that the name of a future merged or spun out organization is reflective of where we're going on as a business. And to really meet this challenge, we think it's important that the name be inextricably linked to the business strategy, how we're going to grow as an organization. And there's this delicate balance, I think, and between what's true about the new name versus what's new. And that really speaks to how much of our history and heritage do we want to have be a part of the name moving forward versus how much newness do we want to have the name to reflect in the organization moving forward. Finally, if we think about employees as being ambassadors for our new brand, it's critically important to bring them along in the journey. And that doesn't mean that the employees are going to be asked to generate the name of the new company, but we do have an opportunity to get them comfortable and excited and enthusiastic about the new name. And I think a really great example of an organization that did this particularly well was was our partnership with Johnson and Johnson. And Johnson and Johnson was separating their consumer health business. the consumer health business was going to be completely separate from the the pharmaceuticaldriven business. which means they had a business imperative right to develop a completely different name. They were no longer allowed to use Johnson and Johnson which was such a wonderful and storied brand that opened doors to any retailer around the world. From a business strategy perspective, the thesis here was that the company could have greater growth and even bigger market penetration as a standalone business with its own focused R&D and in an R&D strategy that was focused on real scientific rigor paired with this idea of delivering care to consumers. The name that was developed here was Ken View and it did a really great job of combining the company's history and heritage really speaking to the knowledge and insight that the organization has as well as its unique ability to turn consumer understanding into products that are really really valued and meet the care needs of consumers. The word parts are really fascinating. Not to geek out too much, but Ken is an English word that speaks to knowledge and view is a French word referring to insight. So coming together, it speaks to this idea of knowledge and insight. Again, the rigor that we bring to solve consumer problems. And it also speaks to where the company was going in their journey. If we think about K being the next letter to come after J, it's a subtle nod to the next chapter of consumer health. Importantly, regarding the last imperative, we took employees along in the journey. So, we created a series of videos, things like what does the name generation process look like? Just how many thousands of names need to be generated in order to get one legally viable name? What does the legal screening process look like? And importantly, just given the global nature of the Ken View brand, what type of linguistic assessment and pressure testing was done for the new name? Just in terms of the results, the results paid off. there was a considerable bump in the stock price at IPO and even more recently, the brand really has contributed to the business's success as they were acquired or going to be acquired by Kimberly Clark. So really by leaning into a name that had a bold future vision that was lightly connected to the past, the organization has been very very successful.

Ben: Okay, so let's keep things moving and we can turn to the third threat which focuses on situations when the brand architecture isn't set up to power the growth of the business. And so this happens when the company lacks a clear system for how the brand shows up and scales. And that's problematic for many reasons. Growth can become really fragmented across the business rather than what was intended as part of the overarching entity that was being created. cross-ell opportunities, you know, cross cells often identified as a real synergy opportunity. But when it's not thoughtfully thought about from an outside perspective, it can really be compromised and those synergies start to break down. customer confusion subsequently ensues, reducing the ability for the new organization to drive conversion. but even there are internal considerations too without being thoughtfully thought through internal competition can replace alignment in terms of how the organiz organization seeks to deliver growth and so an imperative that can help address this is to really clarify the brand architecture for new co or for the new standalone business. So defining a clear but intentional brand system for how the company shows up to drive growth and innovation possibilities across the business. So thinking about ways to define the role of each of the brands in the portfolio even streamlining where possible to make things easier to navigate while also creating a really intuitive brand systems to support outside in wfinding really ensuring that customers are able to navigate the net new set of offerings that the company is providing.

And so we're going to unpack this imperative through the lens of some of the work we've been doing with Bank of America and Merrill. So just to share a little bit of context around the situation here after a period of significant transformation and a lot of M&A activity coming out of the financial crisis BA had assembled this powerful portfolio of businesses and brands as well. but the system wasn't necessarily clear in terms of navigating customers to all of the offerings that the organization could provide. And with such a diverse business spanning multiple audiences, multiple offerings across the enterprise, there were many risks that we had to address through this work. The risk of fragmentation, disconnected experiences that don't feel like they're coming from the one organization, miscrossell opportunities, multiple brands competing for attention. All of this creating just a lot of confusion for what the new entity stands for because of this inability for people to navigate the holistic set of offerings across the company. So that poses this fundamental brand architecture challenge. How do you seek to unify such a diverse business to revitalize a leader whilst also accelerating growth. So that's what we sought out to to solve through this work with Bank of America and Mel. And so as we thought about the architecture and to Allen's earlier point, when we're thinking about things like this, it's so critical to ensure that the work and the solutions from a brand perspective are equally grounded in the business strategy. and Bank of America had this one company business strategy that really needed to come through in terms of how it was showing up for stakeholders externally. So a real drive here to clarify the role of the brands across the enterprise and as you can see here the architecture model moved from what was essentially a collection of acquired brands to a far simpler far more intuitive system that was really designed to support enterprise growth under one brand being Bank of America. So, a lot more simplicity, a lot more intuition in terms of how the brand and how the business is showing up, regardless of who you are as a customer and regardless of which part of the business you're dealing with. And the end result here is a far more simplified brand system that makes it easier for clients to access the full breadth of offerings from the enterprise. It's it's also worth noting here that within this master brand system, we we certainly recognize the value that Mel brings with over 100 years of investment expertise. And you can see that we essentially streamlined several Merrill product brands to create a really powerful investments brand known as Merrill, but also very clearly connected to and working in support of the Bank of America master brand as part of the way that the organization shows up through this brand architecture.

In addition to that, it's important to really translate that strategy on a page to an actual system that comes to life for customers that comes to life in a way that's really easy to understand. And so we did that in a way where we created a system that was really modern, sophisticated in terms of how the visual expression was showing up, but also how things like naming were showing up in support of easing navigation, in support of reinforcing Bank of America as the master brand. And you can see here that regardless of where you're entering the organization, what part of the business you're dealing with, it's a really cohesive experience. It's a cohesive experience that elevates the role of Bank of America as that enterprise master brand and of course with Merrill within that as a supporting subbrand.

And so as you can see here, the work has driven some really significant impact across Bank of America's business. And by clarifying the the brand system, creating that coherent navigation system for customers, but also unifying offerings under Bank of America, we were able to to work together with the bank to essentially transform what was a very complex portfolio of offerings into a really connected ecosystem of experiences of offerings that were all working in support of the Bank of America Master Brand.

Allen: Okay, great. So you've already identified this in the in the poll, right? The number one challenge is culture and Ben shared the expression, right? Culture eats strategy for lunch and we agree with that. this is this is one of the hardest things to do in M&A, but we do think brand can be powerful in being an accelerant to the success. You know, we find that when employees aren't brought along early enough and they don't believe in the shared future, the deal value can be compromised, right? Talent attrition can increase when employees lose competence. when there's a lack of priorities and slow decision making, right? Employees can get frustrated and there's a huge potential particularly in an M&A situation for this us and them mindset. So the real imperative here is that we have to foster a brandled culture and that brand-led culture needs to lead with brand engagement that's truly authentic to the combined organization. From a values perspective, it's critical to create a shared identity. Again, avoiding that us versus them, right? We're taking all of this company's values or all of that company's values. It's this idea of revisiting everything and looking at it holistically in terms of what makes sense for the combined identity and it importantly activation of the culture needs to be both top down and bottom up and by doing top down you have wonderful example of the commitment and conviction that leaders have so that they are showing that they are not they're walking the talk if you will and that bottomup engagement is critically important to honor some of the cultural challenges and barriers and then to be able to address them. A great example and I think a really really interesting example of this is the work that we have been doing with Alaskan Airlines and Hawaiian. They came together and they knew that the success of this organization was really around integrating cultures. I think what was really unique here though is that they made a strategic decision that it made sense to maintain two brands, two go-to market brands, but at the corporate level and for a lot of operations, they operate as one company and even flight attendants and pilots are working across the different brands. So alignment around culture in order to drive the business strategy was critically important even though they were continuing to go to market with two brands. If we flip to the next slide, you know, to unify the company, we created a a shared cultural framework that was really designed to support their unique business strategy. Again, one company but with two brands, we really focused in on what was authentic from a cultural perspective to both organizations. So they had shared strength in areas such as care and safety and community to ensure that employees from both organizations could really see their legacy cultures in the new values. So it was this really really blend of looking back in terms of unearthing what was truly valuable and important but common to both brands. We developed unique brand promises for each one of the the brands that employees could get behind. So taking care around the world for the heritage Alaskan business and also connecting people to Aloha for the Hawaiian business which actually created a sense of pride really in the fact that we're continuing to invest in the heritage brands. And we spent a lot of time again this notion of top down having leadership sessions bringing them under the tent very early on in the pro process so that they could demonstrate through their actions how the new culture was actually coming to life. Critically important here to demonstrate that leadership was behind the new culture. And at the end of the day, if we look at the the the metrics here, they're really living proof that cultural integration doesn't have to mean creating 100% uniformity. Again, two brands, but you know, 84% of the employees were satisfied with cultural engagement during the transition. And importantly, 92% of employees understood their role in helping to model shared values moving forward like living and believing and actually in enabling the new values. I'll hand it back to you Ben.

Ben: Yeah, a nice example there of how culture can really work to accelerate a business's strategy during a merger moment and a transformative moment. Okay, let's move on to our last challenge. And so our final challenge focuses on situations when brand activation can stop a day one launch and it fails to sustain that ongoing engagement which we know is just so critical to ensure that the brand is coming to life, new equities are being realized etc. Right? And so this is problematic because that initial momentum can come to a grinding halt at day one. brand can be this notion of a one-time event rather than that idea of an ongoing operating system that Allan spoke about earlier that helps the organization deliver value across all different types of touch points and experiences. but importantly, desired brand equities don't get established. They fail to materialize through this really pivotal moment. And so to ensure this doesn't happen, the imperative that we've outlined here is this idea of building a brand with heart, a brand that beats into the future by sustaining the brand's momentum. And so finding opportunities to bring that story to life through things like campaigns to reinforce the transformation, to sustain that steady drumbeat, which we know is critical, but in addition to communications, finding opportunities to sustain relevance. And this is a really interesting opportunity to think about how the brand comes to life in a really diverse context. Things like sponsorship, partnerships, exper experiential activations both internally and externally. All of which can help give the brand more airtime while really reinforcing that narrative both for employees but also for external stakeholders as well. And so the the case that we'll use to unpack this opportunity, this imperative for ongoing activation beyond day one launch is some of the work that we've done recently with Morgan Stanley. So just to share a little bit of background and a little bit of context, following a number of acquisitions such as Erade, Invance, and Consolium Capital, Morgan Stanley found itself in this place where it really needed to engage a far broader customer base in order to set the business up for long-term growth. And so success really came down, at least in the long term, came down to creating a far more modern, innovative Morgan Stanley brand that could essentially resonate with a new generation of investors, one that is far younger, far more diverse than what the brand has traditionally engaged with. And so we helped them solve that challenge. And the question that we looked to explore with them was how you go about reinventing Morgan Stanley to serve the aspirational investors of today and the influential leaders they will be in the decades to come. but then in doing so how do you go about creating this idea of an ongoing platform that reinforces a more modern a more collaborative but also a more customer ccentric brand through that activation.

And so our work started with the definition of a new brand purpose for the organization. And we came up with this notion of the collaborative advantage. And just to unpack that so you can get a sense of how it came to life. The intent here was really to capture how Morgan Stanley creates value by bringing together things like expertise, capabilities, but importantly perspectives across the entire business. And so once we defined that brand idea, that broader purpose that was really going to serve as the north star for the organization, we then translated that idea into a really evocative campaign concept and landed on this notion of old school grit, new world ideas, which serves as this distinctive expression of the brand and really speaks to its unique combination of heritage and discipline while also signaling some of those more important equities that were really critical to speak to that far younger investor that the organization was seeking to attract. So thinking about innovation and forward thinking solutions as part of how that was coming to life in the experience. And so the campaign was built as this repeatable narrative that could essentially evolve over time. It wasn't just for a fixed moment. It was really intended to evolve over time while re reinforcing that transformation story across multiple different junctures and multiple different experiences and audience as well. So rather than relying on traditional advertising, the campaign was also activated across a host of different channels. Thinking about things like streaming services, digital media, social media, internally as part of really critical employee engagement, things like podcast, print, display, out of home, you name it. It was activated across all of those different channels to really help drive perception ships and reinforce some of those really critical new equities as part of this transformative moment.

Ben: but the activation wasn't done just there. It didn't just stop at a campaign. Following the launch of the campaign, we also continued the work and it found additional opportunities to activate the brand. So looking at ways that could come to life through sponsorships. So what you see here is a sponsorship with the women's tennis association, fashion partnerships with the designer Rebecca Minkoff plus a host of other experiential activations that really sustain that steady drum beat of engagement both internally and externally. And so by giving the organization this common narrative, this creative platform, we essentially helped Morgan Stanley ensure that every activation was reinforcing that brand meaning across all of these very diverse touch points.

And so just to wrap things up with a view of how it all played out. Some really nice results here. It’s really interesting to see how Morgan Stanley can epitomize this idea that activation shouldn't end at day one launch. The campaign and broader set of activations here really drove that sustained and substantial impact that was really important to shift meaning and really engage with those newer audiences. And so the final takeaway here is that by building this flexible brand platform that's rooted in a really clear strategic idea, we were essentially able to create this system that allowed Morgan Stanley sustain the brand's momentum by continuously reinforcing that story, reinforcing that transformation across channels, audiences, and experiences.

Allen: So with that key takeaways. So if we think about pulling it all together and using brand as the operating system to maximize M&A value, the five imperatives define the brand story, name the business vision, clarify the brand architecture, foster a branded culture, and importantly sustain the brand's momentum. And the intention right in doing this, if you had to remember one sentence, right, brand can turn M&A transactions into game changing transformations. And with that, we would love to open it up to Q&A so that this can be a bit more of a two-way dialogue. So, we're happy to address any questions that you have.

Christina: Great. Thank you, Allen and Ben. We're going to turn it over to some of the audience questions that came through. So, I'm going to give this one to you, Allen. You've stated that brand should shape value, not just communicate it. In practical terms, how do you bring brand into the M&A process early enough to influence the deal thesis, integration choices, and day one strategy?

Allen: Yeah, I mean, I think it goes back to some of what we covered. I I think it's really sharing with leadership that brand will deliver significant, you know, value. Even thinking back to the identification of the potential merger target during due diligence if brand only comes in at the end, it can really communicate or impact decisions that have already been made. But when it comes in much earlier, it can help shape the future value of how the business is positioned, what architecture decisions are made, what brands are we keeping versus not keeping, what equities should we preserve. So it really starts to show I think the key imperative here is to demonstrate to leadership to decision makers that brand can be an accelerant to the value of an M&A transaction.

Christina: Great. And Ben, how do you help leadership teams translate a complex deal thesis into a brand strategy that employees, customers, and investors can actually understand and believe in?

Ben: Yeah, that's a great question and something we covered off a bit earlier on and it really hits on this idea that when it comes to the deal rationale, it makes perfect sense in a financial presentation, right? In terms of financial debt, kind of outlining the opportunity, but when it comes to bringing it to life, it's not always the most natural or intuitive thing for employees or for customers to really understand. And so the intent here is to really find opportunities to tell that compelling story. So really anchoring in that first imperative we spoke to. How do we actually craft a brand story that translates the deal thesis into a really compelling vision of the future that really clarifies the direction of travel, whether you're an employee or whether you're external as a customer or an investor. And then by doing so, you're essentially translating all of that complexity into something that's really simple, really credible, and something that's really easy to get behind regardless of who you are and how you're interacting with the business. That's essentially the key to ensuring that you're translating the value and the thesis of a deal into something that can get people jazzed, get people behind you as part of the transition journey.

Christina: And somewhat related to that on the topic of leadership, Allen, for organizations facing stakeholder anxiety and change fatigue, what signals tell you that the core problem is really a brand problem, not just a communications or change management problem?

Allen: It you know it it's usually because there's a lot of communications but there's there are a lot of communications without clarity and and that's where I think as a as branding people and marketing people we can help to make sure that the communications and how we're engaging people stakeholders is very focused that we are communicating in a very thoughtful way around what we're becoming the value that this will deliver to the different stakeholders. So I think there can be often times people can over index on the volume of communications when it's really really important to step back and think about the purpose of the communications and being very deliberate and focused to make sure that key messages are clear and they're coming through. It's okay to have frequent communications, but you have to be very purposeful in terms of the message that you're delivering.

Ben: Yeah, I'd also add a few more thoughts to that. Again, we hit on this in terms of the idea of flexing the story to bring people on the journey, right? And so there may be an overarching change message that is derived from the brand story that we create. But let's be clear, the story needs to flex and it needs to speak to some of the unique needs, but also let's face it, unique pain points that we often see in these really transformative moments. So addressing employee concerns and really taking a temperature to ensure that the messaging is landing with them and really recognizing what they're feeling during a particular point of the change process. Likewise, if we're telling the story to investors, finding opportunities to ensure that it really cuts through and really signals the growth potential of regardless of what the type of deal is, whether it's a spin-off or whether it's a merger, being able to translate that in a really credible way. And in those instances, it may make sense to actually flex it to more of a financial message, which is still being delivered as part of the overarching brand story about where the business is going, right? And so just to summarize that, this idea of flexing as needed, but also taking those really important pulse checks throughout the process to ensure that we're not being tone deaf and we're really attuning it to the needs of our various respective stakeholders as part of the change management process.

Christina: And so when the future business is still being defined during a deal, how do you develop a brand strategy that is clear enough to create confidence now but flexible enough to support future growth, portfolio shifts, and new capabilities later? Ben, I'll give that one to you.

Ben: Yeah, it's really interesting, right? Because there's definitely a need to think long term, think about where the business is going, but there's also a bunch of things that really need to be resolved in the moment itself. And so it really comes down to anchoring the strategy at the right level. What's the right balance? And I think Allan spoke to this before. It's this idea of true and new, right? You want to be clear about what the new business stands for, what value it creates without locking yourself into something that's too narrow early on. You still need to speak to something that's relevant, something that people are going to recognize. And then the art is balancing that with the long-term ambition for the business. And so the strongest brand strategies that do this give people confidence now, but can also flex with where the business is going. It gives you enough air cover to speak to portfolio extension opportunities, different growth and different expansion opportunities, whether it's in new categories. So anticipating that and ensuring that the story can really give you that air cover so that if the business shifts, the story can shift alongside it in a way that's going to feel continuous and really intuitive for everyone as part of that change journey.

Christina: And Allen, when is a good time to evaluate brand success after day one or later?

Allen: Oh my gosh. I think you want to be monitoring brand success and what you're doing from the very beginning. So you know if we think about the majority of the audiences very early on being internal really actively engaging with employees and leaders to better understand the questions they have the gaps in their understanding that they're having so that you can flex the brand program throughout the process. I think it starts right as soon as you begin the M&A process, the feedback loop and measurement loop starts as early as possible.

Christina: And in a merger acquisition context, do you have any rules of thumb in terms of duration of a brand sunset?

Allen: that that's a great question. It's a very common question. I would say I think it's very specific to the organization, but there are a few considerations. Thing number one is I think it's okay very early on to tell the market to tell stakeholders where you're going. So if you're going to sunset a brand I think you can be very clear about that. but also talk about your deliberate pathway to sunset that brand. I think oftentimes, more often than not, right, the hypothesis is that it takes a long time, right? If it's a merger situation and you're retiring a brand to bridge the equity from one organization to another, I think the reality is that just the cycle of that and in a world of radical transparency is much shorter than it used to be. So, dating myself, but if I go back to when we created a prize, the spin out of American Express's, financial advisory business, they had the ability to use the American Express name for up to two years and within 6 months, they decided to fully retire the name. So I think in today's world again, I think you can communicate and convey and bridge equity very quickly. The other consideration though is one of cost and that's where I think it's really really important. I think the market gives you permission to be very purposeful about what you're transitioning and when you are transitioning. So there is no expectation that everything needs to change on day one. Usually there is actually an expectation that companies will go through a phased approach to retire a brand. So I think you have to balance the two sides of that equation.

Christina: And Ben, how do you build engagement with a brand ahead of day one when ability to communicate transparently about the new business or even the new brand name or identity may be limited by regulatory or commercial issues?

Ben: Yeah, another really great question there. We know that it can be a minefield during this very ambiguous transition period where there are so many things to balance and top of mind are things like regulatory and commercial considerations that really impede the ability to engage an organization but also engage customers around what's changing right what's happening with the name what's happening with the identity people just want clarity but we can't give it to them and here's the killer insight you can actually do it in a way that doesn't necessarily involve you actually revealing what the new name or what the new logo is. In fact, you can do it very early on. At the end of the day, people just want to be involved in the process. They want to be engaged. So, from an employee standpoint, that could be as easy as mobilizing something like an employee survey to gather input to hear how people are feeling, but also start generating ideas for what the new brand could stand for. That's a really powerful way of soliciting input from employees across the whole company by the way and whole set of companies if it's a merger situation without necessarily revealing too much throughout the process. And of course that can come to life in things like focus groups as well if there's a need to target potential work groups as part of the process. And as it relates to customers again just being communicative about the changes but also soliciting input from them. What do you like about the experience today? What are your biggest concerns? What would you like to see in this transformative moment for the new brand? They're all really powerful ways of engaging a whole host of different audiences while also navigating some of those tricky regulatory commercial issues that stand in the way of a business revealing too much about a name or identity before it's actually launched.

Christina: Great. And we have time for one more question. If a company recognizes that brand has a bigger role to play in M&A, where do you typically start and what kinds of support are most valuable early in the process? Ben, I'll give that one to you.

Ben: Oh, sorry. Look, could you could you repeat that, Christina?

Christina: For sure. So, if a company recognizes that brand has a bigger role to play in M&A, where do you typically start and what kinds of support are most valuable early in the process?

Allen: I can offer I can offer perspective there. Sorry, Ben, not to talk over you, but I I honestly think it starts with the due diligence process. You know, brand you're oftentimes paying a premium, right, for the intangible value on the balance sheet of the brand. So, I think there's a wonderful opportunity for brand to plug in much earlier. I think the benefit of that too is a lot of decisions right during the due diligence and during the you know legal structure of the deal get made in terms of we're going to keep this brand or we're going to retire this brand. I think being at the table for those types of discussions very very early on during you know due diligence and deal flow is the right place to focus.

Christina: Great. Thank you Allen and Ben. That's all the time we have for questions today. Thank you to everyone for joining us and if you have any further questions or want to continue the discussion, please don't hesitate to reach out to Allen, Ben, or anyone at Lippincott. Thanks again for joining.

Allen: Thanks everyone.

Ben: Thanks.