Aligning Five Acquired Companies Under One Inclusive Brand
Post-Acquisition Brand Alignment Across Five Companies · Values Built Into Style Guide and Production Process · Equity as Infrastructure, Not Add-On
THE CHALLENGE
A leader in the digital transformation space needed to retool its brand values and messaging to be more inclusive. Not just in terms of language, but also within implied context—the company needed to broaden perspectives, speak to more people and amplify voices that don’t necessarily fit mainstream business norms.
THE OUTCOME
Thoughtful and mindful language was incorporated and infused within both internal and public-facing assets. From style guides to video and from strategy to brand publishing, equity was put top of mind in the marketing department. The branding work done and materials produced steered the company into a more equitable direction, where more voices could potentially be heard.
Strengthening and evolving a brand requires mindful and thoughtful work. An ambitious brand that sees itself as a servant of innovators, Digital.ai was looking to make sure they weren’t leaving out innovators that might not fit the look, language, or gender of the dominant culture in tech.
The company envisions a platform that is capable of managing digital products through an end-to-end ecosystem. Its platform tracks the flow and creation of value as products are developed, released, and maintained. To monitor and control the flow of value, data is gathered from each stage of work.
The company’s leadership wanted the message to ring loud and clear: every action and decision has consequences for value creation. By permitting a view into processes that are often obscured, leadership and individual team members can get more control over how value is created and delivered to end customers.
For a business leader focused on value delivery and value creation, values were naturally an important part of building a brand that companies would be proud to work with. This was seen as especially important because the company had recently acquired several outside brands. Bringing five separate companies together provides its own challenges, but aligning all company wings behind a cohesive set of values and then communicating them — both internally and externally — proved to be a task where outside help was needed.
The company struggled with implicit bias within its messaging materials. Producing brand materials like style guides and promotional videos without having the right people in the room can lead to unintentionally erasing people’s perspectives.
Strategic brand work was performed behind the scenes to develop a strategy for greater equity. This work was then translated into strategy documents, branding materials, and a video, all of which demonstrated the difference that inclusion makes.
Every word of the materials had to contain the intention to not erase other perspectives or drown them out. Effort was put into getting rid of the assumption of what a “typical” business voice was, which often leads to one voice/perspective being the loudest one in the room. Work had to be put into expanding upon equity values, considering concerns that may get overlooked in boardroom conversations, and making materials that had an awareness of ongoing conversations about inclusivity, diversity, and equity.
“Our mandate was to create tools, guides, content, and thoughts that would include all the company’s stakeholders and not the few. We wanted to be able to assure that partners working on assets, both internally and externally, would be empowered to include as many people as possible.”
RAI-MON NEMAR BARNES
CEO, Consciously
“Getting asked to help a tech company infuse equity into their style guide, content and assets isn’t a normal call,” remarks Barnes, “but we were happy to take it.”
In partnership with Consciously, Digital.ai revised several foundational brand value and messaging documents while collaborating on the creation of new ones. HR leadership was impressed at the expanded level of consciousness infused within their new brand book, which embraced holism over addressing audiences of privilege.
Work continues for Digital.ai. As new content is produced, we ensure that the employee stakeholders apply care to their representation of the company’s values and how new strategies are formed. The company acts as an umbrella for the Global 1000 looking for expertise on digital transformation, digital value creation, and value-driven management. As new, diverse corporate structures are added under the Digital.ai roof through tech company acquisitions, we at Consciously want to be sure that no voice or idea feels thoughtlessly left out.
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Post-Acquisition Brand Alignment Across Five Companies · Values Built Into Style Guide and Production Process · Equity as Infrastructure, Not Add-On
