Ensure effective brand management - A Menzies rebrand – a story of two halves…

Told by Nicky Purnell and Nicola Webb - Published in PM Forum Feb 2019

The brand strategy review – Nicola Webb

As many of you will know, rebranding takes time, inordinate patience and substantial investment. And all of this on top of your demanding day job! So, why rebrand?In Menzies’ case, they saw it as providing a catalyst for change. They hoped it would improve the quality of their client base and lead to increased turnover, profitability and market share.They didn’t underestimate the challenge and the process started two years prior to launch in January 2016. The management board expressed frustration at the lack of organic growth. Despite a myriad of marketing initiatives, there was no clear idea as to why Menzies wasn’t winning larger, repeat business clients. So they decided to commission research on how they were perceived as a firm.

Research findings

The research revealed surprisingly low levels of name awareness for the brand. When either prompted or unprompted, fewer than 1 in 12 businesses in their target market had heard of Menzies, compared with RSM, EY and BDO who received a 1 in 3 awareness. They were also not perceived as having any specialist expertise beyond their core services of accounting, tax and audit. The firm was described as professional, reliable and efficient – good but ‘vanilla’ descriptors, which gave no brand differentiation. As a result of this, Menzies decided to appoint an external consultant (me) to devise a marketing strategy and project-manage the rebrand, using an external agency, Urbane.

The key strategic strands

Menzies wanted to create a brand that was differentiated from the competition. They were insistent that this wasn’t just a ‘marketing’ exercise but wanted it to be the catalyst for change that became embedded in the culture of the firm. Research showed that their clients wanted to be given challenging advice and helped on business strategy. We decided to widen the firm’s range of advisory services and promote them more vigorously. There was a deliberate shift of emphasis away from a compliance-led offering to a consultancy one. We simplified 28 disparate compliance-based service lines and office locations to present a homogenised firm and chose to emphasise a sector-based approach. Our research showed that 62% of clients would prefer an accountant who specialised in their sector. Finally, my brief was to review, and enhance the size and skills of the marketing team, culminating in appointing Nicky as Marketing Director.

The rebrand process – some facts and figures 

The rebrand process took 12 months – starting with research and ending with launch on 4th January 2016. It covered all seven (very disparate) offices. It was implemented by an interim marketing director (me), a marketing manager and an executive (who left before launch), plus a small external brand agency. Our rebrand inventory contained over 400 items at its height. It cost around £1million including consultants’ fees, stationery, materials, signage, office premises refurbishment, vehicles, workwear and promotion. The process itself was as follows. We: 

• Mapped out the sector and Menzies’ competitor positions

• Developed three potential brand propositions

• Explored the strengths and weaknesses of each

• Refined them to find the strongest 

• Found evidence to support the chosen positioning

• Developed a dynamic articulation of it across all media.

Our champions

We formed a Brand Champions Team (BCT) comprising of 15 non-partner members of staff at all levels and representing all service areas and locations. Members were deliberately chosen to include both advocates and potential naysayers, with the aim that no group felt left out or didn’t have a voice. The BCT decided on the chosen brand positioning, its articulation and its execution across all media/collateral and their recommendation was signed off by the firm’s Management Committee. Before we made the final decision, we worked on a ‘proof of concept’, developing several case studies from existing clients.

Chosen brand positioning

Our research showed that 87% of SME FDs and business owners wanted to be challenged by their accounting firm. 72% stated that a good relationship with their accountant added value to their company and they were prepared to pay more for that service. The brand values/the chosen positioning was as follows:

• We are empathetic to our clients’ agendas but not swayed by them

• We offer independent advice and aren’t afraid to ask difficult questions

• We approach client work with energy and are thoroughly proactive

• We share our clients’ ambitions and help them become reality

• To that end, we are challenging, to ensure our clients get the right results.

Once the positioning was developed, Urbane took us through the brand identity process, which involved:

• Developing a logo that reflected the desired personality

• Choosing the colour scheme that set Menzies apart

• Creating a dynamic layout style with graphics and type

• Creating a distinctive image library

• Then applying these to all communications assets.

The typeface chosen was deliberately modern, simple, lasting, and striking. The positioning line is ‘Brighter Thinking’ and the brand value message we use is: 

“Brighter Thinking is how we sum up the difference we make to our clients. It’s our finance and accounting expertise, combined with strategic commercial thinking. It’s a promise to add real value across all areas of your business.”

Urbane’s competitor colour review showed a typical grouping in the blue colour range. Fewer competitors used pinks, orange or yellow. All colour options were tested on the BCT and the chosen colour was a new mix somewhere between yellow and orange that we nicknamed ‘yellonge’. The staff are still proudly referring to ‘Menzies yellonge’ two years on!

The application of the rebrand

The images show some of the applications, including a three-week poster campaign; over 300 stationery items; a new website that included clear sector areas with vox pop videos for each sector; external and internal office signage; brochures; internal roadshows to all staff, where they were given a brochure outlining the process and messages; client launch events; a teaser email campaign to clients; an advert/PR campaign; and extensive social media.

Lessons learned

  • Start collating your inventory early and have one team member who is great at updating the status of each item.

• Be as firm as you can about not adding ‘great idea’ items along the way; Brighter Thinking caught the imagination but the list of jobs kept growing.

• Consensus is good – up to a point! You can spend too much time on choosing pens, presentation folders, etc. and sometimes need to overrule!

• Much like house refurbishment, estimate a budget figure – and double it!

• Getting new photos of everyone is hard.

• Changing behaviour takes much longer than you think. Identify the likely problem children early and work to get them on side – or somehow neutralise them.

• Don’t assume all the external resources you need are in place when you need them and have contingency plans for when external contractors let you down.

• Assume that external forces will conspire against you at some point! I didn’t realise that some office premises had lease and planning implications, which slowed things down, plus bad December weather delayed external signage implementation.

Part 2:

Post-rebrand, maintaining momentum – Nicky Purnell

This is where the fun starts… this is ‘crunch-time’, this is where the magic happens or fizzles into nothing!

I started at Menzies on the day the website went live; the day the central comms went out to clients and contacts – my first 100 days was a ‘Whirlwind’ – getting to know the business ‘fast’, building trust and managing their expectations was a huge undertaking. Three years on and I’m still recovering from it now!

To reiterate the primary reasons for the rebrand, it was: to build our profile, increase organic growth and reposition the brand as specialists in our chosen sectors. Many of our competitors go to market via this route, so we were definitely on the back foot and had a lot of catching up to do!

Stage 1 (Month 1) – External comms + Website + Resources

Comms with clients – They need to know first! Our internal launch ensured all partners/staff could articulate ‘What the rebrand means’, we just needed to encourage them to talk to their clients about it! External comms – E-campaigns/press releases and social promotion – shortly followed.

Website – Just know this, you’ll never be happy, it’ll never be completely ready, it’s an evolving beast! Your clients that are interested in the rebrand will go here first and so will your competitors, so keep it fresh!

Resources – First question to ask yourself: Do you have the right resources and energy to be the catalyst for change the partners ‘want/expect’ and have invested time and money in? We didn’t… so my first job was to recruit three key hires; Digital Manager, BD Manager and Design Executive. Marketing/BD was now firmly on Menzies agenda so not only did we have a rebrand to implement but we had to get them to buy into what a true Marketing/BD team could do for them – A BIG CHALLENGE.

Stage 2 (Month 2-12) – Profile build + Content + Quality

PR – Starting from ground ‘Zero’ – Primary objective was ‘Build Our Profile’. Another essential for success was the recruitment of our brilliant PR agency, Pearl Communications who were amazing and got us all organised. Our experts were learning too, for the first time they had total focus on one sector. We needed to give them training, to help them to understand the extent of their role/responsibility.

Content strategy – This is your chance to shake it up! Give the power to the people that know. We used our experts to create a group of ‘Content Champions’. We trained them up, changed our language and content type, used more animation/infographics/ surveys to make our content engaging and easy to digest. Content brings your brand to life – make it different, be bold with the new brand, take people out of their comfort zone and use your experts to share on social to engage with our wider network. 

Obvious statement: As we know, the best marketing doesn’t come from us (the central team) but from the partners/managers talking to their clients about it and sharing it directly with them!

Quality Initiative – REALLY, REALLY IMPORTANT. Show all the staff that the rebrand really does mean CHANGE in all aspects. Starting with the client experience (what does it feel like to be a Menzies client) and encompassing client service (internal processes – creating efficiency and effectiveness across the board).

Stage 3 (Month 12-18) – Collaboration + Measurement + Training

Collaborate – empower your internal teams, take the business with you. Working with the other operational teams (IT/HR/Finance), as well as sector and service line teams, is essential for on-going buy-in and creates a sense of pride in the rebrand. You are the primary project manager, so you need to drive forward the change outside of the marketing/BD to the wider operational teams.

Measurement/Reporting – Internally, teams needed to know the culture is shifting and the rebrand is working. Luckily, I am a data geek, and thrived on reporting on new wins, referrals tracking (in/out), client base review and losses/lost clients – all important measures to monitor and track success.

Training – upskilling/empowering teams. Remember the rebrand is and should be a catalyst for change, which is why you need HR on your side and raring to go. The cultural change needs to permeate through every level in the business and every process needs to support and encourage that change. You need to know who the rising stars are, ensure they understand their role in the growth plan and explain we are here to support them.

 Lessons learned

  • Manage people’s expectations – they will expect a rebrand to affect the bottom line and change the quality of the client base in six months. This is only coming through now for us

• Resources – get the marketing team right from the outset. A brand new team for me (= VERY lucky).

• Time and energy – do not underestimate the time commitment. As the primary driver of the project, you are responsible for making it all happen. Create a plan of who is responsible for driving the changes, and remind them of their commitment/responsibility. YOU NEED TO GALVANISE THE TROOPS.

• Be positive – ignore the nay-sayers! As in all partnerships there will be those who don’t believe in change. Concentrate on the ones that do. 

• Tricks of the trade – you know your partners better than anyone. Work out how to get them on board, encourage them to take personal responsibility.

• Communicate and challenge – use every channel. Present, write blogs, talk about the projects that you’re working on that are supporting the rebrand objectives. At EVERY opportunity, SHARE SUCCESS STORIES.

• Budget – you will over-spend! Your marketing budget will undoubtedly need to increase.

• Strategy vacuum! Where is that business plan? In an ideal world the business plan feeds the marketing plan… try not to rebrand in a vacuum.

And remember, as the Ultimate Project Manager you will need to keep all the plates spinning. You’ll need to challenge, cajole and keep the whole team moving forward – your energy needs to be boundless! A rebrand is where ‘we’ as marketers come into our own… The language, the type of content you choose, the associations you make, the stories you tell need to personify the new brand. Your marketing needs to be different in every way, be bold, take people out of their comfort zone or you will simply be the same firm with a shiny new logo. And never forget your internal audience. You want them to be proud of the new brand, to see the change but at the same time help them to understand it will be hard and will need everyone on board to succeed – Good Luck!

Footnote: only eight months after implementation, Menzies won ‘National Accountancy Firm of the Year’ at the British Accountancy Awards. The testimonial stated that the rebrand project had played a major part in its win.